Intel Haswell processors offer 'longer battery life'

Intel says the integrated GPU offers double the performance of its equivalent in Ivy Bridge

Intel has formally launched its Haswell family of processors.
The firm says the chips offer improved battery life and a leap in graphics power over the previous generation.
Intel is the leading PC chip-maker and its product refreshes typically spur on new laptop and desktop sales. Computers using the chips have already been unveiled at the Computex tech show.
However, studies suggest the market is in decline because of competition from smartphones and tablets.
Most smart devices are powered by chips based on designs by the British firm ARM rather than the x86 architecture used by Intel.
Even so, Intel said Haswell would allow laptops and two-in-one devices - offering both a laptop and tablet experience - to become thinner and last longer between charges, increasing their appeal.

It added that one version of the new chips featured CPU (central processing unit) cores which used just six watts of scenario design power - its power usage during "regular" tasks.
Intel said this was low enough for Haswell to be used in "cooler, quieter, fanless designs".
The amount of heat given off by the previous generation, Ivy Bridge, had meant that two fans needed to be included in the design of Microsoft's Surface Pro tablet.
Haswell tocks Haswell - or the fourth generation Intel Core processors, as the family is formally known - marks the "tock" in the US firm's regular "tick-tock" development cycle.
This refers to the fact that its improvements centre around a new chip architecture rather than a change to its transistors.
The firm says the new design of the family's CPU cores is capable of delivering a 15% boost in performance, a 50% improvement in active-use battery life, and up to three times the amount of standby battery life when compared to the performance of Ivy Bridge.
In addition, it says versions of the chip which include its new integrated GPU (graphics processing unit) - which it calls Iris - offer twice the performance when handling complex tasks such as generating 3D graphics or encoding high definition video.
For some users, that will mean they do not need a separate graphics card - something that adds to the bulk and cost of a computer.
It could also help drive the roll-out of laptops with higher resolution screens. These make more demands on a chip's GPU because more pixels are involved.
Some reviews of Apple's 13in Macbook Pro with Retina Display - which relies on Ivy Bridge's less powerful integrated GPU to drive its 226 pixels per inch (ppi) screen - suggested that the laptop struggled to cope in some situations.
However, Nvidia - a GPU card maker - has already warned Haswell has limits of its own.
"Any serious gamer will tell you that integrated graphics is far from adequate for delivering a reasonable, let alone good experience," it said. "Haswell won't change that." via: BBC