Intel Haswell Core i3, Pentium chips detailed

Intel has been reluctant to share details on the new lineup of budget Haswell processors, but new pricing has revealed how much we can expect to pay for them, as well as how close a release may be.

Intel is expected to announce and launch the newest additions to the Haswell family in September 2013, with generally good availability on launch.

Intel’s desktop Haswell processor family is currently limited to mid-range and high-end builds because there are only two families to choose from: the quad-core Core i5 family ending with the i5-4670K; and the quad-core, dual-threaded Core i7 family ending with the i7-4770K.

Motherboards based on the LGA1150 socket have been available with low-end chipsets for some time, with the H81, H87, B85, and P85 chipsets available to the consumer market.

The processors to go with these cheaper boards aren’t yet available, but leaked pricing suggests they won’t be much more expensive than Ivy Bridge products.

Haswell-based Pentiums and Core i3 chips won’t be much faster than their Ivy Bridge counterparts, but will consume less power and boast upgraded integrated graphics hardware.

Processor	Cores/Threads	Stock/Turbo frequency	L3 cache	Graphics	Max GPU frequency	TDP	Pre-launch Price (US $)
Pentium G3220	2/2	3.0GHz	3MB	HD	1100MHz	54W	$70.61
Pentium G3420	2/2	3.2GHz	3MB	HD	1100MHz	54W	$90.18
Pentium G3430	2/2	3.3GHz	3MB	HD	1100MHz	54W	$100.26
Core i3-4130	2/4	3.4GHz	3MB	HD4400	1150MHz	54W	$136.85
Core i3-4330	2/4	3.5GHz	4MB	HD4600	1150MHz	54W	$154.75
Core i3-4340	2/4	3.6GHz	4MB	HD4600	1150MHz	54W	$165.94
Core i5-4440	4/4	3.1/3.3GHz	6MB	HD4600	1100MHz	84W	$197.26
Core i7-4771	4/8	3.5/3.9GHz	8MB	HD4600	1200MHz	84W	$333.77

Along with the three new Pentium and Core i3 processors, we also can look forward to:

The Core i5-4440, which will replace the i5-4430 quite early on in its life; and
The Core i7-4771, a better binned chip and the replacement for the Core i7-4770, which only shipped with a default 3.4GHz clock speed boosting up to 3.9GHz.

It looks like the i7-4770 is a popular choice, hence why Intel is choosing to retire the SKU (stock-keeping unit) early on and charge more for the same silicon.

The Pentiums should be robust budget gaming chips, being based on the same silicon as the Core i3 processors. The interesting part of the lineup is the Core i3-4330 and the i3-4340. Both have 4MB of L3 cache, which means that they’re overclocked Core i5 mobile processors. They should fare well in gaming scenarios, although the extra 1MB of cache won’t always come in handy.