SHANE MORTON/Fairfax NZ

POWERFUL: When installed in a compatible motherboard, Intels new Ivy Bridge processor makes the personal computer fly.

Intel's new range of Ivy Bridge central processing units is delivering unheard of speeds in personal computers.

When installed in the right kind of motherboard and using the latest solid state hard disk drives and memory it's not uncommon to see a 60 per cent increase in performance - the Windows personal computer operating system starts in just one second.

And it's all down to what Intel is calling "3-D transistors" at the heart of the CPU.

Graham Tucker, technical manager for Intel in Australia and New Zealand, said the new 22 nanometre transistors were smaller than the 2-D predecessors, which were like a piece of paper.

The innovation, Mr Tucker said, delivered more computational power while using less energy.

The new Ivy Bridge chips, Mr Tucker said, also removed the need for dedicated graphic processing units (GPUs) in the case of most personal computers.

"The need for having one is more nice now. You would need to have a good reason like if you were an architect doing 3-D modelling."

The new processors are not just limited to the traditionally more powerful desktop computers with their roomy towers but have also been engineered for more compact, in fact cramped, laptop computers.

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New processor gives computers speed boost