David Flynn21 August 2008, 8:30 AM
Gamer and workstation-class mobile processors join ultra-small chips and, err, a new Celeron M..?
With a year until the first mobile
Nehalem chips arrive, Intel is set to keep churning out 45nm Penryn-class Core 2 processors based on the current Core microarchitecture and the updated Centrino 2 ‘Montevina’ platform. (Feeling a little dizzy from all those brands? You’re not alone!).
The latest in that line are the long-awaited quad core mobile processors: the Core 2 Quad Q9100 (each core clocks at 2.26GHz) and the gamer’s delight Core 2 Extreme QX9300 (four cores which roar along at 2.53GHz). Both sport a meaty 12MB of L2 cache and, as shown in on-stage demonstrations here at IDF Fall, are capable of running full-screen videoconferencing at 720p. Plus serious gaming pwnage, if allied to a discrete mobile GPU.
Intel’s price to system builders is US$1,038 (A$1200) per thousand, which sounds gulp-inducing but is only around US$150 (A$170) more than the dual-core Extreme 9000 and Extreme 7000 series. The four-cylinder Core 2 Extreme QX9300 comes barely a year after Intel released the double-barrel
Core 2 Extreme X7800, which was its first ‘Extreme edition' mobile CPU.
Also ready to roll are the Penryn ‘small package’ processors for thin and light ultra-portables. Dell’s
Latitude E4200 and Lenovo’s
ThinkPad X200 are expected to be the first sub-notes fitted with one of these. Rumours persist that Apple will
refresh the MacBook Air with the new 45nm pint-sized Penryn displacing the 65nm mini-Merom and also boost the size of the solid-state drive.
Oddly enough, the ramp of fresh-baked processors also included a ‘value’ ultra-low voltage Celeron M clocked at 1.2GHz with a 10 watt ceiling and priced at US$161 (around US$100 less than the equivalent Core 2 Duo mobile chip).
Dadi Perlmutter, general manager for Intel’s Mobile Platforms group, also presented the first demo of a quad-core mobile processor from the sixth-gen ‘
Calpella’ Centrino platform, which is based on the Nehalem microarchitecture and due to arrive in late 2009.
David Flynn is attending IDF Fall 2008 in San Francisco as a guest of Intel.