In Search of the Elusive 35W Ivy Bridge Quad-Core

Prior to this year's IDF, Intel told its partners that Ivy Bridge would be available in a quad-core mobile variant with a 35W TDP. This was particularly exciting news as it meant OEMs could design even smaller quad-core notebooks, potentially even getting four Ivy Bridge cores into something the size of a 13-inch MacBook Pro.

The most recent Ivy Bridge roadmap leaks however haven't mentioned anything about a 35W quad-core part. Kristian hypothesized that the missing 35W CPUs may be OEM only and we might just have to bide our time before they show up. Today, VR-Zone identified a handful of unlisted OEM-only mobile IVB parts that may be the elusive 35W quad-cores we've been looking for. The Core i7-361x series (3610, 3612, 3615 - QE/QM suffixes) are all supposed to run at either 2.1GHz or 2.3GHz (down from 2.6 - 2.9GHz with the standard 45W parts) and feature a 6MB L3 cache. The significantly lower base clock is normally indicative of a lower TDP, which lends credibility to the theory that these are the missing 35W parts. Despite the lower base clock, turbo is supported at up to 3.1GHz or 3.3GHz depending on the CPU.

We're still waiting to see an official-looking Intel document confirming this, but given VR-Zone's track record with Intel roadmap leaks I'd say this is a promising start.

Source: VR-Zone via CPU World