Alienware is launching three new laptops today based on Intel’s new Haswell microprocessors that deliver better graphics and less power consumption.

The new Alienware 14, Alienware 17, and Alienware 18 have all-new industrial designs, with distinctive touches that make the machines immediately recognizable. They represent the high-end of portable gaming, and they won’t embarrass you if you take them to a LAN party. Everything about the design is meant to convey that you are a gaming bad-ass, because Alienware wants to make sure that you don’t need no stinkin’ consoles.

“It’s a pretty big change for us in how we design,” said Frank Azor (pictured), general manager of the Alienware business, in an interview with GamesBeat. “And they still have more performance than we have ever put in any of our products. We reinvented ourselves with this new industrial design.”

The machines are based on Intel’s Haswell microprocessors, which are a lot more power efficient than past models. Alienware was acquired by Dell in 2006 and it remains a “master brand” and is run as a separate entity in Florida. That allows Alienware to go its own way in designing what it thinks is best for gamers. It helps that PC gaming is seeing a resurgence with titles like World of Tanks and League of Legends.

The new laptops are the first major redesign of the Alienware industrial design since 2009. Taking advantage of more power-efficient chips, these models have 20 percent less volume than the last models released a year ago based on Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors.

Hardcore PC gamers haven’t always liked laptops. They have lugged around desktops to gaming parties, known as LAN parties, for years. But Azor said, “We decided there had to be an easier way.”

Alienware collected a lot of feedback over the past few years from gamers about what they want. The new machines have features that consumers have asked for, like colorful light-emitting diode (LED) streaks along the sides of the machine. The touchpad is fully illuminated with bright LEDs. The neon-bright lights under the keyboard also keep the machines glowing, but you can turn those off  if you’re playing an intense game.

You can change the colors as you like. There are ten lighting zones and 10 trillion color combinations. People can create their own color themes as they like. The company has partnerships with 55 game publishers so they can take over the lights when something is happening in the game.

While the previous Alienware machines had a vintage “Roswell style” look to them, these new machines are built on a futuristic alien theme. The keyboard had been widely praised in the past, but Alienware took surveys of customers and a slightly redesigned keyboard tested the most positively. It has a steel-reinforced plate underneath the board. The key caps are larger for a more comfortable typing experience, and the light around each key is no longer there. The letters are a little larger and the lighting is not as bright in your face. The keyboard has 19 customizable keys so you can fire weapons more easily.

Alienware will offer a bunch of Intel processor options, including Core i7 versions of the processors. The 17-inch and 18-inch versions will support Extreme Editions of Intel’s processors, and the 14-inch can be overclocked as high as 4.3-gigahertz. They will all launch with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 7X family of graphics processors. The 14 will have up to Nvidia GeForce GTX 765 graphics. The 17 and 18 models will have options for GTX 765, 770, and 780 graphics cards. The 18-inch will feature dual Nvidia cards operating in SLI mode. They have 8 gigabytes of main memory and 750-gigabyte hard drives.

The 14-inch supports up to three storage drives, while the 17 and 18 support up to four storage drives. About 60 percent of the structure is metal. The base frame is made from magnesium alloy. The back panel is all aluminum, all one piece. The Alienware 14 has an IPS panel, while the Alienware 18 has a PLS display, with full high-definition resolution. The speakers are from Klipsch and the Ethernet ports are based on the Killer Networks NIC designs from Qualcomm. The models have 802.11n Killer networking on the 14. The 17 and 18 have 5G WiFi from Broadcom, or 802.11ac.

Alienware can monitor the performance of the machine while it runs games. A new app dubbed Accelerator will disable a lot of Windows services and turn off background operations so that you’ll have a lot of free main memory. The 17 and 18 platforms have HDMI in ports. The screen and speakers can serve as output. Alienware also designed its own backpack to go with the laptops. There are five designs across 11 SKUs. All of the ports stick out so that they will work with any device.

Most people are going to play with the machines plugged into a wall. In terms of battery life, the machines have 7 hours on the 14, 6 hours on the 17, and three to four hours on the 18. The 14 weighs 6 pounds, the 17 weighs 10 pounds, and the 18 weighs almost 12 pounds.

“We don’t share performance on the silicon on any of the chips,” Azor said. “The GPU and CPU can run at 100 percent. That’s a design tenet of Alienware’s. Gamers don’t want their CPU throttled in a game. These are not compromise products, and that is why they are the size and weight that they are.”

The Alienware 14 will sell for $1,199 with an i7, Nvidia GeForce GT 750M, 8 gigabytes of RAM, and a 750 gigabyte hard drive. The Alienware 17 is $1,499 with the same specs except an Nvidia GeForce GTX 765 graphics card. The Alienware 18 will sell for $2,099 with dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 765 graphics cards.

Of the consoles, Azor said, “They were ahead for about six months, but we destroyed them for the last seven years.”

Here is our video interview with Azor.

[Photo credits: Dean Takahashi]

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Hewlett-Packard is launching a series of commercial desktop computers today with Intel’s fourth-generation Core processors, formerly codenamed Haswell.

The computers include models with consumer features such as fast processors and touchscreens, along with business features such as high security, management software, and no-frills designs. The designs show that it isn’t just consumer devices that are changing in their designs. Enterprise customers want modern looks and user interfaces like touchscreens too, according to HP.

HP is launching the HP EliteOne and HP EliteDesk 800 series PCs with all-in-one and desktop designs. They come with fourth-generation Core processors, which have double the graphics capability of last year’s models and 50 percent better power consumption. They have USB 3.0 ports for easy access to data as well as a combination of Intel’s vPro security and HP Client Security. The HP EliteOne 800 is a multimedia all-in-one PC with management and security options.

The HP EliteDesk 800 G1 Series is a 23-inch business desktop with energy-efficient designs and three different chassis options. All-in-one designs are becoming popular in enterprises for the same reason they are popular with consumers: they save space. Enterprise customers will also appreciate features such as fast-charging ports and HP Wireless Hotspot software, which makes it easier to find a wireless connection.

HP is also launching its HP ProOne and ProDesk 600 Series computers with Haswell-based processors. These machines don’t have touchscreens, but have similar features to the other machines.

“End users require the right PC for them to succeed on the job, with those needs encompassing a broad combination of power, productivity, manageability and security,” said Carol Hess, vice president, Product Management, Commercial Managed IT, HP. “HP’s new portfolio of business PCs take the desktop to the next level with incredibly powerful and stylish devices featuring the latest management, touch interface and security technologies to address a wide range of employee and customer-facing business scenarios.”

