Every year, Intel releases new generations of processors. Engineers improve their architecture, increase the number of cores, and add new technologies. All this helps to increase the power of CPUs and make them more attractive to buyers.
Today we will talk about the history of Intel processor generations, their chronology, how they have changed, and what is better to consider for purchase in 2023.
Nehalem
In 2006, the company announced a revolution: their engineers managed to develop a completely new architecture for central processors. It turned out to be significantly better than anything the company had released before. There were so many changes that engineers decided to give the new family of processors a unique name. In 2006, the world first saw the designation "Intel Core", which replaced "Intel Pentium".
The main changes in Intel Core:
- Wide Dynamic Execution. This technology allowed the cores to execute more commands per computational cycle. It increased CPU power, while reducing energy consumption and operating temperatures.
- Intelligent Power Capability. This is a power regulation system. If maximum performance was not required to execute a command, not all CPU nodes were activated, but only some. This significantly reduced energy consumption during operation.
- Advanced Smart Cache. Processors need to store part of the data in fast access during calculations. Hard disks are slow and not suitable for such tasks. Therefore, CPUs were decided to include special buffers for storing information. They were named cache memory. The Advanced Smart Cache technology optimized the work of cache memory, correctly distributing its volume among the cores. This significantly increased the power of central processors.
- Smart Memory Access. CPU performance strongly depended on the speed of RAM. The Smart Memory Access technology optimized the operation of RAM to reduce response time and increase memory bandwidth. With this technology, it was possible to increase not only the power of CPUs but also their operational stability. For example, FPS drops in games were significantly reduced, as were random crashes in programs.
- Advanced Digital Media Boost. In many applications, central processors processed a large number of 128-bit operations. The Advanced Digital Media Boost technology significantly accelerated the execution of these operations, which increased the power of CPUs in professional programs.
- Turbo Boost. This is a technology for automatic frequency regulation. If maximum frequency is not required to perform an operation, it will not increase. But if the task requires maximum power, then Turbo Boost will raise the frequency to the limit. This technology significantly increased energy efficiency.
- Support for DDR3 RAM standard. CPUs with the new architecture had a new memory controller that supported the DDR3 standard. This also increased the performance of central processors.
The listed innovations became the hallmark of the Intel Core series. These technologies were so successful that they are still used today. Of course, over time they have been improved and supplemented with new functions, but it was precisely these changes that formed the basis of all future products of the company.
In 2008, the "Nehalem" line was introduced - the first official generation of processors in the Intel Core hierarchy. These CPUs were already built on a 45-nanometer process and were intended for the LGA 1156 socket.
In 2009, Intel Core processors were released:
- i5-660;
- i5-750;
- i5-760;
- i7-870.
In 2010, this list was supplemented by Intel Core i3-530 and then the company clearly segmented its products into processors:
- i3 - entry level;
- i5 - mid level;
- i7 - high level.
Later, the i9 - the highest level class will be added to this list. It will be intended for gamers and professionals who need maximum performance.
This classification system turned out to be very successful and is still used today. Users have become so accustomed to it that even AMD, Intel's main competitor, decided to segment processors in a similar way: Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7, and Ryzen 9.
Also, in 2010, CPUs named Westmere were released. These were the same Nehalem series Core i3 first generation and Core i5 processors, but with several changes:
- improved energy efficiency;
- the process decreased from 45 to 32 nanometers;
- integrated HD Graphics video core was added.
Integrated graphics refer to a small graphics processor (GPU) that is part of the CPU. With it, a video card is not needed to output an image to a monitor. It is enough to connect a video cable to the socket on the motherboard, and the image will appear on the display.
The advantage of integrated graphics is obvious - the computer does not need an expensive video card to output an image. However, integrated graphics have a disadvantage - they are very weak. They are not performance enough for video games, but sufficient for displaying images and viewing text documents. Therefore, CPUs with integrated graphics are actively used in office computers, where video cards are not needed.
With the advent of HD Graphics, NVIDIA and AMD stopped producing budget video cards. No one bought them. Office PC users found it more profitable to take CPUs with integrated graphics than to separately buy video cards. Moreover, with each new Intel Core generation, the power of integrated graphics grew. For example, today's integrated graphics are even sufficient for modern gaming at low graphics settings in 30 FPS at HD and Full HD resolutions.
