Processors (CPU)

What is Haswell Processor? Features, Generation & More

July 12, 2022

What is Haswell Processor?

Haswell refers to the codename of the microarchitecture of the Intel processors belonging to the 4^th generation I-series.

It is the successor of Ivy Bridge and is built on a 22 nm manufacturing process with the FinFET 3D or non-planar transistors and is part of the Intel 8 and 9 series chipsets.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Haswell processors offer quicker vector processing and better single-threaded, multi-threaded, and graphics performance.
These processors are good to use in desktop and laptop computers and the low-power variants in tablets, ultrabooks, mini computers and in the Intel Next Unit of Computing.
The different variants of the Intel Haswell processors are the Haswell DT, MB, H, ULT, ULX, EP, EX, and the Haswell E.
There are different types of sockets used in a Haswell processor such as LGA 1150, LGA 2011-v3, PGA and BGA sockets meant to be used in specific types of computers.
The Haswell processors come with a lot of improved and additional features in comparison to its successor as well as significant changes made in the Gpu and cache memory.

Understanding Haswell Processor

The Haswell microarchitecture of Intel is based on the 22 nm manufacturing technology and was introduced for the first time in 2013.

It is the 22 nm manufacturing process of the Intel Haswell architecture that optimizes its power savings and offers reasonably good performance benefits.

Some of the performance benefits offered in comparison to Ivy Bridge are:

About 8% quicker vector processing
Up to 5% superior single-threaded performance
Up to 6% better multi-threaded performance
About 20% better graphics performance and
About 3% overall performance improvement.

Suitable to be used in desktop and laptop computers, the desktop variants of Haswell CPUs come in quad-core and dual-core variety.

The low-power versions of the Haswell processors can be used in ultrabooks, tablets and even in the Intel Next Unit of Computing or NUC mini-PCs.

History and Design

Official announcement of processors with Haswell microarchitecture was made by Intel at Computex Taipei 2013 on June 4, 2013.

However, a fully functional Haswell CPU was demonstrated at the Intel Developer Forum in 2011.

The Intel Haswell processors are used in combination with different types of Intel chipsets such as:

The Intel 8 Series chipsets
The Intel 9 Series chipsets and
The Intel C220 series chipsets.

The 22 nanometer photolithographic manufacturing process of Haswell also brought in low power CPUs for hybrid or convertible ultrabooks that were denoted by the U suffix.

The processor architecture uses the non-planar or 3D FinFET transistor design which makes these processors much more power efficient and improves the performance.

In fact, when you compare the Intel Haswell processors with its technological predecessor, Ivy Bridge, it offers 6% better performance in sequential processing while running only 15^oC hotter.

In the Haswell microarchitecture, all the clock domains are derived from the base clock speed or BCLK, which is also referred to as DMICLK.

The voltage is controlled in the Haswell processors by the FIVR based architecture.

Here, the voltage arrives through the VCCin input into the CPU from the motherboard and then to the voltage regulator.

All the different voltage planes are derived internally from there which includes VRING, VCORE, and VSA.

The memory voltage is however supplied from the motherboard to its rail.

As for overclocking, there is a Coarsed BCLK ratio provided by Haswell which can be 100 MHz, 125 MHz, or 166.66 MHz.

The chipset generates the clock internally but motherboard Original Design Manufacturers or ODMs can also generate it separately as well.

Every single BCLK from the PCH or Platform Controller Hub is provided for in < 1 MHz steps. Depending on the different Coarsed BCLK ratio, it may work out as follows:

100 MHz ± 5-7% PEG/DMI @ 5:5
125 MHz ±5-7% PEG/DMI @ 5:4 and
166.66 MHz ±5-7% @ 5:3.

In practice, however, it is quite different and is typically restricted by the DMI PLL or the PCI Express interface.

