CES 2011: Ivy Bridge information

Intel's next processor generation will support DirectX 11.

At CES, Intel has officially confirmed speculation that the giant’s next-generation processor, Ivy Bridge, will support the DirectX 11 API. Sandy Bridge, which debuted a few days ago, is familiar with version 10.1 of DirectX. The company cited the lack of the DX 11 as meaning it wasn’t seen as meaningful in the design as it is used by too few applications. Ivy Bridge will be an improved Sandy Bridge, meaning the architecture won’t change, but the bandwidth will. This means switching to 32 nm production lines instead of 22 nm. In addition, an improvement in the computing speed of the graphics unit and parallel tasks is expected. Ivy Bridge may debut in early 2011 at the earliest, but an early 2012 start seems more likely.

Sandy Bridge