Sandy Bridge
Before we start talking about Sandy Bridge, let's figure out how to determine the generation of an Intel processor. Actually, it's simple. To determine the generation of an Intel processor, you need to look at its first numbers in the digital index. For example, in the name Intel Core i5-6400, the generation number is 6, and in the name Intel Core i7-13700, the generation number is 13. Now that we've figured this out, let's return to Sandy Bridge.
The architecture of Intel Core processors turned out to be very successful, so engineers decided not to change it, but to improve it. The second generation of central processors was named "Sandy Bridge" and was released in 2011. There were only five main changes, but that was enough for the new CPUs to gain a significant increase in performance.
The LGA 1156 socket changed to LGA 1155. This meant that moving to the next generation required a new motherboard. On the one hand, this was a plus, as buyers did not have to deal with BIOS versions, but on the other hand, the new socket increased production costs and raised motherboard prices.
The power of the integrated graphics increased, and its structure in the design changed. Unlike Westmere, now the video chip was located inside one matrix. Also, the integrated graphics received support for DirectX 10, OpenGL 3.1, and Shader Model 4.1 - the most modern instructions for working with games and computer graphics.
The Turbo Boost technology received a new version. Now processors have become better at regulating frequencies, which improved their energy efficiency, but that was not the main thing. The new version of Turbo Boost significantly increased the maximum frequency. At the same time, their temperature remained at an acceptable level. For example, the maximum frequency of the Core i7-870 was 3077 MHz, and the Core i7-2700K was 3900 MHz. This is a huge increase even by modern standards.
Increased performance, low heat output, improved integrated graphics - all this was important, but not as much as the support for AVX instructions.
AVX is vector calculations, where when executing one instruction, the processor calculates several similar operations. Vector calculations are often encountered when working with photos and videos. They are also very common in games.
Support for AVX instructions allowed to increase the power of media file processing by tens of times. Also, the acceleration of vector calculations gave game developers the opportunity to better optimize their projects. They began to convert very complex operations into a vector type. This allowed to unload the cores and improve game performance.
The idea of transferring calculations to a vector type turned out to be very successful and today many operations in video games are calculated using AVX instructions. For this reason, to launch many modern projects, support for vector calculations is needed. If the CPU does not support AVX instructions, then games either will not start or will work with a very low frame rate.
Ivy Bridge
The third generation of processors was released in 2012 and was named "Ivy Bridge".
The main changes: a new transistor structure and transition to a 22-nanometer process.
Before the release of the third Intel generation, transistors had a planar structure: the conductive channels were flat and located under the gate. The disadvantage of this structure was obvious: there was a lot of free space inside the processors that was not used in operation. To more efficiently use the available area inside the CPU, engineers in 2002 developed a 3D structure. Now the conductive channel was not flat; it rose upwards and passed through the gate.
The advantages of the 3D structure were impressive:
- fast switching;
- reduction in leakage currents;
- the ability to work at lower voltages;
- increased transistor resistance in the closed state and reduced resistance in the open state.
These features made the CPU cooler, more performance, energy-efficient, and cheaper to produce. However, in 2002 it was impossible to implement the 3D structure in production. The company simply did not have the appropriate equipment to set up mass production of models with a three-dimensional transistor structure, but in 2012 it succeeded.
Ivy Bridge became the first line of central processors with a 3D structure, created using a 22-nanometer process.
The new lineup was much more energy-efficient than the previous one. Ivy Bridge models consumed 50% less energy at the same frequency, and their maximum permissible temperature rose to 100 degrees instead of 70, as with Sandy Bridge.
Despite these improvements, the power of the lineup increased by only 10-15%, but support for PCI-E 3.0 and the ability to work with high-frequency RAM allowed to increase the gap in performance between generations of Intel Core processors.
Also, Sandy Bridge models had more performance integrated graphics and the same LGA 1155 socket. So users did not have to change the motherboard.
Haswell
The fourth generation of processors was released in 2013 and was named "Haswell". It was fully based on the previous one and brought few updates. Engineers focused on adding new technologies without major changes in architecture.
Haswell included the following technologies:
- AVX2. This is an extension of instructions for vector calculations. Haswell processors became even faster at working with games and media files.
- FMA. This is a set of instructions for accelerating floating-point operations. The FMA technology increased CPU power in almost any task.
- TSX. This development accelerated the processor during multi-threaded processing. Like the previous technology, it increased the power of the CPU in almost any task.