Codenames

The Intel Haswell processors come in different codenames. Here is the list of the codenames along with their abbreviations and targets:

The Haswell DT, commonly referred to as HSW-DT and especially targeted for the desktops
The Haswell MB, commonly referred to as HSW-MB and especially targeted for the mobiles and laptops
The Haswell H, commonly referred to as HSW-H and especially targeted for the All-in-ones
The Haswell ULT, commonly referred to as HSW-ULT and especially targeted for the ultrabooks and other mobile computing devices
The Haswell ULX, commonly referred to as HSW-ULX and especially targeted for the tablets and ultrabooks
The Haswell EP, commonly referred to as HSW-EP and especially targeted for the Xeon chips
The Haswell EX, commonly referred to as HSW-EX and especially targeted for the Xeon chips and
The Haswell E, commonly referred to as HSW-E and especially targeted for the High-End Desktops or HEDTs.

Socket Types

The Haswell processors come in different types of sockets such as:

Land Grid Array or LGA 1150 and LGA 2011-v3 in the desktop variant
Pin Grid Array or PGA sockets for a few specific types of laptop and mobile processors and
Ball Grid Array or BGA sockets for Mini-ITX motherboards, All-in-One PCs, ultrabook laptops and tablets.

Features

There are a few specific features of the Haswell processor that resembles that of the Ivy Bridge. These carried over features are:

The 22 nanometer manufacturing process
The 3D Tri-Gate FinFET transistors
Micro-operation cache
14 to 19-stage instruction pipeline
Out of Order Execution window improved from 168 to 192
Queue Allocation from 28 to 56
Quad-core mainstream variants
Native support for dual-channel DDR3 as well as DDR3L memory
64 KB Level 1 cache with 32 KB each for instruction and data caching
256 KB L2 cache per core and
16 PCI Express 3.0 lanes on LGA 1150 models.

Additional Features

Some of the additional features of the Intel Haswell processor include:

Added voice and touch command integration
Hardware locking
Encryption of data and
Unique hardware identification for secure logins, online purchase and identity protection.

It also supports an internet-based interval check-in system which helps to detect thefts.

New Features

This processor also comes with some new features such as:

Wider cores
Deeper buffers
Fourth Arithmetic Logic Unit or ALU
Third Address Generation Unit or AGU
Second Branch Execution Unit or BEU
Higher cache bandwidth
Higher load/store bandwidth
Better front-end and memory controller
New instruction support
FIVR or Fully integrated voltage regulator
More modern and sophisticated power saving system
Mobile, desktop and ultrabook processors with wider Thermal Design Power

Changed Features

There are a few specific features that have been changed from the Ivy Bridge such as:

Support for DDR4 memory
Latest C6 & C7 sleep states
L1d and L2 cache bandwidth doubled
2 MB pages support by the STLB and
Widened scheduler.

There are also a few changes made in the Central Processing Unit and the Graphics Processing Unit of the Intel Haswell processors.

CPU Changes

The changes made in the CPU allow the Haswell processors to handle several general purpose instructions with an output of 4 ops/cycle.

Its predecessor could handle only CLC or Custom Loop Configurations, NOP or no Operations, and a few vector MOVs and a few zeroing instructions such as XOR, SUB, and vector analogs.

Some of the changes made in the CPU include:

Bit forms of MOVSX and MOVZX 4 op/cycle output for 8->32, 8->64 and 16->64
Several Arithmetic Logic Unit operations 4 op/cycle output for General Purpose registers for OR, XOR, NEG, ADD, SUB, NOT, AND, CMP, and others
Variable rotates and shifts such as SHL r32 and CL latency augmented from 1 to 2 cycles
Variable SHLD or SHRD increased from 2 to 4 cycles
REP MOVS copy speed is doubled up to about 52 bytes/cycle and
REP STOS fill speed is doubled up to about 30 bytes/cycle.

GPU Changes

The graphics performance of the Intel Haswell processor is quite good and it is due to the hardware support for OpenGL 4.3, OpenCL 1.2, and Direct3D 11.1.