The HP EliteOne (starting at $1,299), Elite Desk 800 G1 series (starting at $815), the ProDesk 600 G1 (starting at $760) series are expected to be available in the U.S. in June.

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You’re out of luck if you were hoping for a fully redesigned MacBook Air, but Apple has announced some internal upgrades for its popular ultraportable that sound well worth the purchase.

During its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote today, Apple marketing head Phil Schiller debuted new MacBook Air models powered by Intel’s recently released Haswell chips.

The big draw? All-day battery life.

Last year’s 11- and 13-inch MacBook Airs get 5 and 7 hours of battery life, respectively. The new models bump those figures up to 9 hours for the 11-inch model, and a whopping 12 hours for the 13-inch. Apple claims you’ll be able to watch iTunes movies for 10 hours straight.

The new models solve one of the biggest problems I’ve had with the MacBook Air — despite being a great device, my two-year old Air barely gets three hours of battery life with normal usage, even though Apple claims it gets around six to seven hours. I’m not sure if the new models will indeed see the battery numbers Apple claims, but they’ll at least do but much better than current MacBook Airs.

Among the other new features, the revamped Airs come with faster graphics capabilities and 802.11AC wireless, which Apple says is three-times faster than today’s 802.11n technology.

Both new Haswell-toting Airs are available today starting at $999 for the 11-inch and $1,099 for the 13-inch. From what I recall, that’s a slight discount for the 13-inch model compared to last year’s.

This sponsored post is produced by Dealzon.

It’s Haswell galore! Intel’s 4th generation Haswell processor has made its way to the top 3 PC manufacturers (HP, Lenovo, and Dell, for those not keeping track). The PC makers refreshed old standards and released newer high-end models just yesterday, all equipped and shipped with the latest 4th Gen processor from Intel.

HP refreshed their Envy 15 and Envy 17 lineups (both discontinued late October of last year), giving smaller frame and weight to the machines, adding a TouchSmart option, and providing higher resolution panel upgrade choices. The GeForce GT 740M is now on the table, although gamers needing substantially more GPU power might want to wait for a GT 750M upgrade option. HP also lets buyers upgrade the CPU all the way to the high-end Core i7-4900MQ for a pretty price tag.

On the Lenovo front, the only Haswell-equipped machines are the IdeaPad Y510p and Y410p – refreshes of the old Y500 and Y400 lines. Both machines come equipped with the Quad Core i7-4770MQ CPU and a GeForce GT 750M. For the Y510p, you can even opt for a SLI dual graphics option (+$270). Happily, the Y410p now has a 1600 x 900 display panel option – a nice improvement from the previous 1366 x 768 display (yuck).

No Dell laptops are being graced with Haswell just yet, but the XPS 8500 desktop makes a model jump to XPS 8700, now sporting Haswell processors. Dell’s higher-end (read: expensive) Alienware X51 is also paired with a 4th Gen i7-4770 and a GeForce GTX 660. You can choose to upgrade to the faster GTX 670 for $250, but in this case, we think your money is better served buying a GPU from a third party.

Update 6/9/13: Lenovo wised up and raised the price on the 768p Y410p to $799.00 from $719. There’s also a new round of deals from HP thanks to a new weekend coupons, which makes the Envy 15 only $769 – one of the cheapest 4th Gen i7 laptop with 1080p + discrete GPU (use coupon code NEWPC150).

Haswell computer deals

Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p 59370008 Laptop — $1063 at Lenovo after coupon. Specs: Core i7-4700MQ, Full HD 1080p, GeForce GT 750M, and 8GB RAM. The same coupon discount applies to a Y510p with two SLI dual graphics cards, priced at $1,299 (normally $1,599).

Lenovo IdeaPad Y410p 59369921 Laptop — $829 at Lenovo after coupon. Specs: Core i7-4700MQ, HD+ 900p, GeForce GT 750M 2GB, and 8GB RAM. If money is an issue, you can save $130 by opting for the same specs without the 900p screen for $799.

HP Envy 17 (2013) with 1080p — $899.99 at HP after coupon. Specs: Core i7-4700MQ, GeForce GT 740M, and Blu-ray drive. An optional upgrade to consider is the +$29 SSD hard drive accelerator cache for faster bootup time. You can save $50 if you go with the standard 900p option, but we think Full HD is well worth the upgrade.

HP Envy 15 (2013) with 1080p — $769.99 at HP after coupon. Specs: Core i7-4700MQ and GeForce GT 740M. The standard resolution is 1366 x 768, so the extra upgrade on the Full HD panel upgrade is a good investment.

Dell XPS 8700 Desktop — $649.99 at Dell Home after coupon. Specs: Core i5-4330, Radeon HD 7570, and 8GB RAM. Throw in another $100 if you want the Core i7-4770. The 7570 is a bit on the weak side for modern GPUs, so you’d probably want to upgrade. (FYI: The standard XPS 8700 PSU is 460 watts.)

Alienware X51 R2 Haswell — $1,199 at Dell Home. Specs: Quad Core i7-4770 (4th Gen), 8GB RAM, and GeForce GTX 660. No coupons for this premium gaming rig just yet.

Thursday gaming deals

Don’t think we’d forget about finding game deals this week. Current hot pick is the Steam-activated PC download version of Batman Arkham Origins, which got a preorder discount at GMG to $37.50 after a 20% off coupon code. Preorders come with a bonus Deathstroke DLC with 2 extra challenge maps and two Deathstroke player skins. The game releases October 25th.

Do you already enjoy Crysis 3 multiplayer? On Tuesday, Crysis 3: The Lost Island released – the first DLC pack since the game’s February 19th release date. The Lost Island primarily augments the multiplayer experience, adding four new multiplayer maps, two new multiplayer modes, and two new weapons. As with Batman Arkham Origins, Green Man Gaming’s 20% off coupon makes the only discount online, dropping the price from $14.99 to $12. It’s also worth noting we found the Crysis 3 base game for only $25 at GamesRocket this week – a new low by $5 (normally $50).

Hot deals & recent releases

Oct. 25: Batman Arkham Origins (PC Download) — $37.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Meet a new round of villains to vanquish in the new single player action game. This title’s actually a prequel, but from the trailer looks like the same old Batman we know from the last two titles of the series.

Past Tuesday: Crysis 3: The Lost Island (PC DLC) — $12 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. List is $15. Surprisingly, this is the first DLC pack for Crysis 3. Although the door is open to more DLCs, there haven’t been any additional announcements.

