Intel held their 4th generation processor core, codename “Haswell”, launch event in the Philippines last July 11, 2013 at the Makati Shangri-la Hotel. Leighton Phillips, the APAC Product Marketing Director of Intel, and Calum Chisholm, the Intel PH Country Manager, was there at the event. Jason Ng and Wowie Wong, Intel Philippines Market Development Manager, are also present. Haswell (formerly known as Rockwell) is the codename for a processor microarchitecture developed by Intel as the successor to the 3rd Generation processor core “Ivy Bridge” architecture.Using the 22 nm process, the Haswell architecture is specifically designed to optimize the power savings and performance benefits from the move to FinFET transistors on the improved 22 nm process nod. In which, what Intel emphasized during the launch event.
Intel also showcased motherboards from different manufacturers that supports the 4th Gen processor. Mr. Phillips discussed a brief summary of what is packed within Intel’s 4th Gen processors. There were some features of the 4th gen processors that they surely stressed out and those were the improvements in battery life by 50%, biggest gain in company history and the Intel Iris graphics that delivers up to x2 the graphics performance over the previous generation.
Intel also demonstrated how fast their processor is by having Jason Ng and Wowie Wong play a two player air hockey game application on a MAC. They wanted to show that the 4th gen processor can handle different inputs easily. As impressive as it can get,  there is still a significant lag during their game.
The 4th gen processors is amazing and a great innovation from Intel however, during the event, they’ve mentioned something that will make PC enthusiasts disheartened. When they showed this slide of their presentation, it made me go “WHAT?!”.
Yes, you read it right. Intel intended their 4th Gen processor as a start of a generation where Desktops are no more. They wanted Desktop to leave the desk. How will this step affect PC enthusiast? Intel seems to be aiming more in mobile, tablet, and AIO devices. I highly doubt though that Desktops will be disappearing soon. Not atleast for another 10 years or so for me. Before the event ends, they gave us media a chance to ask questions about their 4th generation processors and their plans for it.
From an enthusiast’s perspective, all the questions during the Q&A are all focused on mobile parts. Regardless though, to summarize Haswell as what Mr. Phillip’s said, the 4th generation Intel Core processor family brings in a stunning graphics performance, the most efficient battery life improvement, and a great future ahead for AIO touch, voice, and gesture capability. On a latter note, 4th generation Intel Core processors for desktops are already locally available for purchase, and Ultrabooks, notebooks, and All-in-One PC that are running on 4th Gen Intel based core processor systems are expected to arrive around August this year.
Cheers for the 4th gen Intel core processors!