There are 4 versions of graphics chip integrated into the Intel Haswell processor depending on its specific model such as:

GT1
GT2
GT3 and
GT3e.

Out of these, the GT3 version comes with 40 Execution Units as compared to 16 of such units present in its predecessor, Ivy Bridge.

The GT3e version, on the other hand, also comes with 40 EUs as well as an on-package of eDRAM or embedded Dynamic Random Access Memory.

However, these are called Crystalwell and are available only in desktop BGA-only R-SKUs and mobile H-SKUs.

The eDRAM acts effectively as a Level 4 cache memory and is shared between the CPU and the on-die GPU dynamically.

It also acts as a victim cache to the L3 cache memory of the CPU.

Cache Changes

Talking about the cache memory, the memory hierarchy in Haswell processors has also undergone some significant changes with respect to its predecessor.

The bandwidth of the cache for load and store has been doubled from 32 B/cycle and 16 B/cycle respectively.

The improvements are quite significant which supports the new gather instructions as well as the transactional memory.

Add to that, the new port 7 includes an address generation.

With the changes made in the cache hierarchy of the Intel Haswell processor, it has improved its functionality and each of them is as follows.

The Level 1 instruction cache:

Is 32 KB 8-way set associative
Supports write back policy
Has 64 B line size and
Is shared by the two threads per core.

The Level 1 data cache:

Is 32 KB 8-way set associative
Supports write back policy
Has 64 B line size
Has 64 Bytes/cycle load bandwidth
Has 32 Bytes/cycle store bandwidth
Supports 4 cycles for quickest load-to-use and
Is shared by the two threads per core.

The Level 2 cache:

Is unified 256 KB 8-way set associative
Has 64 B/cycle bandwidth
Supports 11 cycles for quickest load-to-use and
Supports write back policy.

The Level 3 cache:

Is 1.5 MB to 3 MB in size
Supports write back policy and
Is per core.

The Level 4 cache:

Is 128 MB in size
Is available per package and
Is available only on the Iris Pro GPUs.

And as for the Haswell TLB or the Translation Lookaside Buffer, there is a dedicated level one TLB for data cache and another for instruction cache.

Add to that, there is also a combined second level TLB. The breakup is as follows.

For 4KB page translations, the iTLB is 4-way set associative and divided between the two threads in a dynamic partition. It supports 128 entries.

And, for 2 MB or 4 MB page translations, the iTLB is fully associative and duplicated for each thread. It supports 8 entries.

As for the dTLB, for 4KB page translations, it is 4-way set associative and divided between the two threads in a fixed partition. It supports 64 entries.

And, for 2 MB or 4 MB page translations, the dTLB is 4-way set associative and supports 32 entries.

However, for 1 GB page translations, the dTLB is 4-way set associative and supports only 4 entries.

Finally, for the STLB, for 4 KB + 2 M page translations, it is a shared, 8-way set associative and supports 1024 entries.

Die Types

Different models of the Intel Haswell processors come with different types of die such as:

For the dual-core GT2, it has 960,000,000 transistors in a 131 mm² die size
For dual-core GT3, it has 1,300,000,000 transistors in a 181 mm² die size
For quad-core GT2, it has 1,400,000,000 transistors and 1 GPU core in a 177 mm² die size
For quad-core GT3, it has 1,700,000,000 transistors in a 260 mm² die size
For octa-core processor, it has 2,600,000,000 transistors in a 355.52 mm² die size and
For the octadeca-core or 18-core server processors, it has 5,690,000,000 transistors in a 622 mm² die size.

Types Available

This 4^th generation chips are available in a variety of types which include and are not limited to:

Dual core mainstream processor
Quad core desktop processors
Processors that are specifically designed to be used in tablets
Low-power ultrabook processors with longer battery life
Servers and workstation processors.

Each of these varieties of Intel Haswell processors has different series and SKU suffixes that denote its power and efficiency.

