Save the Date: June 3 Intel Unveils Haswell Core Processors

The world is just a few weeks away from seeing Intel's (News - Alert) one-chip-fits all family of core processors paired with Microsoft’s one-design-fits all operating system, Windows 8.

On Friday, Intel announced, in befittingly complex mathematical terminology, that the first round of the Haswell Core processors, will be introduced on June 3.

“In approximately 3,337,200,000,000,000 nanoseconds, Intel will reveal all there is to know about the highly anticipated 4th generation Intel Core processor family,” Intel said.  

The first round of Haswell chips are expected to be mostly quad-core chips, compatible with notebooks and desktops, though dual-core chips capable of sipping just 10 watts of power are also anticipated in the offering.

The highly anticipated Haswell chip aims to lower power consumption. Intel has built up Haswell as a beacon of hope, claiming the new chips will nearly double the battery life of Ultrabooks compared to current Ivy Bridge-based devices.

Haswell also sports enhanced graphics performance, fixed function video to allow for quicker video encoding and decoding, and a new Active Idle state which should speed up the time it takes a device to go from wake to sleep and vice versa.

VR-Zone, a Chinese language site recently leaked what it claims is Intel’s pricing chart for the first batch of the Haswell chips. The site's chart shows individual chip pricing for retailers based on a minimum order of five chips.

Eight quad-core chips are included in the pricing data, from a 3GHz Core i5-4430 for $175 to a 3.5GHz Core i7-4770K for $327. But this is only for retailers who will buy in bulk. A consumer buying a Haswell processor from a store will likely pay more.

The pricing as predicted by VR-Zone seems accurate, if only because it falls in line with Intel's Ivy Bridge pricing structure. Moreover, Intel has suggested that it wants the Haswell chips to be used for a range of devices, so this fairly inexpensive pricing model would accommodate that goal.