Intel Core i7 processors
In his Intel Developer Forum keynote, Pat Gelsinger detailed the roadmap for Intel’s continued march toward pervasive, higher performance and power-efficient computing.
The senior vice-president and GM of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group discussed new features of the company’s next-generation processor family, including a turbo mode that shifts the processor into a higher gear without a heat penalty.
The company’s first desktop PC chips, branded Intel Core i7 processors and initial energy-efficient, high-performance server products (codenamed "Nehalem-EP") will be first to production.
Intel is also planning to manufacture a second server derivative designed for the expandable sever market ("Nehalem-EX"), and desktop ("Havendale" and "Lynnfield") and mobile ("Auburndale" and "Clarksfield") client versions in the second half of next year.
"Our engineers have put together a processing family that will include new processor features all centred on delivering faster computer performance and improved energy efficiency," Gelsinger adds.
The next-generation Core micro-architecture also features Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, designed to deliver up to 8-threaded performance capability on 4 cores in the initial versions and improved memory bandwidth thanks to QuickPath Interconnect.
QuickPath is a technology designed to connect processors, chipsets and memory together, and is said to deliver up to three times the memory bandwidth of previous generation Core micro-architecture solutions.