Intel has announced that laptops and desktop PCs powered by its 4th generation Core processor based on Haswell architecture are now available in India.
Haswell, which is successor to Ivy Bridge processors currently found in mainstream laptops and desktops, doesn't offer much advantage in terms of performance over its predecessors.
However, it is more power efficient and offers significantly better battery life, something that should help Intel take on the popularity of tablets in the market. Intel said that Haswell processor in laptops deliver up to 50 per cent increase in battery life in active workloads over the previous generation
The company added that due to its power efficiency Haswell will enable manufacturersAcer, Lenovo, Dell and HP to create thinner and lighter devices that could also serve as tablets.
Intel South Asia managing director Debjani Ghosh said that Haswell processor are one of the most power-efficient chips the company had created. "The 4th Generation Intel Core processors offer the most significant gain in battery life ever achieved by Intel, up to double the graphics and significant CPU performance improvements that will deliver an exciting user experience," she said.
Leighton Phillips, director of product management & pricing at Intel Asia-Pacific, added, "today's announcement accelerates a new category of 2-in-1 computing devices delivering the best of a notebook and a tablet in amazing new form factors."
Intel said that premium ultrabooks and a few all-in-one systems powered by Haswell chips would be available in India in coming weeks. Mainstream laptops that sell for around Rs 30,000 would get the new chips in couple of months.
Other than the battery life, Intel is promising significantly better graphics performance with Haswell processor. The top end chips, which come with GT3 graphics configuration, can even match dedicated mobile graphics cards. However, most of the mainstream laptops are likely to end up with HD 4600 and HD 5000, which will offer big improvements over HD 4000 but are not likely to match the dedicated AMD or Nvidia graphics cards in a laptop.
For consumers who assemble their own systems, Intel will sell boxed Haswell processor. The top end chips, dubbed Core i7 4770 and Core i7 4770K, are already available in the Indian market with a price of around Rs 20,000. Core i5 4430, which is a mainstream processor, is more affordable with a price of around Rs 12,500.