- AES-NI support. Many utilities use encryption algorithms to protect confidential data. One of the most famous is AES. The Haswell lineup received support for this algorithm, increasing overall security.
- DirectX 12 support. The twelfth version of DirectX was fundamentally different from previous APIs. It was created from scratch and intended for the most modern graphic technologies and computer components.
In addition to new technologies, users were forced to buy new motherboards. The LGA 1155 socket was replaced by LGA 1150.
In 2014, the company also released the "Haswell Refresh" series, which included Intel Core i5-4690K and i7-4770K processors. They differed in increased overclocking potential and higher working frequencies. This became possible thanks to NGPTIM – polymeric thermal interfaces that made the CPU cooler.
Broadwell
The fifth generation was released in 2015 and was named "Broadwell". These were very unpopular models, as just two months later, Intel planned to release the "Skylake" lineup. Even then, the company stated that these would be performance processors on a new architecture with many unique technologies. Therefore, users were not in a hurry to buy Broadwell, even though the socket remained the same.
There were only three key changes in the fifth generation:
- increased L4 cache memory size;
- transition to a 14-nanometer process;
- more performance integrated graphics – Iris Pro.
The most interesting change was the increase in cache memory to 128 MB. This significantly improved FPS in demanding games.
For example, despite its outdated architecture, Intel Core i7-5775C shows the same frame rate in Red Dead Redemption 2 as the more modern AMD Ryzen 5 3600. This is possible precisely due to the large cache memory volume.
SkyLake
The sixth generation was released in 2015 and was named "SkyLake".
The lineup was built on a new architecture and manufactured using a 14-nanometer process, which was mastered in the previous Broadwell series.
The most significant change in SkyLake was the transition to DDR4 RAM standard. Moreover, the new CPUs had two memory controllers, which allowed them to work with both DDR4 and the older DDR3. The transition to a new RAM standard increased the stability, bandwidth, and power of central processors.
The large cache memory, as in the Broadwell lineup, had to be abandoned. It took up too much space in the CPU structure and interfered with the new architecture. Therefore, the performance of SkyLake in some games was even lower than that of Broadwell.
New motherboards were required for CPUs with the new architecture. The socket changed to LGA 1151. Also, in the SkyLake series, the power of the integrated graphics was increased.
The listed changes were minor, but they were enough for the sixth generation of Intel Core to mark major changes in the computer industry.
Kaby Lake
The seventh generation was released in 2017 and was named "Kaby Lake".
The architecture, socket, and process remained the same, with the main changes being:
- higher clock speeds;
- integrated graphics gained video decoding support.
Minor updates in architecture and higher clock speeds increased the performance of Kaby Lake by only 10% compared to the previous generation. Users were dissatisfied with this and demanded that the company release more performance CPUs.
The premiere of the next lineup did not take long, and in the same year of 2017, the company introduced the next series named "Coffee Lake".
Coffee Lake
Before discussing the Coffee Lake lineup, it's important to talk about gaming consoles, as they had a significant impact on processor development.
Consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One had architectures similar to ordinary personal computers. This was requested by developers themselves to make it easier to release video games.
In the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, there were 8-core processors. This sounds impressive, but in reality, their performance was very low. To compensate for the lack of power, developers began to parallelize computations. That is, they optimized games so that the load was evenly distributed across the CPU cores.
This method turned out to be very successful. Even technically complex video games with large open worlds worked on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Yes, the frame rate was around 30 FPS and often dropped below, but the fact that such video games as Cyberpunk 2077 worked on consoles is an outstanding achievement by technical specialists.
Parallelization of computations quickly led to the fact that games started performing poorly on processors with a small number of cores. Users began to demand from Intel to increase the number of computing units. Therefore, the main feature of the new products was an increased number of cores.
The eighth generation was released in 2017 and was named "Coffee Lake".
The architecture, process, and socket remained the same, but the main changes were:
- increased cache memory volume;
- i5 and i7 lines became hexa-core;
- increased frequencies in Turbo Boost mode by 200 MHz;
- official support for 2666 MHz RAM.
These changes increased the power of Coffee Lake by 15-30% in games and 30-40% in work applications. This made the Coffee Lake lineup very popular among both gamers and professionals.
The idea of hexa-core processors was particularly successful. Even today, they show excellent performance. For example, the hexa-core Core i7-8700K provides stable 60 or more FPS in any modern games.