Haswell Desktop Processors

For example, as for the Haswell desktop processors, these are available in Core i3, i5, and i7 variants and with about 1.4 billion transistors on a 177 mm² die, where all models support different technologies such as:

MMX
SSE
SSE2
SSE3
SSSE3
SSE4.1
SSE4.2
F16C
EIST
Intel 64
XD bit
Intel VT-x and
Smart Cache.

Additionally, the Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs also support AVX, AVX2, BMI1, BMI2, AES-NI, and FMA3.

The Core i3 and i7 models along with the Core i5 4570T and the Core i5 4570TE in particular also support Hyper-Threading or HT technology and the Core i5 and Core i7 models also support Turbo Boost 2.0.

And, all Core i5 and Core i7 models support Intel IOMMU, the Intel VT-d except the Core i5 4670K and Core i7 4770K.

The Intel HD graphics and Iris graphics come in the following variants in the Intel Haswell processors:

Intel Iris Pro 5200 GT3e graphics in the R-series desktop processors
Intel HD 4600 GT2 graphics in all other Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 desktop processors
Intel HD 4400 GT2 graphics in the 41xxx desktop processors and
Intel HD GT1 graphics in the Celeron and Pentium processors.

However, the release of Pentium G3258 marks the 20 years of the Pentium brand.

This Pentium Anniversary Edition comes with an unlocked multiplier.

The SKU suffixes in the Intel Haswell desktop processors are different and indicate as follows:

K, for unlocked CPU though the Pentium G3258 CPU does not have this suffix but is unlocked
S, for performance optimized lifestyle, low power with a Thermal Design p
Power or TDP of 65 watts
T, for power optimized lifestyle, low power with a TDP ranging between 35 watts and 45 watts
R, for BGA packaging, high-performance GPU and
X, for extreme edition with adjustable CPU ratio and no ratio limits.

The Intel Haswell desktop processor of the Enthusiast / High-End level with 8 cores and 16 threads is Core i7 Extreme 5960X.

The two popular Intel Haswell desktop processors of the Enthusiast / High-End level with 6 cores and 12 threads are:

Core i7 Extreme 5930K and
Core i7 Extreme 5820K.

The different Intel Haswell desktop processors of the Performance level with 4 cores and 8 threads are:

Intel Core i7 4790K
Intel Core i7 4790
Intel Core i7 4790S
Intel Core i7 4790T
Intel Core i7 4785T
Intel Core i7 4771
Intel Core i7 4770K
Intel Core i7 4770
Intel Core i7 4770S
Intel Core i7 4770R
Intel Core i7 4770T
Intel Core i7 4770TE and
Intel Core i7 4765T.

The different Intel Haswell desktop processors of the Mainstream level with 4 cores and 4 threads are:

Intel Core i5 4690K
Intel Core i5 4690
Intel Core i5 4690S
Intel Core i5 4690T
Intel Core i5 4670K
Intel Core i5 4670
Intel Core i5 4670S
Intel Core i5 4670R
Intel Core i5 4670T
Intel Core i5 4590
Intel Core i5 4590S
Intel Core i5 4590T
Intel Core i5 4570
Intel Core i5 4570S
Intel Core i5 4570R
Intel Core i5 4460
Intel Core i5 4460S
Intel Core i5 4460T
Intel Core i5 4440
Intel Core i5 4440S
Intel Core i5 4430 and
Intel Core i5 4430S.

The different Intel Haswell desktop processors of the Mainstream level with 2 cores and 4 threads are:

Intel Core i5 4570T
Intel Core i5 4570TE
Intel Core i3 4370
Intel Core i3 4360
Intel Core i3 4350
Intel Core i3 4340
Intel Core i3 4330
Intel Core i3 4370T
Intel Core i3 4360T
Intel Core i3 4350T
Intel Core i3 4330T
Intel Core i3 4340TE
Intel Core i3 4330TE
Intel Core i3 4170
Intel Core i3 4160
Intel Core i3 4150
Intel Core i3 4130
Intel Core i3 4170T
Intel Core i3 4160T
Intel Core i3 4150T and
Intel Core i3 4130T.

