Intel turbocharges next-gen processors

Posted on 20 Aug 2008 at 09:56

Intel has unveiled its next generation processor family, which includes a new turbo mode that shifts the processor into a higher gear without generating extra heat.

Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, told the company’s Developer Forum that the first Core i7 processors will be released for servers, with desktop and laptop version to follow in the second half of 2009. In addition to the turbocharger, the early versions promise up to eight-threaded performance capability on four cores and what Intel claims is best-in-class memory bandwidth thanks to new QuickPath Interconnect technology that connects processors, chipsets and memory together. It delivers up to three times the memory bandwidth of previous generation Core architectures.

“Our engineers have put together an incredible processing family here that will include a tremendous amount of new processor features all centred on delivering faster computer performance and terrific energy efficiency,” Gelsinger said.

Gelsinger also introduced a new low power version of its Core 2 Extreme processor, the first version for laptops, and new dual-core chips for ultraportable notebooks.

Elsewhere at the forum, Intel showed off new solid state drives (SSDs) which it claims deliver dramatically better performance and lower power consumption than existing SSDs. Its demonstrations showed the 80GB model achieving a sustained 212MB/sec read speed, while a RAID array of two 10,000rpm hard drives averaged around 180MB/sec.

Author: Simon Aughton / Darien Graham-Smith in San Francis

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