The power of the integrated graphics remained almost unchanged. Its frequency was increased by only 50 MHz, which increased performance by a few percent compared to the previous lineup.
Coffee Lake Refresh
The ninth generation was released in 2018 and was named "Coffee Lake Refresh".
The architecture and technical process remained the same, but the socket changed. Now users needed to buy new motherboards LGA 1151v2. Physically, this socket was no different from the previous one. That is, a new processor could easily be installed in an old motherboard with LGA 1151, but the PC still would not start.
Inattentive buyers did not give special importance to the "v2" index in the socket name, and many faced the problem that their computers did not turn on. Then users had to return motherboards back to stores and buy new ones. To avoid such situations in the future, Intel stopped naming new sockets with additional indices.
The performance of the ninth-generation i3 and i5 changed little compared to Coffee Lake. Their frequencies were slightly increased, which improved their power by a couple of percent. The biggest changes affected the senior models.
Core i7-8700K had 6 cores and 12 threads, while Core i7-9700K had 8 cores and 8 threads. Despite the increased number of cores, the new model did not have the Hyper Threading multi-threading technology. Because of this, the power increase was only 10-15%.
However, the top-of-the-line Core i9-9900K did have multi-threading technology. The company decided to complement its product positioning with the i9 line. These CPUs were intended for the most demanding users who needed maximum power in games and professional applications.
If you compare Core i9-9900K with the flagship of the previous generation Core i7-8700K, the difference in performance was 30-40% in benchmarks and work tasks. This looked much better than the 10-15% increase in Core i7-9700K.
Comet Lake
The Hyper Threading technology, which we discussed earlier, was usually installed only in the premium Core i7 and i9 series, but this changed in 2020. With the release of the tenth generation, the multi-threading feature was added to all models, including the younger versions of i3 and i5.
This generosity was due to fierce competition with AMD. In 2019, they released AMD Ryzen 3000, which not only caught up but also surpassed the Coffee Lake Refresh processors in some tasks. To regain the lead, Intel added multi-threading to all new models, which became the main feature of the tenth generation. It was released in 2020 and was named "Comet Lake".
Hyper Threading significantly increased performance in all operations. Whether it was video games, editing, modeling, photo processing, or creating animations. Multi-threading accelerated the CPU in any task.
This was possible because Hyper Threading divided the cores into separate logical blocks, which could work either separately or together, optimally distributing resources among themselves. In other words, the processor cores as if negotiated with each other and distributed the load so as to perform tasks as quickly as possible.
Hyper Threading increased CPU performance not due to increased frequency or any function but due to optimization of core operations.
In addition to multi-threading, the tenth generation was distinguished by a new socket. LGA 1151v2 was replaced by LGA 1200. Users again had to buy new motherboards.
Also, in the tenth generation, the cache memory volume was increased, which positively affected performance in games. Considering multi-threading, even the quad-core Core i3-10100(F) showed excellent FPS in games.
The last major change was support for 3200 MHz RAM. Users had previously overclocked RAM, but this was only available on expensive motherboards with a "Z" chipset. Now, however, it was possible to increase the RAM frequency to 3200 MHz even on budget boards. This also provided a performance boost in games.
Despite many changes, the architecture and process remained the same. The new models were still manufactured using a 14-nanometer lithography.
Rocket Lake
The eleventh generation was the last developed using the 14-nanometer process. It was released in 2021 with the old LGA 1200 socket. The new generation was named "Rocket Lake".
The new lineup moved to the "Cypress Cove" architecture. This was a maximally refined SkyLake architecture, known from the sixth generation. Despite the obvious technological obsolescence, the power of the new CPU models was excellent. The increase was 15-30% compared to the previous generation.
Particularly successful was the mid-budget Core i5-11400(F). For its low cost, it provided excellent performance. Its power was sufficient not only for gaming with high frame rates on ultra settings but also for professional work in heavy creative applications.
The performance increase was associated with an increase in IPC - the number of instructions that the CPU could perform in one calculation cycle. This allowed Rocket Lake models to significantly increase operating speed without increasing frequency and heat.
Also contributing to the increase in power was the new memory controller. It increased the RAM bandwidth and allowed new CPUs to stably work with high-frequency memory modules.
