Intel’s next-generation Ivy Bridge has now become the company’s current-generation flagship CPU architecture. Built at 22nm, it’s primarily a die shrink of the highly successful Sandy Bridge platform, allowing for greater power efficiency and thereby higher performance ceilings relative to its predecessor. Ivy Bridge was slightly delayed in making it to the market, but in late April 2012, Intel finally set laptop and desktop makers loose, triggering a deluge of upgrades of computer systems, both young and old.
