Intel Iris and Intel Iris Pro have just been announced as the new brands for the top two tiers of Intel’s 4th-gen Core processor (Haswell) graphics. Iris will appear in Ultrabooks but, surprisingly, only on a 28W TDP processor. It indicates that there are some higher-level processing options coming to Ultrabooks. Other 4th-gen Core processors for Ultrabooks get HD 5000 graphics.

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One of the aims of attending the Intel Developer Forum last week for me was to find out as much as possible about 2013, Haswell and what it means for Ultrabooks. I’m sure there’s more detail to come soon (and possibly, a new roadmap) but I came away with a lot of useful information that I’ve summarized below. What is clear is that Haswell is more about mobility than any other Core CPU to date. It will extend down into tablet territory enabling detachable screens and new form factors. There will be a huge focus on active standby; the claimed 20x lower idle power should equate to multi-day ‘active’ idle. A ‘dual slice’ GPU will feature in Ultrabooks

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We’ve been banned from photography and video here at the first Haswell tech talk, IDF 2012 which means there’s bound to be some interesting slides up on screen. Here are my notes from the session – these focus on very deep features of the architecture.

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