lynnfield

The mysteries of the Lynnfield and Jasper Forest die photos (from last week's post titled "Investigating Intel's Lynnfield mysteries") were all cleared up at the Intel Developer Forum last week, and as expected, there was nothing sinister going on--just some confusion in Intel's graphics arts department.

With the help of the always-helpful George Alfs of Intel's press relations department and Intel vice president Mooly Eden (general manager of Intel's PC Client Group), we got everything straightened out. Literally!

Here's the die photo of Intel's Lynnfield chip from my previous post:

This is the newest (shipping) part based on the Nehalem microarchitecture, differing from the earlier Bloomfield by the addition of an on-die PCI Express controller. Both chips are made in Intel's 45nm process technology.

According to Eden, the Lynnfield chip design is shared with several other Intel chips that will be on the market soon, including… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel is expected to roll out the first "Nehalem" processor for laptops on Wednesday.

Nehalem is Intel's new processor microarchitecture and is used currently in its high-performance Core i7 series of desktop processors and more inexpensive Core i5 series. The chipmaker is expected to move most laptop, desktop, and server processors to the Nehalem architecture in 2010.

The Core i7 "Clarksfield"--expected to be introduced Wednesday at the Intel Developer Forum--is a quad-core processor for higher-end laptop designs. Laptop models from major PC makers are also expected.

The Nehalem architecture will manifest itself later … Read more

Updated on September 23 at 12:30 a.m. PDT: adding information about the Atom Developer Program.

SAN FRANCISCO--In his keynote at the Intel Developer Forum on Tuesday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini focused on moving beyond the PC while introducing a new processor technology and a new development platform for the Atom processor.

"We're moving from personal computers to personal computing," Otellini said.

He called this a transition to a continuum. "The same experience on any device. How we build this continuum out. That's the theme," he said. "Moore's Law, platform architecture, … Read more

I have a few questions to ask at this week's Intel Developer Forum....

Why is Intel using a more expensive chip for the new Core i5 and cheaper Core i7 processors? Why does this new chip--code-named Lynnfield--appear to have features Intel isn't using? What's the connection between Lynnfield and a future Intel chip code-named Jasper Forest?

These questions arose as I've been getting ready for IDF by reviewing recent press releases and news stories about Intel's current and forthcoming products, and chatting with fellow analysts about what we're looking forward to seeing there.

The recent announcements of the Core i5 and new Core i7 processors seemed pretty straightforward. Consider Brooke Crothers' piece on CNET: "Out with the old: Intel makes Core 'i' chips cheap." As Crothers explains, the facts are simple: the new Core i7 800-series slots in under the existing 900-series and replaces some older parts. The Core i5 is a new line, clearly positioned below the Core i7. Features, performance, and prices are all lower. That's as it should be.

But in looking at the coverage on some enthusiast sites, a fact jumped out at me. The Lynnfield chip is 12.5 percent larger than the Bloomfield chip used in the higher-priced Core i7 900-series processors (296 square mm vs. 263 square mm), in spite of the fact that Lynnfield only has two memory interfaces and no QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) link.

The big difference between the chips is the addition of 16 lanes of PCI Express on Lynnfield, but that's only about 80 pins plus the control logic. The changes should have roughly canceled each other out. Maybe one chip would be a little bigger than the other, but not by this much.… Read more

Updated at 2:15 p.m. PDT: adding information about Dell system.

The main message of the new Core i5 chip is simple: it's cheap--even cheaper than Intel chips based on older technology.

The i5, which brings Intel's new "Nehalem" microarchitecture into the mainstream PC market, immediately makes many, if not most, of the older desktop processors obsolete. Consumers need look no further than pricing on sites like Amazon. The i5-750 lists for $250, while the older--based on Intel's last-generation "Core 2" microarchitecture--Q9650 lists for $319.

The official pricing from Intel in quantities … Read more

Waiting for a Core i7 laptop? While Intel is slated to release its first mobile "Nehalem" Core i7 processor in the coming months, the desktop counterpart has already spawned a cottage industry of benchmark-busting laptops.

"It's completely revitalized the desktop replacement laptop," said Kelt Reeves, president of enthusiast PC maker Falcon Northwest, referring to designs that have shoehorned a desktop Core i7 processor into a laptop enclosure.

At the very high end of Falcon Northwest's lineup, interest has shifted to models with the Core i7 processor and away from models oriented around extreme-performance graphics … Read more

Core i3, i5, i7. A straightforward, if not insipid, branding scheme, right? Wrong. Those alphanumeric identifiers are fighting words.

Last week, Intel announced a new branding scheme for its upcoming processors. In a blog, spokesman Bill Calder wrote that the branding will be "simplified into entry-level (Intel Core i3), mid-level (Intel Core i5), and high-level (Intel Core i7)." Intel calls the "i" suffix an identifier.

The upcoming Lynnfield chip for desktop PCs, for example, will be available as either Intel Core i5 or Intel Core i7 depending upon the feature set and capability. The upshot of the new branding is to make it easier for less tech-savvy consumers to readily identify classes of Intel chips based three simple identifiers, according to Calder.

But judging by the tenor of many of the comments attached to Calder's brand structure blog, you would think the chipmaker had committed high treason.

In the minds of some, it did. The shortcomings of the current naming scheme notwithstanding, many tech-savvy consumers have gotten used to it. For example, Core 2 Quad means a chip built on the Core 2 architecture with 4 processing cores. Core 2 Duo indicates two cores.

One of the most common criticisms cited in the comments section is that i3, i5, and i7 are too vague. "Above all, I'd like to see...at a glance how many cores and what features they have (or have not)," one comment said. Another comment suggested that Intel add more identifiers. For example, Intel Core i5 4100, where 4 is the number of cores and 100 is a speed rating.

Yet another idea was this: Intel/name/number/year, where "name" is the product name, "number" is a bigger-is-better ranking, and "year" the year the architecture was released.

And another: "Either ditch the Celeron, Pentium and Xeon names completely or embrace them completely. These are fairly well known as the 'good, better, best'." … Read more

Updated at 12:15 p.m. PDT: adding Centrino and Deborah Conrad discussions.

Intel has spelled out its branding for the upcoming Core series of processors including the "Lynnfield" and "Clarksfield" chips. The chipmaker also said that "Centrino" will be phased out as a PC brand.

In a post Wednesday on Intel's Web site, spokesman Bill Calder wrote that the branding will be "simplified into entry-level (Intel Core i3), mid-level (Intel Core i5), and high-level (Intel Core i7)."

Calder added that it is "important to note that these are not … Read more

Intel appears ready to take another crack at flash memory-based acceleration--this time offering it with future chipsets.

"Braidwood is a flash memory technology that provides faster boot-up time, faster application launch, and a snappier, more responsive system," said Rob Crooke, vice president and general manager of Intel's Business Client Group, speaking during a presentation streamed over the Web from the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, earlier this week.

Braidwood will be offered with the future "5 Series" chipset family--which is Intel's first single-chip chipset--and the future "Clarkdale" processor (see discussion below).

The … Read more