August 10, 2008
Intel Core i7 CPUs sport energy saving feature
Company's first 45nm desktop chips will be focus of IDF
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Intel Corp. will describe a new technique to drive energy efficiency in its upcoming Nehalem 45nm desktop processors which it will dub the Core i7 family at the Intel Developer Forum Aug. 19. At
IDF, Intel will also reveal plans for a quad-core notebook CPU and news about its emerging line of consumer electronics chips.
The San Francisco event will mark a coming out party for the Core i7 devices. The chips are Intel's first to integrate a memory controller and high-speed, cache-coherent interconnect, following in the footsteps of archrival Advanced Micro Devices.
The Core i7 will have an edge on AMD's latest processors because they use a 45nm process and support two-way multithreading. Quad-core desktop versions of the chips will ship by the end of the year, and Intel will detail plans for server and notebook versions at the event.
Intel would not reveal the nature of the new energy efficiency feature in the Core i7 chips. A company spokesman said it is not a direct evolution of the Intel's SpeedStep technology that automates frequency scaling based on workloads.
In other news, Intel is expected to talk about several system-on-chip products, mainly targeted at consumer markets. The company recently rolled out the first such x86-based SoCs for embedded systems.
At IDF, Intel will also discuss software plans for Larrabee, a multi-core x86 chip geared for graphics and expected to ship by 2010. In addition, it will describe new dimensions of its partnership with Dreamworks Animation related to Larrabee.
The event will also include an on-stage interview with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. About 5,000 people are expected to attend and about 180 will exhibit at IDF, now in its eleventh year.
