Intel has updated its plans with the desktop CPU lineup across segments with some of the current products getting discontinued from manufacturing. The company will send product discontinuance notices (PDNs), documents sent to relevant firms in the industry, notifying them of a time-frame in which the company plans to stop production of a product. Some products are also slated to reach end of life (EOL). Along with this, there are also plans to bring in new products based on the current architecture.

Sources at motherboard vendors tell that by Q1 2009, the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 and QX9650 discontinue, with PDNs being issued. They will be totally phased-out by Q2. The company will also send out PDNs for four quad-core CPUs including the Core 2 Quad Q9450, ten dual-core CPUs including the Core 2 Duo E8300, three Pentium CPUs including the Pentium E2220 and the Celeron E1200 starting in November, and all products will phase out between the first and second quarters next year. Other highlights include:

DigiTimes made today the early announcement of two low-power AMD desktop processors that are to appear sometime in November. The Athlon 2650E and Athlon X2 3250E will both be part of the company's UVC (Ultra-Value Client) product line targeting OEMs. The single core 2650E CPU will have a core frequency of 1.6GHz and TDP of 15W, while the dual-core Athlon X2 3250e will have a core frequency of 1.5GHz and TDP of 22W. The two CPUs will be fabbed on a 65nm process and will initially be provided to OEM customers only. Manufacturers like ASUSTeK Computer, Acer and Shuttle, are expected to show up machines powered by the two processors in December. In additional news, AMD is also planning to launch a triple-core Phenom X3 8850 CPU using a 65nm process in early October. The CPU will feature a core frequency of 2.5GHz and a maximum TDP of 95W. The company will also launch a new Black Edition CPU in December.

Chinese researchers unveiled details of a general-purpose microprocessor with which they hope to give computing to the most ordinary people in China. The chip, code-named "Godson-3", was developed with government funding by more than 200 researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology (ICT). Analysts suggest this takes China one step closer technological independence.

These chips are being manufactured by ST Microelectronics and branded as "Loongson" meaning Dragon Chip. Predecessors of this chip have been manufactured since 2001 and with its advancement marks rapid propagation of the Linux platform and other open-source software. These PCs would make it to as many workplaces and schools as the Chinese government can take them to. It is noted that the Godson-3 that has four processing cores releases in 2009 with a design that is scalable. In fact an 8-core version is planned as well. These chips use the 65nm fabrication process, with the 4-core version rated to consume as low as 10W. An interesting bit on the machine architecture is that these chips aren't x86 per say, but the designers have added instruction sets to simulate an x86-like environment. With it they hope to run a broader range of software, Microsoft Windows included. Since its a simulated x86 environment, a license from Intel isn't required. Erik Metzger, a patent attorney at Intel, says that the chip will only perform at about 80% of the speed of an actual x86 chip.

Without doubt, AMD needs something revolutionary to pull it out of the mess it set itself in. AMD's first reaction to the Conroe onslaught was to lower prices and build up a "Smarter Choice" repute, though with successive price cuts from Intel and down-scale products based on the Core architecture coming out by the fortnight, and the transit to 45nm fab process, there's been an increasing need for AMD to get back to the drawing boards with their CPU division.

From what looks like an excerpt from an AMD company slide, can be seen AMD's CPU plans for 2009. The chart broadly shows that K10 architecture is here to stay. Throughout the year, desktop CPUs based on the K10 architecture feature in the roadmap, with no signs of their "truly next-gen" architecture. AMD completes its transit to the 45nm silicon fabrication process and will finally embrace DDR3 system memory standards. To begin with, the fact that the Deneb core's entry slightly steps into the 2008 column shows that the Deneb core-based desktop CPU could release sometime towards the very end of this year. Sources note that two models based on the Deneb core could be out by the end of this year. It supports both DDR2 and DDR3 memory standards and socket compatible with current AM2+ and future AM3. From what's known so far, AM3 is the same 940 pin design that adds pins for the DDR3 memory interconnect between the CPU and the memory.

After Intel slashed the prices of several dual and quad core processors in the beginning of the week, today AMD informed it is tweaking the prices of three Phenom CPUs, too. First to receive price reduction is the 2.1GHz clocked triple core Phenom X3 8450, going down from $125 to $104. Second one is the 2.2GHz Phenom X4 9550 lowering down from $175 to $154. Third and final is the 2.6GHz X4 9850 Black Edition down from $205 to $194. All prices are for 1000-unit tray quantities.

Intel will release four mid-thru-high range desktop processors tomorrow. These CPUs will be based on the 45nm Yorkfield and Wolfdale cores. Two new Core 2 Quad models, the performance segment Q9650 and the mainstream segment Q9400 are dressed up. The Q9650 has identical parameters to the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 barring the locked FSB multiplier of 9x. The Q9400 is an improvement over the current Q9300. It has a 2.66 GHz core clock speed with a total of 6 MB L2 cache and an FSB multiplier of 8x.