The Rocket Lake lineup received support for PCI-E 4th version. The number of lines for working with components increased from 16 to 20. Now the new CPUs could work with faster SSDs and graphics cards that supported PCI-E 4.0.
Also added to Rocket Lake were AVX-512 instructions, which accelerated vector computations, and integrated graphics received support for HDMI 2.0, 10-bit AV1 encoding, and 12-bit HEVC encoding.
The last major change was support for the NVIDIA Resizable BAR technology. This development allowed the CPU to work directly with the video memory of the graphics accelerator. Previously, CPUs accessed video memory through a special buffer, which reduced performance in games. The Resizable BAR technology increased frame rates due to faster interaction between the CPU and video memory.
Alder Lake
With the release of the first generation, Intel dominated the central processor market. However, in 2019, this changed when AMD released the Ryzen 3000 series, which matched and surpassed the performance of Intel's ninth-generation Coffee Lake Refresh. The flagship AMD Ryzen 9 3900X outperformed the top Intel Core i9-9900K in work tasks, thanks to its greater number of cores.
Intel, aiming to regain leadership, added multithreading technology to its tenth and eleventh generations. But with AMD's release of the Ryzen 5000 series on the Zen 3 architecture in 2020, surpassing Intel models in both professional tasks and gaming, Intel needed a more impactful response.
Intel engineers realized the only way to regain leadership was to increase the number of cores. However, this was challenging due to the limited space inside processors. AMD had successfully addressed this issue by developing chiplet technology, but Intel had no similar developments.
To quickly reclaim leadership, Intel engineers devised a strategy to include not larger cores, which took up significant space, but smaller ones. This approach allowed for the addition of numerous small cores, compensating for any performance disparity.
This idea proved successful, and in 2021, Intel released the twelfth generation, "Alder Lake," featuring two types of cores: high-performance (P-Core) and energy-efficient (E-Core).
Intel adopted this concept, commonly used in smartphone and tablet CPUs, for its Alder Lake architecture, which was hybrid in nature. The high-performance cores were built on the "Golden Cove" architecture, while the energy-efficient ones used the "Gracemont" architecture, both new and created using a 10-nanometer process.
To effectively manage the workload distribution among cores, Intel developed the Thread Director, a microcontroller within the CPU. It analyzed the cores' load levels and temperatures, then communicated this data to the operating system to determine the best core allocation for different tasks.
For example, when a demanding video game is launched, the system allocates high-performance cores to process the game, while background tasks requiring less power are shifted to the energy-efficient cores.
Thanks to the increased number of cores, the hybrid architecture, and the Thread Director, the Alder Lake generation significantly outperformed its predecessor. The Core i9-12900K, for instance, was 80% more efficient than the i9-11900K when running a game and a stream simultaneously.
Alder Lake also supported the new DDR5 memory standard. Recognizing that many users had not yet transitioned to DDR5, Intel included two memory controllers in these CPUs, enabling compatibility with both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM.
Significant architectural changes led to the introduction of the new LGA 1700 socket, which had a distinct rectangular shape compared to the previous square sockets. This change necessitated new transition rings for cooling systems, causing some frustration among users who had to purchase not only new motherboards but also cooling systems. This was the only downside of Alder Lake, which was otherwise an excellent new generation.
Raptor Lake
The concept of using two types of cores and a hybrid architecture proved successful, allowing Intel to regain leadership. In the following generation, Intel engineers focused on enhancing their existing technology rather than creating something entirely new.
The thirteenth series, named "Raptor Lake," was developed using a 7-nanometer process. The architecture of the high-performance cores was updated, increasing their power, while the architecture of the energy-efficient cores remained unchanged. However, the number of energy-efficient cores doubled. The Intel Core i9-12900K had 8 energy-efficient cores, while the Intel Core i9-13900K featured 16.
The increased number of computational blocks and the new architecture of the high-performance cores allowed Raptor Lake to achieve an average performance increase of 20-40%, depending on the task.
The LGA 1700 socket remained unchanged, as did the support for two standards of RAM - DDR4 and DDR5.
Although the Raptor Lake series wasn't revolutionary, its price-to-performance ratio makes the thirteenth generation an optimal choice for PCs in 2023.
Which Intel Processor Generations are Used in HYPERPC Computers
To ensure maximum performance, HYPERPC computers are built on the basis of the most current processor generations - Alder Lake and Raptor Lake.
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