Launch date of Intel Core “Haswell Refresh” chips revealed

While it was pretty obvious that Intel Corp. plans to start selling its new code-named “Haswell Refresh” central processing units sometimes in April or May, the actual launch date was not completely clear. Apparently, that will happen in exactly one month time.

Intel plans to start selling its improved Core i-series “Haswell Refresh” microprocessors next month, starting the 10th of May, according to a report from TechPowerUp. Previously sources with knowledge of Intel plans indicated that the mainboards based on Intel Z97 and H97 chipsets will debut on the 10th or 11th of May.

While the code-named Haswell Refresh (HSR) desktop platform will hardly bring a lot of innovations for typical end-users, it will offer a lot for enthusiasts. The new unlocked Core i-series HSR chips also known as “Devil’s Canyon” will feature improved thermal interface, which will enable better overclocking. The Core i-series HSR chips will work on slightly higher clock-rates compared to existing code-named Haswell products, but higher overclocking potential of unlocked CPUs will clearly make them popular among enthusiasts.

Intel 9-series core-logic sets offer three noteworthy improvements compared to the 8-series chipsets: support for solid-state drives in PCIe M.2 form-factor (PCI Express 2.0 x2 interface with up to 1GB/s maximum bandwidth), Intel device protection with boot guard technology as well as Intel Rapid Storage technology with support for PCI Express-based storage drives.

Image by Hermitage Akihabara

Traditionally, Intel’s Z-series chipset (Z97) will support overclocking of microprocessors as well as Intel Dynamic Storage Accelerator. The H-series core-logic (H97) will not support overclocking/performance tweaking knobs, but will feature Small Business Advantage platform tech.

Intel did not comment on the news-story.

KitGuru Says: Start of sales means that Intel will let reviewers publish results of their experiments with the Haswell Refresh/Devil’s Canyon processors a little ahead of that. The results of HSR chips' overclocking should be an interesting read since they will reveal actual potential of Haswell micro-architecture when it comes to clock-rates. 5GHz? 6GHz? What will be the limit for Intel's Haswell Refresh processors. 

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