What is the next line of PC's computer chips, or hardware, going to be called as of March 3, 2014?

“Sandy Bridge” has come and gone; it was replaced in 2012 with “Ivy Bridge”, which is also deprecated. The “Haswell” series of i3/5/7 are the current generation.

To compare, I have an old “Clarkdale” i3–530. According to PassMark, my CPU scores 2596. The lowest “Sandy Bridge” i3 was the i3–2100, which clocked in at 3613, making it more powerful than the fastest “Clarkdale” i5 (the i5–680) which got 3539.

Some of the “Haswell” i3s beat the lower end of the “Clarkdale” i7s, while the “Haswell i7s are more than most people need.

Note that they are all marketed at i3/5/7s though. The model number is very important!

Clarkdale = 3-digit (Socket LGA 1156)
Sandy Bridge = iX-2xxx (Socket LGA 1155)
Ivy Bridge = iX-3xxx (Socket LGA 1155)
Haswell = iX-4xxx (Socket LGA1150)

With the exception of upgrading from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge, a new CPU requires a new motherboard due to Intel changing sockets. I need a new system to upgrade my system as the LGA1156 i7s are not worth the high price of the upgrade; I could get a new, faster i5 CPU/motherboard combo for less than they want for an old LGA1156 i7!

@jerv So I should purchase a better Intel CoreI5. I have a Intel CoreI5 Aspire S3 with windows 8.1 . I don’t know what a socket is.
Haswell = iX-4xxx (Socket LGA1150)

I really don’t see CPU’s getting much better. I have a 2500K overclocked to 4.7Ghz. I never really sit around wishing it was faster unless I encode video.

Haswell is already at 22 nm. It is going to be hard to get better. Really, the CPU is no longer the problem, the hard drive is. The future is in faster solid state drives. Seriously, get a SSD. It is ballsCrazy! Photoshop opens during my blink.

Sockets only apply to desktops; computers that are actually capable of being upgraded as opposed to requiring a total system replacement at end-of-life. Your laptop’s CPU is slightly less powerful than my desktop despite being 2 generations newer and a tier higher; such is part of the price of having a laptop instead of a desktop.

But your CPU is plenty powerful anyways unless you get into the sort of stuff that laptops are incapable of in the first place without melting, like heavy rendering (hardcore gaming, CAD/CAM, video editing). @johnpowell is correct that the CPU is really not the bottleneck any more. Most systems are hampered by slow storage (hard drives vs SSDs) and/or weak GPUs (especially laptops and most iMacs).

Personally, I’ve been on my box for almost 4 years, and it still has the same CPU and 6GB RAM it started with. The only upgrades I’ve made are a better video card (first a GT 240, then a GTX 465) and a Cooler Master 600W power supply as 300W just won’t cut it. I play Skyrim and my other games at smooth framerates on High/Ultra details a 1920×1080, and that is mostly a result of my video card; a new CPU really wouldn’t help me much.

Just upgrade your vide….ooohh, that’s right; laptops can’t upgrade their video cards. Looks like your next upgrade should be a desktop computer. If you insist on laptops, the only upgrade you can really do is replace the hard drive with and SSD, but that won’t improve your framerates, or most other benchmarks. You’ll boot faster, load faster, but process at the same speed as ever.

@johnpowell I agreee, it’s all about the SSD.
I have an Ivy Bridge processor, but the difference it makes from something being on my normal HD vs my SSD is insane. Seriously, my computer takes longer to POST than it does to actually boot.

@uberbatman :: You should try the PCI-E SSD’s in new Macs. They are significantly faster than a SATA3 SSD.