Sandy Bridge-E and X79 are high end parts that for the most part are the same as the current Sandy Bridge and Z68 products, but just more stuff for high end users and high end prices. Such as 2x16 PCI-E support for Crossfire and SLI and 6 and 8 core CPUs.

For those looking for a more reasonably priced upgrade, Ivy Bridge and the Z77 chipsets will be more down to earth and will improve upon and add some new things. But sadly they won't arrive this year, expected early 2012.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4830/intels-ivy-bridge-architecture-exposed

Ivy Bridge highlights.

* 22nm
* Much better GPU
* Better power performance.

Power savings seem to be a big focus of the new chip. Will include support for lower wattage DDR3L memory and there will even be a 35 watt quad core Ivy Bridge model available.

Z77 highlights
* USB 3.0 ports
* PCI-E 3.0
* 1x16, 2x8, or 1x8 and 2x4 PCI-E configurations

Considering PCI-E 3.0 doubles the bandwidth of PCI-E 2.0, you could probably get away with running Triple SLI or Crossfire on the 1x8 and 2x4 PCI-E lane configuration.

And there will be other chipset variations like Z75 and H77 minus features.

sometimes i wonder if i'm the only one who doesn't care about power consumption

america ftw

 

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You know, I was thinking the exact same thing when I read the "lower power consumption" label. As a home user that turns my computer off at night and then on during the day maybe 50% - 75% of the time, I have other things in my house that consume a heck of a lot more energy to concern myself with.

 

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It also means that clock for clock, the newer models are easier to cool and have more overclocking potential.

This

Also lower power consumption would mean you dont have to upgrade the PSU, and for me personally with 6 computers at home it actually does make a difference in the electric bill.

 

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sure theyre lower power thus less heat thus you should be able to squeeze more out of them; however, the wiggle room for increasing voltage gets smaller since the breakdown voltage becomes more and more of an issue at smaller transistor sizes. 22nm is super small... violet light is like 400nm lol.

im surprised at how quickly theyve gone from 500 nm to 14nm-- all within 20ish yrs.

 

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Very true, read an article from anandtech and Intel is going more heavily for power reduction than higher core clocks, also those tri-gate transistors sound interesting something like 30% power reduction over top of the regular 22nm shrink would bring. Too bad they weren't 4-gate transistors so we could say Intel was 4 gating.

Between this and the delayed 7 series release, I guess I won't be building my new rig until 2012...

 

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http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Youve-date-Intel-Ivy-Bridge

Coming March 2012.