Past Tuesday: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Legendary Edition (PC Download) — $48 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. List is $60. The Legendary Edition includes the base game and all 3 DLC packs: Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn. If you bought those separately, they would add up to $75.

Past Tuesday: Remember Me (PC Download) — $37.49 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. List is $50. Capcom’s latest action-RPG title launched on Tuesday of this week. Green Man Gaming’s 25% off preorder coupon never stopped working, making down the price $12.50.

Last Tuesday’s: Grid 2 — $33.49 at GamesRocket. Next best is $50 at GameFly. Only a week old, and the price has already fallen by 33%. Pretty impressive drop considering the relatively positive 82/100 Metacritic score.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Sony is unveiling a new line of Vaio Pro and Vaio Duo laptops with new Intel Haswell-based microprocessors.

Source: Sony

Sony Duo 13

The Vaio Pro is a touch-enabled Ultrabook laptop that runs Windows 8. It is aimed at mobile professionals and students on the go. The devices aren’t the cheapest on the market, but they include non-standard features such as near-field communications, which allows the device to instantly communicate with other NFC devices and transfer data. You can now exchange contacts or enable Bluetooth connections with just a tap on the NFC radio.

The laptop is light and durable and comes in both 11-inch and 13-inch models. It weighs just 1.92 pounds and 2.34 pounds, depending on screen size. It is also the first laptop to include a high-speed PCIe SSD drive with twice the performance of traditional laptop SSD drives.

The machine has a nine-hour battery life and can be extended to double that with a sheet battery. The laptops also have good graphics capability, thanks to the advances Intel built into the Haswell generation of laptop components.

The company is unveiling the products at the Computex computer trade show in Taiwan, where Intel is unveiling more information about its Haswell platform and product roadmap.

The moves are part of the company’s continuing effort to stay competitive in the PC market through a combination of advanced technology, good design, and reasonable (but not the cheapest) prices.

The Sony Vaio Duo, meanwhile, is the next evolution of a slider hybrid PC, which can be used as a tablet or as a laptop. It comes with an electronic pen for more precise interaction with the touchscreen. The Vaio Duo 13 is made with carbon fiber and weighs just 2.87 pounds. It has a smaller border, or bezel, and that means it is just about the same size as the original Vaio Duo 11, even though the screen is bigger at 13 inches.

With a new Surf Slider design, the machine has a slimmer hinge for allowing a quick and easy transition between tablet and laptop modes. You can switch between modes using one hand. The laptop side has a full-sized keyboard and trackpad. It has an eight-megapixel rear-facing camera with the Exmor RS image sensor from Sony. The image quality is good enough to take pictures of documents, and it can recognize and tag text in photos.

Source: Sony

Sony Vaio Pro 13

The Vaio Duo 13 has a standby sleep mode. With optional AT&T 4G LTE, the device can connect to the Internet in sleep mode and update your applications and emails. When you wake the machine up, your emails are up to date. And the Vaio Duo 13 has a whopping battery life of 18 hours.

Both the Pro and Duo lines feature a wonderfully named “full HD Triluminous display” with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080. The new screens make “colors purer and more distinct.” The technology goes with Sony’s X-Reality for mobile technology, which analyzes images and reproduces pixels that are missing. The devices also have Sony’s ClearAudio+ technology that lets you hear dynamic bass sounds with more clarity and less distortion. Both models also have backlit and full-pitch keyboards, and Sony’s Rapid Wake technology for resuming in less than one second.

Sony previously launched its Vaio Fit 14-inch and 15-inch laptops and its entry-level Fit E laptops.

“By combining the power of Sony’s display, digital imaging, and sound technology with new and innovative form factors, VAIO is offering a variety of new ways for consumers to interact with PCs,” said Pedro LaFarga, senior vice president of the Sony Vaio & Networked Products Division. “We’re continuing to deliver on the needs of a growing number of mobile professionals by making devices that enhance and enrich individuals’ lifestyles in both work efficiency and play.”

So far, Sony doesn’t have a double high-resolution screen to match rivals from Apple (the retina screen) and Toshiba. The laptops come with software such as the touch-oriented painting program, ArtRage Studio and Vaio Movie Creator software.

The Vaio Pro models are available on June 9 in carbon black and carbon silver colors for $1,149 and $1,249. The Vaio Duo 13 model is available June 9 in carbon black and carbon white for $1,399.

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Dell has launched its own salvo of laptops, desktops, and gaming PCs based on Intel’s Haswell microprocessor technology.

At the Computex trade show in Taiwan, Dell ia rolling out a variety of touch-enabled computers with security features. The lineup includes new versions of its Latitude, OptiPlex, and XPS laptops and desktops. All of the computers use Haswell, or Intel’s fourth-generation Core microprocessors. Those new chips launched today.

“We have taken outstanding products and made them even better with improved performance, sleek design and state-of-the-art security and management capabilities,” said Kirk Schell, the vice president of Dell’s PC product group. “We’re constantly listening to customers and improving our leading edge products based upon their input. Through enhanced components and engineering, we’re providing customers with a great computing experience and helping them realize the efficiency and productivity benefits provided through improved performance.”

Among the highlights is a 27-inch all-in-one PC under the XPS brand. The device has an Adobe RGB Quad HD display. The company is also launching an XPS 8700 desktop and an XPS 12 convertible laptop. That XPS 12 is now 1.6 times faster than a prior model and it has more than 8 hours and 43 minutes of battery life, or more than two hours over a previous model.

The Latitude E6540 has built-in security for commercial laptop customers. It also has file-level encryption. The OptiPlex 9020 is a manageability focused desktop computer for the enterprise that uses Intel’s vPro technology. Dell also has a 21.5-inch touch monitor, the S2240T.

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Intel is announcing its fourth-generation Core microarchitecture, formerly code-named Haswell, today at the Computex trade show in Taiwan. Its new name will be the 4th generation Intel Core processor family with Intel Iris graphics.

Iris is a hybrid processor-graphics combo on a single chip. It promises 50 percent better battery life than current-generation laptops and twice the graphics performance. It will become the brains of all sorts of computers, including gaming machines, desktops, and razor-thin laptops. Lots of computer makers are launching machines with the chips in June and July. Tom Kilroy, executive vice president and general manager of the sales and marketing group at Intel, announced the new product family at the Computex computer trade show in Taiwan.

“In my 18 years at Intel, I don’t think I’ve seen so much innovation in form factors and new ways of computing,” said Navin Shenoy, vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group at Intel, in an interview with VentureBeat. “The opportunity for inventing the future is right in front of us.”

