Leaked Intel desktop roadmap reveals a mid-term Haswell update

Intel’s Haswell may be due for a refresh in 2014, but a new update to Intel’s roadmap notes something interesting – a Core i7-4771, a new processor that Intel’s never mentioned before.

Intel’s plans for the Haswell Core family have been well-known since Computex, but the future of the Pentium and Celeron brands is still cloudy. MyGaming has previously reported that Intel will be using the Silvermont Intel Atom processors to service the Celeron and Pentium lineups and the updated roadmap also gives us new model numbers for those SKUs (stock-keeping units).

What’s interesting about the roadmap is the addition of a new SKU we’ve never heard of before, the Core i7-4771. Intel hasn’t said anything about it and its anyone’s guess exactly what’s going on here, but there are two possibilities – one, it’s merely a higher-binned part that overclocks better and puts out less heat; or two, it’s the same chip but with metal solder instead of thermal paste between the processor and the integrated heatsink.

Intel 2014 Updated roadmap

Intel 2014 Updated Celeron and Pentium roadmap

Intel 2014 Updated chipset roadmap

The second part of the roadmap fills out the model numbers for the rest of the desktop family. In Q3 2013 Intel will launch the Core i3 families based on Haswell, composed of the Core i3-4340, the i3-4330 and the i3-4130. The Pentium lineup will also see the G3430, the G3420 and the G3220.

The Celeron lineup consisting of Sandy and Ivy Bridge chips will continue to be sold into 2014, at which point its expected to be replaced with architecture based on the Atom Silvermont processors. The Q1 2014 launch is also strange, considering Intel will only be debuting the H81 chipset for LGA1150 in Q3 2013.

This leaves AMD’s APUs with a six-month window of opportunity to grab more market share and drop prices, as well as finally introduce Kabini and Kaveri processors on the desktop.

Desktop users with LGA2011 processors will soon also be able to look forward to their platform supporting Ivy Bridge-E processors this year. It looks like the X79 chipset will be refreshed to support the new processor family, but Intel hasn’t specified if BIOS updates will allow older boards to support Ivy Bridge-E processors.

Additionally, the LGA1150 socket will see a refresh of the Haswell family in Q2 2014 and will also be accompanied by new the new Z97 and H97 chipsets. The 9-series chipsets are expected to bring more support for PCI-Express drives and some other important features. DDR4 isn’t officially supported until the release of Broadwell, so this is unlikely to make it into the refresh.