With the Core 2 Duo, there is a top of the line dual core chip, the E8600 which comes with 3.33 GHz core speed, 6 MB of L2 cache and an FSB multiplier of 10x. There's also a mid-range offering, the E7300 that comes with 2.66 GHz core speed, 1066 MHz FSB and an FSB multiplier of 10x. It has 3 MB of L2 cache.

This is for all of you, who are impatiently waiting for that new CPU, the X58 boards with that new socket and that triple channel DDR3 support. Maximum PC has managed to get their hands on everything needed to build one of these systems. They give single, dual and triple channel memory setups a try as well. To top things off, they have even taken a few images. One image from Maximum PC can be seen below, but make sure to take a look at all the other ones on their site.

The newest fleet of quad-core desktop processors from AMD, the Deneb series is tested by Chinese website Zol to consume up to 12 per cent less power compared to equally clocked 65nm Agena parts, add to that, the fact that the 45nm Deneb comes with three times the amount of L3 cache, 6 MB.

The 45nm and 65nm parts were compared on a MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboard with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 card, a single 320 GB HDD, two modules of 1GB DDR2 1066 MHz memory, the test-bed was powered by a Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W PSU. Power consumption was calculated in idle and load (the CPUs were stressed using instances of Orthos).

Following price-cuts for some of the desktop offerings (covered here) , Intel has cut the prices of some models of the enterprise-segment Xeon processor, reports industry observer DigiTimes.

The Xeon X3220, X3210 and E3110 get a roughly 12% cut with the X3220 and X3210 both dropping from an original price of US $224 to US $198 with the E3110 price dropping from US $188 to US $167, according to the company.

Here's something new: A CPU cooler that comprises of a circulatory mechanism of liquid-metal, the liquid-metal has higher thermal conductivity than other liquid media, flowing liquid metal across an array of metal fins to disperse heat, and the cycle continues. What's more, the liquid is inextinguishable. That's 'cool'. Danamics innovated such a cooler for today's CPUs called the LM10.

The cooler also has no moving parts. The pump that circulates liquid-metal across tubes doesn't have them either. The pump functions on the principles of electromagnetic flow, the ferromagnetic liquid is subjected to flow caused due to changes in polarity of electromagnets. With no moving parts, the MTBF is substantially increased. Of course, you can use a retention module of some sort to hook up a fan or two on each side of the heatsink. This product will be available soon. For more information, please visit this page.

One of the newest toys at Tom's Hardware is a Nehalem derivative Intel Bloomfield processor clocked at 2.93 GHz. This processor brings with it, a host of changes. To begin with, say goodbye to FSB. The processor communicates with the system using a technology called QuickPath interconnect. This is a high-speed, low-latency point to point link. It's comparable to the HyperTransport technology, which AMD has been using for close to five years now. Initially, Bloomfield will use a 20-bit wide 25.6 GB/sec. QuickPath link. The CPU incorporates the memory controller, which implies that your choice of memory will depend on the processor. As already noted in regard to the AMD processors, this approach of integrating a memory controller greatly reduces system-level latency. The CPU supports 3-channel DDR3 1333 MHz memory. That's 32 GB/s of bandwidth, with support for up to 24 GB of system memory. Of the six DDR3 slots, the first slot is required to be populated.

Unfortunately, Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) don't allow them to disclose performance evaluations at this point though - ironically - their Taiwanese team ran preliminary tests on a Radeon HD4850 and a Foxconn X58 motherboard we covered here.Read the whole article here.

As of today, AMD is close to over a year and a half behind Intel with the implementation of the DDR3 system memory standard, and it doesn't look like we are going to see a DDR3 AMD platform only until late this year or early next year. Chilian website CHW.net published slides of the roadmaps for AMD chipsets in the months to come, also published are slides refering to the details of the next generation southbridge by AMD, even though the latest entry, the SB700 is only teething and only the latest motherboards with 7-Series chipsets feature this.

NVIDIA today unveiled its first CPU. The APX 2500 is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) product that is aiming for Windows Mobile handhelds. Despite the fact that it is not scheduled to hit the market until late this year, the chip is bound to raise more than just one eyebrow. Basically, the APX 2500 is a cocktail consisting of an ARM11 processor core and lots of technologies borrowed from the GeForce pool. Interestingly, the manufacturer opted not to tout the GoForce brand in this instance, but to put "Ultra-Low Power GeForce" (ULP GeForce) into the spotlight. The GeForce part comes with a programmable pixel shader integrating a programmable vertex & lighting engine. Anti-Aliasing is supported via a CSAA filter for 2D and 3D modes. The chip clocks have not been disclosed, sans the fact that the ARM11 is running at 750 MHz. API-wise, we're talking about OpenGL ES 2.0 and D3D Mobile support. NVIDIA decided to use the shortcut HD AVP (High Definition Audio Video Processor) to describe the video processing capabilities of the SoC. We have to admit that we are a bit surprised that the company did not use a phrase like PureVideo Mobile or simply continues on the PureVideo HD path. On the technology side, HD AVP includes HD video encode and decode (albeit "only" 720p) and NVIDIA claims that the video playback will not eat up CPU cycles, apparently resulting in overall lower power consumption.