Conroe, Wolfdale and Yorkfield

In 2006, the processor "gigahertz race" between Intel and AMD was officially over due to its lack of prospects. Energy efficiency and multi-core became new priorities. The old NetBurst architecture (Pentium 4, Pentium D) was poorly suited for these tasks. Fortunately, Intel was simultaneously developing Pentium M notebook chips, and it was their architecture that formed the basis of the family of desktop processors under the new name Core 2 Duo.


The first generation of Core 2 Duo processors received two cores of the Conroe architecture, a 65-nanometer process technology (the Pentium D had 90 nm) and a power consumption of 65 W (it was 130 W). At the same time, thanks to a more thoughtful architecture, the Core 2 Duo with a frequency of 1.8 - 2.9 GHz was not inferior in flow Rate to the Pentium D 2.8 - 3.7 GHz. The motherboard socket remained the same LGA775, which allowed everyone to easily upgrade the processor, thereby making the computer cooler and quieter.

In addition to the Core 2 Duo, the Conroe architecture was used to release the Pentium Dual Core with a reduced cache and reduced RAM frequency, single-core Celerons with a record-low TDP of 35 W at that time, and quad-core Core 2 Quads. However, these were not true quad-cores, but two dual-core chips combined on a single substrate.


The Core 2 Quad became popular only a year later with the transition to the 45-nm Yorkfield architecture, which allowed for a significant increase in frequency. In turn, the 45-nm Core 2 Duo were called Wolfdale and were able to exceed the psychological mark of 3 GHz. And the 45-nm Celerons received two cores, which was then considered an unprecedented luxury for budget chips.

Current Intel processors

Nehalem, Bloomfield and Lynnfield

The Core 2 Duo and Quad processors did not rule the ball for long. In 2008, Intel introduced a completely new family of chips that still exists today — Core i7. The architecture was called Nehalem, and the family of chips was dubbed Bloomfield. These were the first real quad-core Intel processors, and they supported Hyper-Threading technology, which divided each physical core into two virtual threads. And if in the days of Pentium 4, the flow Rate of one virtual core was approximately 40 percent of the physical one, then in Core i7 it grew to 70 percent.


Bloomfield processors received a new LGA1366 socket and an integrated three-channel RAM controller. The PCI-E controller, responsible for the operation of video cards, remained in the "north bridge" chipset.

But the high cost of processors and motherboards did not allow the LGA1366 platform to become popular. Most users continued to use the good old Core 2 Duo and Quad. Therefore, Intel urgently released a simplified LGA1156 platform on the same Nehalem architecture. Quad-core processors without Hyper-Threading were called Core i5 Lynnfield.

The number of RAM channels has been reduced to two, and the PCI-E controller has migrated to the processor, which has allowed us to abandon the "north bridge" once and for all. Core i7 chips with a reduced frequency and a reduced number of memory channels also belong to the Lynnfield family.

Westmere, Clarkdale and Gulftown

The success of the LGA1156 platform was further consolidated by the first 32-nm Westmere processors (also known as Clarkdale). The real bestsellers were the cheap dual-core, four-thread Core i3 chips. In addition to them, the Clarkdale family included Core i5, Pentium, and Celeron.

Another important innovation of Clarkdale was the transfer of the integrated graphics accelerator to the processor substrate, which was previously part of the "north bridge" or was completely absent from the motherboard. Unlike the processor cores, the graphics were produced using a 45-nm process technology (there weren't enough new 32-nm factories for everything).


In parallel, the senior LGA1366 platform was also developing, finally shifting the focus to expensive high-flow Rate systems. Thus, Core i7 Gulftown processors on the Westmere architecture received six cores and twelve threads.

Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge

The year 2011 became a real "golden age" of Intel. The new Sandy Bridge chips (finally the name of the architecture and the processor family became one) or, as Intel itself proudly called them, Core 2nd Gen turned out to be as much as a third more powerful than Westmere. Intel has never had such a big increase in flow Rate in one generation. The main competitor - AMD - on the contrary, miscalculated with its Bulldozer architecture and played the role of a catch-up in the following years.

The graphics accelerator became part of the Sandy Bridge processor crystal itself. In addition, a hardware media encoder Quick Sync was added, responsible for smooth playback and accelerated video editing. True, the processor socket changed to LGA1155 (just one pin less, and already complete incompatibility).

The processors were also divided into sub-series: K with an unlocked multiplier, T with reduced power consumption, and P without integrated graphics. In addition, a replacement for the older LGA1366 socket was released - the new LGA2011, which subsequently lived for four long years until the fifth generation of Intel Core Broadwell and supported processors with ten cores and twenty threads.


A year later, Intel fanfare introduced Ivy Bridge chips based on 22-nm 3D transistors. No one expected a big flow Rate boost (since this is the "Tick" generation), but with reduced power consumption, the processors turned out to be hotter. The reason for this is the refusal of solder in favor of a thermal pad under the processor cover. For the average PC user, this is not critical, but avid overclockers were not satisfied and stubbornly sit on Sandy Bridge to this day.

Haswell, Devil's Canyon and Broadwell

Intel partially rehabilitated itself with the release of the fourth generation of Core processors called Haswell. The new architecture turned out to be 15 percent faster than Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, and slightly less hot. In addition, the Core i3 chips received a fully functional 20-module integrated Intel HD Graphics video card, like the Core i5 and i7. Whereas the previous generations of Core i3 had cut-down graphics similar to Pentium and Celeron. But once again the socket was changed - LGA1150.


This is where the slowdown in the development of new technological processes and architectures came into play. Haswell was followed by slightly updated Haswell Refresh (another name for Devil's Canyon), which differed only in increased frequency. Perhaps the only interesting Haswell Refresh chip was the Pentium G3258 Anniversary Edition, released in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the Pentium brand. It had an unlocked multiplier and, thanks to low heat dissipation (only two cores without HT), even with a simple boxed cooler it overclocked to 4.5 GHz.


Six months later, the long-awaited release of 14-nm Broadwell chips followed, but it essentially affected only laptops. For desktop PCs with the LGA1150 socket, only two Broadwell processors were released, and both were expensive due to the powerful integrated Intel Iris Pro graphics (but still not comparable to discrete video cards).

Skylake, Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake

Fully-fledged 14-nanometer chips entered the PC market only in 2015 and were called Skylake. Low power consumption and heating (a boxed cooler can effectively cool even a Core i7) finally secured the advantage over AMD (there was still a year left before the release of Ryzen, only 125-watt FX-8000 were on sale). There was a transition to the LGA1151 socket and DDR4 RAM.

The Kaby Lake chips released a year later were nothing more than "Skylake Refresh" with increased frequencies. For example, the Core i7-7700K could overclock to 5 GHz, while the i7-6700K only reached 4.6 GHz. The main sales hit was the Pentium G4560 with two cores and four threads, like the twice-expensive Core i3 (by the way, Pentium with HT debuted in laptops two years earlier). And even weaker integrated graphics and the lack of AVX instructions cannot be considered significant drawbacks.

The latest Coffee Lake processors

The latest Coffee Lake processors, although built on the same architecture and process technology as Skylake two years ago, have received an increased number of cores. Thus, Core i3 now has four physical cores (and no longer overlaps with Pentium), Core i5 has become six-core, and Core i7 is six-core twelve-thread. The veteran enthusiast socket LGA2011 has been replaced by LGA2066, which supports chips of the new Core i9 family with 18 cores and 36 threads.