The Haswell chip family is the last hurrah for Intel’s outgoing chief executive, Paul Otellini, who has been succeeded by Brian Krzanich. The chip is coming out just as market researcher IDC has forecast that PC sales will decline 7.8 percent in 2013. That figure is revised from its previous forecast of a 1.3 percent drop.

You can blame that change on tablets, which have seen tremendous growth and are expected to overtake PC sales in 2015.

But Shenoy said he is encouraged by the innovation happening across the board with Haswell. The chip is spawning new hybrid devices, where a laptop can be converted into a tablet. One cool design HP launched this week is the HP Envy Rove 20, a 20-inch all-in-one desktop computer that can be converted into a touchscreen tabletop computer. You can play tabletop games on it and bring back family game night.

A bunch of software companies, from Electronic Arts to Sony, are making software for tabletop computers. More than 100 games, including Sesame Street and Monopoly, will be available for tabletop all-in-one computers.

“We view all of the new form factors as opportunities to drive growth,” Shenoy said. “It’s the complete reinvention of the computer as we know it. All computers are going to be thinner and lighter.”

In fact, Ultrabooks that used to be 35 millimeters thick will now be about 25 millimeters thick. The Ultrabooks based on Haswell will be able to wake up from a deep sleep in less than three seconds, and they will be able to grab your latest email, social media, and other updates while in low-power mode. Ultrabooks wil now come with hardware-drive voice commands, Intel Identity Protection Technology, and Intel Anti-Theft Technology.

For more than a year, Otellini has been pounding the drum on Haswell, which he described as delivering the “largest generation-to-generation improvement in battery life in Intel history.”

Rani Borkar, vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, said last week that Intel is getting that improvement not only from moving to a more efficient manufacturing process, but also because it designed the chip from the ground up for mobility and low power. For instance, the chips use extensive “power gating,” where unused transistors — the on-off components of digital computing — are turned off when they are not in use and reawakened quickly when needed. Borkar said new devices will have a better “instant on” responsiveness when you hit a button.

“Haswell is a revolutionary product from Intel,” she said. “It will lead to a large number of form factors and industry firsts. It redefines what you expect from a conventional processor.”

Intel says the standby mode has 20 times better power efficiency than the Sandy Bridge processor-graphics combo chip from a couple of years ago. That means you can now watch three high-definition movies before your laptop runs out of power.

Intel will make a variety of low-power Core processors using the microarchitecture, each of them with different code names and final product names. Those products from high-performance servers to “sleek ultraportables” are rolling out starting June 5 and throughout the year, and they’ll blur the line between devices.

Intel is also going to use Iris to deliver new kinds of features such as voice recognition, face recognition, eye-tracking, and gesture control. Such input systems will enhance interaction with computers beyond the traditional touchscreens, mice, and keyboards.

Kaizad Mistry, vice president of Intel’s technology and manufacturing group, said last week that Intel is using an enhanced version of its 22-nanometer Tri-Gate 3D transistor manufacturing process. That version is optimized for low power, giving transistors the same operating frequencies while consuming low power. Battery life for a laptop with a new Intel Core i7-4650U chip will be 9.1 hours for high-definition video playback, compared to 6 hours for a third-generation Core processor. On the MobileMark 2012 benchmark, the new chip will get 8.3 hours of battery life, compared to 6.1 hours for the predecessor chip. Standby battery life will be 10 to 13 days, compared to 4.5 days for earlier chips.

Borkar said the Haswell-based chips will scale from chips that consume just 6 watts to some that consume 75 watts. Intel first introduced its Atom processor for netbooks in 2008. Those failed, but Intel has a huge share in the mobile processing market for computers. Since 2006, Intel says, the integrated graphics performance of its microprocessor and chipset combinations (now often integrated in a single chip or a single package with two chips) has increased 75 times.

“The biggest breakthrough with Haswell is the nearly doubling of battery life and connected stand-by,” said Patrick Moorhead, analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. ” This alone makes for a much improved notebook experience. Tied with lower-cost and more pervasive touch screens, this brings convertibles closer to delivering the convenience that 10″ tablets can provide. While they can’t replace a 10-inch fanless tablet yet with full PC performance, I think Intel will be driving the technology there over the next six months with a four-watt to five-watt part. Regardless, I think Haswell will help boost PC sales over the next six months based on the features launched today.”

The chip includes integrated eDRAM memory and an improved interconnect between the processor and the chipset across two chips that are contained in a single package. Intel said it achieves a “non-linear reduction” in idle power consumption thanks to a new power management design, new ways to power down a chip quickly when not in use, and new ways of moving data around the chip quickly.

One innovation is dubbed FIVR, short for Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator. It consolidates all of the power used in the chip into an integrated voltage regulator and measures power usage in real-time. That reduces the cost of the device.

Later this year, Intel will unveil the Silvermont microarchitecture for future Atom microprocessors, which are targeted at low power devices. The 22-nanometer, quad-core Bay Trail version of Silvermont will be used in tablets this holiday, Avoton will be used in microservers, and Merrifield will be used in smartphones.

Shenoy said the graphics capabilities of Iris will “make things very interesting for gamers.” Tomb Raider will run at 38 frames per second at a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, while BioShock Infinite will run at 35 frames per second.

He said about 50 designs are underway based on the Bay Trail chips. Intel will have six different desktop processors based on Haswell and 11 mobile processors.

Intel will have both quad-core and dual-core chips based on Haswell. The 22-nanometer quad-core chip will have more than 1.4 billion transistors, the on-off switches of digital computing. Back in 1971, the original 4004 microprocessor had just 2,300 transistors.

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Toshiba is launching a new line of laptops and desktops outfitted with Intel’s fourth-generation Core microprocessors, previously codenamed Haswell.

Intel is releasing a wave of laptop and desktop chips that can dramatically improve integrated graphics performance and cut power consumption. Toshiba’s new Satellite P Series and S Series laptops use the latest quad-core Intel Core processors. It will also launch a series of desktop computers aimed at gamers and entertainment fans.

The designs feature significantly thinner cases made from brushed aluminum. Toshiba also launched three new Tegra 4-based Android tablets with screens that are as sharp as Apple’s Retina displays for its iPads.

“The latest processors from Intel not only offer smart performance, but exceptional power efficiency, which allowed Toshiba to further slim down our premium laptop lines to nearly as thin as an Ultrabook,” said Carl Pinto, the vice president of marketing at Toshiba’s U.S. division. “With all new styling, featuring attractive brushed aluminum, and premium features like full HD touchscreen displays and Harman Kardon speakers, our new premium Satellite notebooks are ideal for consumers looking for powerful and versatile PCs to stay productive and entertained.”