The different Intel Haswell desktop processors of the Budget level with 2 cores and 2 threads are:

Intel Pentium G3470
Intel Pentium G3460
Intel Pentium G3450
Intel Pentium G3440
Intel Pentium G3430
Intel Pentium G3420
Intel Pentium G3460T
Intel Pentium G3450T
Intel Pentium G3440T
Intel Pentium G3420T
Intel Pentium G3320TE
Intel Pentium G3260
Intel Pentium G3258
Intel Pentium G3250
Intel Pentium G3240
Intel Pentium G3220
Intel Pentium G3260T
Intel Pentium G3250T
Intel Pentium G3240T
Intel Pentium G3220T
Intel Celeron G1850
Intel Celeron G1840
Intel Celeron G1830
Intel Celeron G1820
Intel Celeron G1840T
Intel Celeron G1820T and
Intel Celeron G1820TE.

Haswell Server and Workstation Class Processors

And as for the server and workstation class processors are branded as Xeon E3 v3, Xeon E5 v3, and Xeon E7 v3 and have a common SKU suffix L, which denotes low power.

With about 5.56 billion transistors on a 661 mm² dies size, all these models support different technologies such as:

MMX
SSE
SSE2
SSE3
SSSE3
SSE4.1
SSE4.2
AVX
AVX2
FMA3
F16C
BMI1
BMI2
EIST
Intel 64
XD bit
TXT
AES-NI
Intel vPro
Intel VT-x
Intel VT-d
Turbo Boost 2.0
Smart Cache and
Hyper-threading except in E3-1220 v3 and E3-1225 v3.

The Haswell-EX models also support TSX but Haswell-E, Haswell-WS, and Haswell-EP do not due to bugs discovered in its implementation.

The different Intel Haswell server processors with variable number of cores and threads are:

Intel Xeon E7-8893v3 with 4 cores and 8 threads
Intel Xeon E7-8891v3 with 10 cores and 20 threads
Intel Xeon E7-8890v3 with 18 cores and 36 threads
Intel Xeon E7-8880v3 with 18 cores and 36 threads
Intel Xeon E7-8880Lv3 with 18 cores and 36 threads
Intel Xeon E7-8870v3 with 18 cores and 36 threads
Intel Xeon E7-8867v3 with 16 cores and 32 threads
Intel Xeon E7-8860v3 with 16 cores and 32 threads
Intel Xeon E7-4850v3 with 14 cores and 28 threads
Intel Xeon E7-4830v3 with 12 cores and 24 threads
Intel Xeon E7-4820v3 with 10 cores and 20 threads
Intel Xeon E7-4809v3 with 8 cores and 16 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2699v3 with 18 cores and 36 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2698v3 with 16 cores and 32 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2698Av3 with 16 cores and 32 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2697v3 with 14 cores and 28 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2695v3 with 14 cores and 28 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2690v3 with 12 cores and 24 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2683v3 with 14 cores and 28 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2680v3 with 12 cores and 24 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2673v3 with 12 cores and 24 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2670v3 with 12 cores and 24 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2667v3 with 8 cores and 16 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2660v3 with 10 cores and 20 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2650Lv3 with 12 cores and 24 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2658v3 with 12 cores and 24 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2650v3 with 10 cores and 20 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2648Lv3 with 12 cores and 24 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2643v3 with 6 cores and 12 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2640v3 with 8 cores and 16 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2637v3 with 4 cores and 8 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2630v3 with 8 cores and 16 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2630Lv3 with 8 cores and 16 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2628Lv3 with 10 cores and 20 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2623v3 with 4 cores and 8 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2620v3 with 6 cores and 12 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2618Lv3 with 8 cores and 16 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2609v3 with 6 cores and 6 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2608Lv3 with 6 cores and 12 threads
Intel Xeon E5 2603v3 with 6 cores and 6 threads
Intel Xeon E3 1226v3 with 4 cores and 4 threads
Intel Xeon E3 1225v3 with 4 cores and 4 threads
Intel Xeon E3 1220v3 with 4 cores and 4 threads and
Intel Xeon E3 1220Lv3 with 2 cores and 4 threads.

