Usually , a central processing unit that offers more processing tycoon also requires more free energy — and in a laptop , that results in shorter battery life . But with Haswell , Intel ’s fourth - propagation Core central processing unit , the troupe foretell to hike up processing power and graphics operation while using less energy .
Haswell made its Mac debut in Apple’snew MacBook Air , released at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday . So far , Apple has released only two versions of the Haswell ULT CPU for both the 11- and 13 - inch models : a 1.3GHz dual - kernel Core i5 processor capable of Turbo Boost up to 2.6GHz and 3 MiB partake L3 cache in the standard form ; and a build - to - order 1.7GHz dual - core Core i7 with Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz and 4 MB shared L3 cache . And the question isn’tifHaswell will be in other Macs , butwhen .
Macworld Lab has the young MacBook Air , and benchmark results , battery life psychometric test , and a full review are in the works .
Better power management
With the sales of tablets bite into laptop cut-rate sale — and with Intel ’s deficiency of comportment in the tablet food market — Haswell was design to avail laptops better compete with tablets , a full stop iterate Monday by Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller during theintroduction of the new MacBook Airat the WWDC keynote . ( Schiller actually cite to the “ age of the iPad ” instead of tablets in general , but the point remains the same . )
At the Intel Developers Conference in September 2012 , Intel provideddetails on the Haswell processors , pushing the processor ’s power management and promising all - 24-hour interval electric battery life . And Apple has travel along wooing , boasting a racy 9 hour of “ wireless Web ” battery life on the 11 - inch MacBook Air ( up from 5 hr on the old role model ) , and 12 hours on the 13 - in MacBook Air ( up from 7 hour ) .
To achieve such lofty bombardment life , Intel technologist made several betterment to Haswell , include change to Haswell ’s branch prediction ( a CPU ’s ability to influence what instruction will ask to be executed ) , more efficient clock wheel , and better implementation of L1 and L2 cache .
Improved graphics
Intel ’s integrate graphics chipset long had a reputation of being just good enough . For oecumenical use , they ’re fine , but once you begin doing more demanding employment , the performance tolerate . However , the troupe ’s last contemporaries of computer graphic , the Intel HD Graphics 4000 , evince promise , offering a nice hike over premature HD Graphics chips .
The new incorporate graphics chipset , the Intel HD Graphics 5000,promises even well performanceby amend the graphics unit processor with more carrying into action social unit ( the part of the GPU that does the surgical process ) , along with other tweaks .
Apple says that the HD Graphics 5000 in the new MacBook Air is 40 percent faster than Intel HD Graphics 4000 recover in the previous MacBook Air . Macworld Lab will be testing this call as part of our benchmarks .
Overall performance
The emphasis with Haswell ’s microarchitecture is power management and art speed . While Intel aver the new CPU will be faster than its Ivy Bridge predecessor , the changes to the CPU processing are n’t major , and the boost may be 10 per centum — a slight bump compared to , say , the boost experience when transition from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge processors . ( Macworld Lab saw a 15 to 21 percentage increase in the 2012 MacBook Air when it switched from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge processor . )
Our babe publishing , PCWorld , has n’t yet benchmarked the mobile Haswell processors , but it has tested the screen background Haswell C.P.U. , and theresultsseem to bear this out ( at least on Windows ) .