The P Series has a speedy touchscreen display designed to be responsive. It has hard drives up to 1TB, main memory configurable up to 32GB, and optional Nvidia GeForce GT 740M graphics. The case is made with an aluminum finish and rounded corners.

The P Series laptops are available in 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch diagonal touch or static screens.

The Satellite S Series laptops have 14-inch, 15.6-inch, and 17.3-inch diagonal screens. They come with large touchpads with gesture support, up to 1TB of storage, and up to 16GB of main memory. They machines include an array of USB 3.0 and HDMI ports, a brushed aluminum chassis, Haswell processors and optional Nvidia graphics. The P Series laptops will be available Sunday exclusively at Best Buy stores, while the S Series will be available more widely on that same day.

Toshiba is also launching its new Qosmio X75 “enthusiast class” laptop and an all-in-one touchscreen desktop, the PX35t. The $1,029 PX35t is equipped with big-screen TV, PC, and multimedia features. It has a 23-inch high-definition touchscreen display. It has up to 16GB of main memory and can use a variety of Core processors. It has speech recognition and DTS Studio Sound.

The $1,549 Qosmio laptop has a fourth-generation Core i7 quad-core processor and a 17.3-inch screen. It comes in “Black Widow” styling in brushed aluminum, and it has an Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M mobile graphics chip. Both are available on June 10.

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Intel debuted the chips based on its fourth-generation Core microarchitecture, previously codenamed Haswell. Today’s first batch of microprocessors include quad-core processors for laptops and desktops.

The world’s biggest chipmaker has been teasing the chips for a year, as they features the biggest leap in battery power savings that PCs have ever seen in one generation to the next. The chips feature 50 percent better active battery life and 20 times better idle battery life. Graphics for the Haswell-based chips will be twice as good as the graphics for last year’s Ivy Bridge chips.

Intel is taking the wraps off of five Core i7 laptop processors today and 12 quad-core Core i7 and Core i5 desktop chips today. More information will be released on Tuesday at the Computex trade show in Taiwan.

The chips promise to boost the sagging PC market, which is now expected to fall 7.8 percent in sales in 2013, according to IDC. Last week, IDC revised its forecast downward from a previous 1.3 percent estimated drop.

Computer makers are taking the Haswell chips and doing interesting designs with them. The laptop chips will be used in devices that double as laptops with detachable keyboards. Once you take the keyboard off, the machine becomes a Windows 8 touchscreen tablet.

On the desktop side, HP has unveiled its HP Envy Rove 20 all-in-one computer, which has a detachable 20-inch touchscreen. You can lay the touchscreen flat on a table and use it as a tabletop computer for board games in the kitchen. The screen has its own batteries that can last for three hours.

Intel promises that such creative approaches to design will proliferate throughout the year thanks to the capabilities that Haswell brings. The new laptops with Haswell promise to be a lot thinner. Prices for the machines will run under $500 for laptops.

The Iris graphics will support 4K displays, which have a resolution of 3,840-by-2,160, or four times the pixels of a 1080p high-definition display. But developers will have to create games and other software to take advantage of the better displays, and manufacturers will have include 4K displays in their computers, before users will see the benefit.

Additional features like QuickSync will improve MPEG video encoding and decoding and improve video playback. A laptop with a quad-core fourth-generation Core chip will get as much as nine hours of HD video playback.

On the central processing unit (CPU) side, the improvements are only 5 percent to 15 percent above Ivy Bridge performance.

Intel’s new chips include the quad-core laptop M-series, with three new processors. It is also launching the H-series with three new processors. The laptop chips include the $378 Core i7-4800MQ and the $568 Core i7 4900MQ chips. Those chips consume 47 watts of power and operate at 2.7GHz and 2.8GHz. They can be overclocked (or run faster than recommended speeds) up to 3.7GHz and 3.8GHz.

At the top of the heap is the $1,096 Core i7 4930MX at 57 watts and 3GHz. Intel says the Core i4770K can run StarCraft II: The Heart of the Swarm at 62 frames per second.

The H-series mobile processors includes the $468 Core i7-4850HQ, which has a base frequency of 2.3GHz scaling to 3.5GHz. The $657 Core i7-4950HQ has a frequency of 2.4GHz scaling to 3.6GHz. The chips draw 47 watts of power and have the high-end Iris Graphics. Intel said it would release six new H chips this year.

The quad-core desktop chips run from $192 to $339. They run from 3 gigahertz to 3.9GHz, and consume between 35 to 84 watts of power. The fastest chip is a $339 Core i7-4770K chip, which consumes 84 watts of power and runs at 3.6GHz and you can overclock that to 3.9GHz.

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Intel‘s fourth-generation Core microarchitecture, formerly code-named Haswell, has been heralded for a long time, but it’s finally arriving in a variety of low-power computing devices over the next month. Those devices will have 50 percent better battery life than current-generation Ivy Bridge devices when used on active tasks. They will also have double the graphics performance and much lower power consumption in standby mode, Intel executives said in a briefing.

The Haswell chip family (dubbed fourth-generation Core) is the last hurrah for Intel’s outgoing chief executive, Paul Otellini. And it is a convergence architecture that, along with other 22-nanometer chips coming this year, will find its way into PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. The chip family will inspire a new generation of hybrid devices, such as two-in-one concepts like a laptop that can be converted into a tablet. HP showed one such device off this week: the HP Envy Rove 20, a 20-inch all-in-one desktop computer that can be converted into a touchscreen tabletop computer.

For more than a year, Otellini has been pounding the drum on Haswell, which he described as delivering the “largest generation-to-generation improvement in battery life in Intel history.”

Rani Borkar, vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, said Intel is getting that improvement not only from moving to a more efficient manufacturing process, but also because it designed the chip from the ground up for mobility and low power. For instance, the chips use extensive “power gating,” where unused transistors — the on-off components of digital computing — are turned off when they are not in use and reawakened quickly when needed. Borkar said new devices will have a better “instant on” responsiveness when you hit a button.

“Haswell is a revolutionary product from Intel,” she said. “It will lead to a large number of form factors and industry firsts. It redefines what you expect from a conventional processor.”

Intel says the standby mode has 20 times better power efficiency than the Sandy Bridge processor-graphics combo chip from a couple of years ago. That means you can now watch three high-definition movies before your laptop runs out of power.