Here is a list of some Intel Xeon E3 Haswell server processors with 4 cores and 8 threads:

1286v3
1286Lv3
1285v3
1285Lv3
1284Lv3
1281v3
1280v3
1276v3
1275v3
1275Lv3
1271v3
1270v3
1268Lv3
1265Lv3
1246v3
1245v3
1241v3
1240v3
1240Lv3
1231v3
1230v3 and
1230Lv3.

The different Intel Haswell workstation processors with variable number of cores and threads are:

Intel Xeon E5 2687Wv3 with 10 cores and 20 threads
Intel Xeon E5 1680v3 with 8 cores and 16 threads
Intel Xeon E5 1660v3 with 8 cores and 16 threads
Intel Xeon E5 1650v3 with 6 cores and 12 threads
Intel Xeon E5 1630v3 with 4 cores and 8 threads
Intel Xeon E5 1620v3 with 4 cores and 8 threads
Intel Xeon E5 1607v3 with 4 cores and 4 threads and
Intel Xeon E5 1603v3 with 4 cores and 4 threads.

Haswell Mobile Processors

And finally, as for the Haswell mobile processors, all of them support almost the same type of technologies and comes with as many as 1.3 billion transistors on a 181 mm² die.

The different Intel Haswell mobile processors of the Performance level with 4 cores and 8 threads are:

Intel Core i7 4940MX
Intel Core i7 4930MX
Intel Core i7 4980HQ
Intel Core i7 4960HQ
Intel Core i7 4950HQ
Intel Core i7 4910MQ
Intel Core i7 4900MQ
Intel Core i7 4870HQ
Intel Core i7 4860EQ
Intel Core i7 4860HQ
Intel Core i7 4850EQ
Intel Core i7 4850HQ
Intel Core i7 4810MQ
Intel Core i7 4800MQ
Intel Core i7 4770HQ
Intel Core i7 4760HQ
Intel Core i7 4750HQ
Intel Core i7 4720HQ
Intel Core i7 4712MQ
Intel Core i7 4712HQ
Intel Core i7 4710MQ
Intel Core i7 4710HQ
Intel Core i7 4702MQ
Intel Core i7 4702HQ
Intel Core i7 4700MQ
Intel Core i7 4700HQ
Intel Core i7 4701EQ
Intel Core i7 4700EQ
Intel Core i7 4702EC and
Intel Core i7 4700EC.

The different Intel Haswell mobile processors of the Mainstream level with 2 cores and 4 threads are:

Intel Core i7 4650U
Intel Core i7 4610Y
Intel Core i7 4610M
Intel Core i7 4600M
Intel Core i7 4600U
Intel Core i7 4578U
Intel Core i7 4558U
Intel Core i7 4550U
Intel Core i7 4510U
Intel Core i7 4500U
Intel Core i5 4402EC
Intel Core i5 4422E
Intel Core i5 4410E
Intel Core i5 4402E
Intel Core i5 4400E
Intel Core i5 4360U
Intel Core i5 4350U
Intel Core i5 4340M
Intel Core i5 4330M
Intel Core i5 4310M
Intel Core i5 4310U
Intel Core i5 4302Y
Intel Core i5 4300Y
Intel Core i5 4300M
Intel Core i5 4300U
Intel Core i5 4288U
Intel Core i5 4258U
Intel Core i5 4308U
Intel Core i5 4260U
Intel Core i5 4250U
Intel Core i5 4210H
Intel Core i5 4210M
Intel Core i5 4210U
Intel Core i5 4220Y
Intel Core i5 4210Y
Intel Core i5 4202Y
Intel Core i5 4200Y
Intel Core i5 4200U
Intel Core i5 4200H
Intel Core i5 4200M
Intel Core i3 4158U
Intel Core i3 4120U
Intel Core i3 4112E
Intel Core i3 4110E
Intel Core i3 4102E
Intel Core i3 4100E
Intel Core i3 4110M
Intel Core i3 4100M
Intel Core i3 4100U
Intel Core i3 4030Y
Intel Core i3 4020Y
Intel Core i3 4012Y
Intel Core i3 4010Y
Intel Core i3 4030U
Intel Core i3 4025U
Intel Core i3 4010U
Intel Core i3 4005U and
Intel Core i3 4000M.