The Haswell microarchitecture is akin to putting a V12 engine in a car that used to have a V6, without expanding the size of the engine. Intel will make a variety of low-power Core processors using the microarchitecture, each of them with different code names and final product names. Those products from high-performance servers to “sleek ultraportables” are rolling out starting June 5 and throughout the year, and they’ll blur the line between devices, just as motorcycles, scooters, golf carts, and Ferraris are all variations on moving vehicles.

“This improvement in power is not coming at the expensive of performance,” Borkar said.

Kaizad Mistry, vice president of Intel’s technology and manufacturing group, said Intel is using an enhanced version of its 22-nanometer Tri-Gate 3D transistor manufacturing process. That version is optimized for low power, giving transistors the same operating frequencies while consuming low power.

Borkar said the Haswell-based chips will scale from chips that consume just 7 watts to some that consume 75 watts.

Intel first introduced its Atom processor for netbooks in 2008. Those failed, but Intel has a huge share in the mobile processing market for computers. Since 2006, Intel says, the integrated graphics performance of its microprocessor and chipset combinations (now often integrated in a single chip or a single package with two chips) has increased 75 times.

The chip includes integrated eDRAM memory and an improved interconnect between the processor and the chipset across two chips that are contained in a single package. Intel said that it achieves a “non-linear reduction” in idle power consumption thanks to a new power management design, new ways to power down a chip quickly when not in use, and new ways of moving data around the chip quickly.

One innovation is dubbed FIVR, short for Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator. It consolidates all of the power used in the chip into an integrated voltage regulator and measures power usage in real-time. That reduces the cost of the device.

Later this year, Intel will unveil the Silvermont microarchitecture for future Atom microprocessors, which are targeted at low power devices. The Bay Trail version of Silvermont will be used in tablets this holiday, Avoton will be used in microservers, and Merrifield will be used in smartphones. Intel will talk more about its roadmap at the Computex trade show in Taiwan in the first week of June.

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Hewlett-Packard is unveiling a small army of computers today that will use Intel’s next-generation microprocessors, code-named Haswell, for better processing without an increase in power consumption. The new products are HP’s latest bid to get its mojo back and to embrace the change wrought by tablets on the struggling PC industry.

Some of the devices are already shipping, but many are still waiting on Intel’s official release of the Haswell processors, which are due in early June. The Haswell processors are built in a 22-nanometer manufacturing process that enables both faster processor speeds and low power consumption, mainly by combining graphics and processor functions on a single chip. Haswell promises twice the graphics performance of last year’s Ivy Bridge processors.

Intel introduces major processors about once a year or so, and HP is using the occasion to launch a wholesale redesign of its computers. It is launching a new lineup of laptops, all-in-one computers, and desktops. All of the devices are thinner, stronger, and sleeker in design.

Among the new offerings are a bunch of thinner, lighter, and faster touchscreen laptop computers. They include the HP Envy TouchSmart 14 Ultrabook, with a 3,200-by-1,800 full high-definition touchscreen display, better battery life, Intel’s Haswell, and a 10-point multitouch screen. That model will ship on June 26 for $700. Such low prices mean that Intel-based Ultrabooks will finally reach a sweet spot of good battery life, good performance, and lower prices. The HP Envy TouchSmart 15 notebook (pictured right) also has a full touchscreen with Beats Audio. it will be available on June 5 for $530.

The HP Envy 17 notebook computer will come with a 17.3-inch screen, an Intel processor and Nvidia graphics. It has 2TBs of hard disk space, Beats audio, and a full-HD display. It will start selling on June 5 at $700.

HP is also launching new versions of its mainstream consumer Pavilion-branded computers. The HP Pavilion TouchSmart notebook is a thin laptop with a capacitive touchscreen and 10-finger gesture support. It will sell for $400 starting on June 26. The HP Pavilion 15 notebook will have a 15.6-inch display, a 1-terabyte hard drive, and an optical drive, and it will come in a variety of colors. It will sell on June 5 starting at $430.

As for desktops, HP is introducing a cool new all-in-one PC dubbed the HP Envy Rove 20. The device has a 20-inch touchscreen that you can fix at a variety of angles. You can also lay the device flat.

The device also comes with a built-in battery that can last for three hours while unplugged. In other words, it’s a giant touchscreen tablet running Windows 8. The machine uses Intel integrated graphics and Haswell processors. It has an in-plane switching (IPS) panel with wide viewing angles and 10-finger multitouch. It has Beats Audio and comes installed with software including EA Monopoly, Fingertapps Jigsaw Wars Puzzle, Fingertapps Musical Instruments, and Disney Fairies. It will debut in July for an undisclosed price.

HP is also launching the HP Pavilion TouchSmart 20 and 23 all-in-one PC models. These feature five-point optical touchscreens, widescreen displays, and new processors from both Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. The hard drives have up to 2TBs of storage. The machines have HP TrueVision WebCams and 25GBs of free Box cloud storage for U.S. users. The 20-inch model will sell for $620 starting June 23, and the 23-inch model will sell for $750 on June 5.

HP is also launching a series of new desktops. The HP Envy Phoenix 800 Desktop PC will have both Nvidia discrete graphics and Haswell processors. It will start selling on June 5 for $1,100. The HP Envy 700 Desktop PC will offer a choice of AMD processors or Haswell processors. It will be available on June 5 for $600.

The HP Pavilion 500 Desktop PC will have Haswell with a choice of discrete graphics from Nvidia or AMD. It will start selling on June 5 for $490. The HP Pavilion Slimline 400 Desktop PC will come with Haswell processors and Nvidia discrete graphics chips. It will start selling on June 30 exclusively at Best Buy starting at $400. And HP is launching the HP 110 Desktop PC. This low-cost machine has Intel processors or AMD processors, up to two terabytes of hard disk storage, and a 6-in-1 media card reader. It will be available on June 5 starting at $290.

HP is also extending the Envy brand name to its printers. The new products include the HP Envy 4500 e-All-in-One and the HP Envy 5530 e-All-in-One printers. Those printers are able to print from both mobile devices and web pages. They’re packaged in compact enclosures and offer Instant Ink subscriptions, which make it easy for a home user to get ink refills. Pricing for the printers will be announced later this summer.

Last week, HP unveiled a couple of new consumer notebook computers. Those included the HP Split x2, a laptop that can be used as a clamshell device or converted into a tablet by detaching the keyboard. Such 2-in-1 designs are an example of wider innovation in the PC industry and an attempt to change with the times. The HP Split x2 has a 13.3-inch touchscreen and two batteries. The Split x2 will sell for $800. HP also unveiled its HP SlateBook x2, an Android tablet that can be used either as a tablet or a laptop. It features an Nvidia Tegra 4 mobile processor and a 10.1-inch diagonal screen. The HP SlateBook x2 will sell for $480.

Intel is announcing today a trio of new low-power Atom microprocessors for enterprise hardware. The company made the announcements as part of its Intel Developer Forum event in Beijing today. The new chips show the company is serious about moving low-power processing technology into the heart of the data center.

The three new Atom chips are code-named Briarwood, Avoton, and Rangeley, Lisa Graff, VP and general manager of the Datacenter Marketing Group, said in a press call. The Briarwood chip, formally dubbed the Intel Atom Processor S12x9, will be used in storage applications. It can provide up to 40 lanes of input-output PCIe 2.0 capacity and other features for storage devices. That chip is available now.

The Avoton and Rangeley processors will be out in the second half of 2013. Avoton is a second-generation 64-bit system on a chip that uses Intel’s most advanced manufacturing process, the 22-nanometer technology with a microarchitecture dubbed Silvermont. Avoton will be targeted at micro servers, or low-power versions of enterprise servers that use lots of low-power cores rather than a small number of brainiac cores. That chip is available in samples now. Rangeley will be used in networking devices, including mid-range routers, switches, and security appliances.

Yesterday, Hewlett-Packard, which is perhaps Intel’s biggest customer, launched an Atom-based HP Moonshot server family. Those servers will use the Intel Atom S1200 processor family. HP will introduce that family of servers in the second half of the year.

In the long run, Intel’s goal is to enable technologies that will lead to the creation of smarter cities, healthier communities, and thriving businesses, according to Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Datacenter and Connected Systems Group. Worldwide, global datacenter traffic will reach 6.6 zettabytes by the end of 2016, according to the Cisco Global Cloud Index. Global Internet protocol traffic will reach 554 exabytes per month. To put that in perspective, mankind created only 5 exabytes of data from the dawn of civilization until 2003.

Intel has also created its own software distribution for Hadoop enterprise software. With it, China Mobile has been able to deliver inquiry results 30 times faster and with great ability to scale capacity in the future.

Intel isn’t ignoring the high-end of the server chip market either. The company will launch its 22-nanometer Xeon processor E5 family in the third quarter. It also has some other chips, dubbed E3 and E3, coming this year. That means Intel will have a complete refresh of its enterprise technology during 2013.

Lastly, Graff said that Intel is launching a Cloud Innovation Center in China to allow developers to test their software on Intel cloud technology so they can get products to market quicker.

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Intel is launching its code-named Haswell mobile processor for thin and light computers known as ultrabooks this June. That is a few months earlier than the world’s biggest chip maker previously expected, and it could fuel a whole generation of thin and light laptops and tablets.

The chip is Intel’s bid to save the PC from the attack of the ARM-based chip makers rising up from smartphones and tablets. Kirk Skaugen, the vice president of the PC client group at Intel, made the announcement at a press event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The strategic importance of saving the PC tells you why Intel is accelerating the launch of Haswell chips.

Skaugen said the fourth-generation Intel Core ultrabook platform will be “game-changers.” He said there are 130 ultrabooks coming to the market this year, and 40 of them have touchscreens. Some of those will sell for as little as $599, compared to $999 18 months ago. Intel’s chips were retrofitted for today’s ultrabooks. But notebook computers based on Intel’s code-named Haswell chip coming this June will live up to the Ultrabook name, Skaugen said.

“This is the largest battery-life increase in the history of Intel, from one generation to another,” he said.

More than 150 million notebooks are three years or older. Now 15-inch notebooks are less than a half-inch thick. With code-named Haswell coming in a few months, those notebooks will become even thinner and have better battery life.

Skaugen showed off a reference design for a 17-millimeter thick laptop which will have 13 hours of battery life.You can remove the keyboard and turn it into an 850-gram tablet that is just 10 millimeters thick and has 10 hours of battery life. Skaugen showed a high-end PC racing game running on the Haswell-based tablet.

Separately, Intel launched an ecosystem dubbed Bringing Family Night Back. With it, companies such as Ubisoft, Electronic Arts and Lenovo will create family games that can run on new PCs that are tabletop computers, much like the one that Lenovo launched Sunday.

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Intel announced a new smartphone platform that could get it into more emerging markets where cost is an issue. The code-named Lexington platform includes a Intel Atom Z2420 processor with an XMM 6265 companion modem chip.

Making progress in the mobile chip market is a strategic goal for Intel, which became the world’s largest chip maker on the strength of its business making chips for PCs.

In 2012, Intel launched chips inside smartphones from seven major companies, such as Google-Motorola and Lenovo. Those phones went to 25 countries, said Mike Bell, the vice president of the Mobile and Communications Group at Intel. To jump-start the market, Intel created reference designs for phones that its companies could adopt in order to get into the market more quickly. Bell made the announcement at Intel’s press event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today.

Bell showed off a reference design for the Lexington platform, which can handle full high-definition video encoding and decoding. It has good still image-capture capability. It has dual-SIM card capability for those who travel into different countries. It has FM radio, a MicroSD card slot for storage, and a wireless display technology transfer video from the phone to the big-screen TV.

“It’s really designed to be a no excuses, multipurpose phone,” he said. “It has no compromises.”

The first customers for the device include Acer, Lava and Safaricom.

Intel has 10 customers such as Acer and Fujitsu for its Clover Trail chips in tablet computers. The platform includes a dual-core, 1.8 GHz Atom Z2760 processor, delivering high-end performance with 10 hours of battery life, Bell said.

The next-generation Atom processor is code-named Bay Trail, with twice the performance of the current generation chip. It is a 22-nanometer, quad-core processor, and Bell showed it running in Pegatron and Wistron tablets with Windows 8. The device can also run Android. Those tablets are expected to come out in the holiday period of 2013.

“You see visions of things to come,” Bell said.

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Intel is holding its annual press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show on Monday, and it has described in broad terms what to expect, just so the leaks to the news media don’t get out of control. We may see some new chips from the world’s biggest chipmaker but not the set-top box that the company has been working on as a rival to Apple TV.

Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel (he retiring this spring), will not make an appearance. Instead, Kirk Skaugen is hosting the event; he’s the corporate vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group, an Intel spokesman said. Skaugen will likely show off Haswell, a new fourth-generation Core processor aimed at low-power, high-performance mobile devices. Haswell promises to make laptops and tablets much more powerful and power-efficient at the same time.