And finally, here is the list of the different Intel Haswell mobile processors of the Mainstream level with 2 cores and 2 threads:

Intel Pentium 3561Y
Intel Pentium 3560Y
Intel Pentium 3558U
Intel Pentium 3556U
Intel Pentium 3560M
Intel Pentium 3550M
Intel Celeron 2981U
Intel Celeron 2980U
Intel Celeron 2957U
Intel Celeron 2955U
Intel Celeron 2970M
Intel Celeron 2950M and
Intel Celeron 2961Y.

The SKU suffixes of the mobile processors are as follows:

M, for mobile processor in a G3 socket
Q, for quad-core
U, for ultra-low power CPU in a BGA 1168 packaging
X, for extreme
Y, for extreme low-power in a BGA 1168 packaging and
E / H, for indicating a BGA 1364 packaging.

Irrespective of the type of Intel Haswell processor you need for your computer, make sure that you check their availability from the official website of Intel because a few specific models may be discontinued.

Haswell Processor Generation

The Intel Haswell processor belongs to the 4^th generation of the Core I-series processor family.

These processors are found in Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 variants and are good to be used in almost every desktop computers, laptop computers, and tablets running on Windows.

Are Haswell Processors Still Good?

Well, considering the features and functionalities of it, the Intel Haswell processors, especially the i7s, are quite fine to use for office and for day to day computing tasks along with playing some modern games.

It is quite good and efficient enough to keep up with the gaming requirements of a few modern 1070 or 1080 games.

However, if you need to overclock to have the best gaming experience then you will need to go for a high-end model.

Its performance is limited for those biggest AAA titles.

One of the biggest drawbacks of this particular processor is perhaps its driver support.

You will not get anything more than the basics and just a few updates. Moreover, the modern motherboards normally do not support 4^th generation processors actively any more.

Therefore, you should take this factor into account if you want to use this processor in your computer system because you may experience some issues while using some specific software programs or even with the current and upcoming versions of Windows operating systems.

And, its price seems to be a bit on the higher side considering the level of performance it delivers.

Having all said that, to be honest, the Intel Haswell processors are pretty usable and good by today’s standard and you can get a reasonably good gaming experience if you play the current games with a decent Graphics Processing Unit.

The reasons that make the Intel Haswell process or worthy are:

More responsive power management
Longer battery life for mobile devices
Graphical prowess enough to play basic games but nothing to entice the hardcore gamers
4K video playback
Reduced noise and
Lower temperatures.

However, along with the plus points, also consider the caveats of Haswell processors when you make your final decision.

This processor is not designed for high-end desktop computing or gaming due to its major focus on mobile.

The performance gain of around 6% to 10% with respect to its predecessor is certainly not exceptional in any sense.

What Comes After Haswell?

The Intel Haswell processors were released in 2013 and after that Intel released other microarchitectures such as Broadwell in 2014, Airmont and Skylake in 2015.

Conclusion

So, that is about everything that you need to know about Intel Haswell processors.

Thanks to this article, you are now surely more knowledgeable than before and can make a quick decision as to whether or not you should use this 4^th generation CPU in your computer.