Intel will continue to focus on Windows 8′s capability to stretch across PCs and tablets. Skaugen will offer updates on Intel-based tablet computers, which are now shipping in the market. He will also talk about Ultrabooks (thin and light laptops) and convertibles (which combine features of laptops and tablets). Intel-based tablets are likely to be on display at the show, as computer makers now fully believe in the touchscreen trends. And Intel will likely talk about lower-power Ivy Bridge chips, based on its earlier generation of combo graphics-microprocessor chips. Those chips will likely run at below 10 watts of power consumption.

Mobile head Mike Bell will talk about new devices such as smartphones, but Intel will not likely say much about new mobile chip customers until later this spring at the Mobile World Congress event. That may disappoint some folks who want to see Intel make more progress in its expansion from the PC into mobile devices.

Mooly Eden, who hosted the press event for the last few years, now runs Intel Israel and he will make a cameo appearance to talk about Intel’s progress on “perceptual computing,” or using gestures and voice to enhance the touchscreen, keyboard and mouse input features of the PC. But those features aren’t necessarily going to arrive right away in new models.

Intel has already gotten notice for its work on a set-top box to rival Apple TV, but the spokesman said that it will not be shown at CES. Some work is going on at Intel, but it’s not ready yet. The Wall Street Journal reported that negotiations with content partners have delayed any announcement. CES press events start on Sunday, but the show floor opens on Tuesday and runs through Friday.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Intel showed off some new enterprise-ready Windows 8 tablets today for doctors and other professionals.

At the Intel Developer Forum today, Intel executive vice president Dadi Perlmutter showed off a tablet computer that could run an app that showed a (simulated) video of a live ultrasound of a baby. The enterprise-ready tablet has built-in security and other features that enterprises need to equip a work force. The tablets run Windows 8 and feature Intel’s Clover Trail microprocessors (branded Atom).

Perlmutter said 20 Atom-based tablets are under design and should launch after Microsoft debuts Windows 8 on Oct. 26. That’s a small number of designs, considering hundreds of Ultrabooks and other laptops are in the works. But it’s a start for Intel, which wants to break into the strategic market of chips for tablets.

The device has seamless integration and easy manageability for enterprise systems administrators. Intel also showed a Dell XPS Duo machine that could be converted from a laptop to a tablet with very little effort, just by flipping the keyboard under the screen.

Next year, Intel will launch its next-generation low-power chip, code-named Haswell, which will have twice the performance at the same power consumption of today’s Intel Atom chips.

Perlmutter said that Intel has deals to supply smartphone chips to five phone makers. But he had no new deals to announce. That will likely disappoint some Intel followers, who are hoping for Intel to make faster process against arch rival ARM and its chip partners.

Martin Reynolds, vice president at Gartner, said in an interview, “The Intel-based phones are competitive but not outstanding. If you go forward a year, at 22 nanometers, the battery life gets better. Or after that, at 14 nanometers two years from now, then Intel could deliver the same product at 75 percent less cost or two times to three times more performance at the same cost. Then it becomes hard to ignore what the Intel platform can bring.”

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Sean Maloney, Intel‘s newly appointed president of Intel China, plans to deliver a keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taiwan next week where he will unveil a heavy-duty effort to steer Intel into the production of low-power microprocessors.

Maloney is expected to say that Intel will accelerate its efforts to make chips that are more appropriate for tablet computers, smartphones, laptops, and low-power desktops. Intel has been doing that for some time. But Maloney, a well-respected executive who recovered from a stroke that kept him sidelined last year, is expected to push that even farther, according to a source familiar with the matter.

This shift within Intel is similar to the shift that occurred when it launched its Centrino laptop processors in 2003 — which Intel referred to as a right-hand turn. This is another right-hand turn, since the current roadmap isn’t as ambitious when it comes to low power consumption.

Most of Intel’s mainstream desktop chips target power consumption of about 40 watts or so. That allows for very fast microprocessor performance, but such a chip generates enough heat that it can’t be so easily used in a laptop and has no chance of making it into a tablet or smartphone. Now, Intel plans to target mainstream chips that consume about 15 watts.

That’s a big difference, but it doesn’t mean Intel will cancel a bunch of chips in development. Rather, the company will modify the roadmap over the next couple of years so that the center of its efforts focuses on 15 watt or lower wattage chips.

The company has already been moving in this direction for a number of years. Intel recently announced a new manufacturing innovation dubbed Tri-Gate transistors that will allow it to use lower power and smaller circuits in its 22 nanometer microprocessors. (Intel’s current Sandy Bridge chips use 32-nanometer manufacturing; the smaller the number, the faster, lower power, and lower cost.)  At its recent annual investor meeting, Intel showed a working 22-nanometer microprocessor code-named Ivy Bridge that is one of the flagship chips for this new low-power strategy. The Tri-Gate transistors take advantage of three dimensions and allow for a 50 percent power reduction at a given level of performance with only a 2 to 3 percent increase in costs. Ivy Bridge will be followed by a chip code-named Haswell that will represent the fruition of Intel’s efforts to reduce the average wattage of its mainstream chips.

Intel is also accelerating development of its lowest-power Atom microprocessors, which are targeted at smartphones, tablets and ultrathin laptops. The Atom chips have been shipping for a number of years, but Intel will turn up the treadmill now. It will shift from 45 nanometer Atom chips this year to 32 nanometer chips and then 22-nanometer chips in 2012. With every manufacturing shift, Intel can make its chips cheaper, faster, smaller and lower power. That pace of innovation is faster than the pace of Moore’s Law (observed in 1965 by Intel chairman emeritus Gordon Moore), which says the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years.

Intel is also designing a brand new Atom single-chip computer architecture, code-named Silvermont, from the ground up. Those chips are also going to be designed for low power, and the cadence for introducing new chips will become increasingly faster. The 22-nanometer Silvermont chips are expected to be introduced around 2013.

“Intel will completely focus a huge percentage of consumer microprocessors toward mainstream, low-power, ultra-thin, no-compromise computers,” said the source. “The center point of the roadmap will be all about ultra-mobility.”

By the end of 2012, a large percentage of consumer laptops will be in the ultrathin category — think MacBook Air laptops that cost a lot less than they do today and have a lot more performance and all-day battery life. That’s the kind of machine that will use the chips that Intel is placing at the center of its efforts.

Asia is a good place to make the announcement since China is expected to be the largest PC market in the world starting next year. Maloney’s assignment to that region is significant. Maloney was considered the heir apparent to Intel chief executive Paul Otellini. But a stroke threw him off that path. He returned to work in January and is regaining control of his motor skills.

Intel’s Atom processors are beginning to appear in tablet computers and about 10 of them will be shown off at the Computex show in Taiwan.