Intel Corp. announced on Wednesday that its server and workstation products made using 45nm process technology are on schedule, and will be available this year.

Kirk Skaugen, the chief of Intel's Xeon group, said during a conference call with analysts that the company plans to introduce low-power quad-core chip with 50W thermal design power in early March, to present code-named Caneland multi-processor server platform in Q3 2007 and to launch the first Xeon DP (dual processor) products made using 45nm process technology in the second half of the year.

The new Intel Xeon 45nm microprocessor for dual-socket applications based on the core that Intel calls Penryn will be drop-in compatible with the company's contemporary Intel 5000-series core-logic sets (code-named Bensley and Glidewell platforms), however, there will be an improved version of the Intel 5000-series chipset aimed at HPC/WS market segments that features 1600MHz processor system bus (PSB) coming in the second half of the year to support higher-performance Xeon "Clovertown" chips with operation at 3GHz.

In a presentation Intel reveals a 3GHz 1600MHz FSB quad core Xeon. New features aren't mentioned. If Intel doesn't stay ahead of AMD with this chip they have yet another weapon nearing completion, the 45nm Xeon parts which should offer even higher clock speeds and more cache are over 3 months ahead of schedule. Intel will also launch Tigerton for quad socket configurations in Q3 this year, with Tigerton Intel should reclaim the crown on the multi socket market as well. If this will actually be enough to beat Barcelona (K10, former K8L) is yet to be seen, it looks promising though.

For the full presentation follow the source.

ChileHardware bring us pictures of a Micro ATX motherboard featuring Intel's G33 chipset (otherwise known as Bearlake), coupled with the ICH9 southbridge.

Specifications are likely to be the following:

• Socket LGA 775, Micro ATX
• Supports Intel Core 2 Duo/Celeron 400 Series Processor
• Intel G33 + ICH9
• FSB 1333 MHz
• Supports Dual Channel DDR2 667/800 MHz
• 4 x DDR2 DIMM Memory Slots, Max. Supports up to 8GB Memory
• 1 x PCI-E x16, 1 x PCI-E x1, 2 x PCI Slots
• On Board Graphic Max. Memory Share 384 MB
• 8+2-Channel HD Audio, 12 x USB 2.0
• 4 x SATAII 3Gb/s Connectors, GbE LAN

Alienware, a famous computer manufacturer and system integrator, today announced that the Area-51 7500 desktops will be available with Intel's quad-core Q6600 CPUs.

According to senior vice president Brian Joyce, "…customers will instantly see a performance increase on processor-intensive applications such as gaming, video editing and encoding."

In addition to four computing cores in a single processor package, the unique-looking Alienware-branded 7500 also features Windows Vista, NVIDIA Next Generation Graphics, low-latency DDR 2 memory, nForce 6 SLI x16 Motherboard and HDCP ready graphics.

Primarily aimed at gamers and multimedia enthusiasts, the Area-51 7500 costs around £1,408 inc VAT (approx. $2800) and will be available from 6th March from the Alienware website.

The lawsuit, brought about by investors, accuses computer maker Dell Inc. of "secretly receiving approximately $250 million a quarter in likely illegal kickbacks payments" from its long time partner Intel. This money was supposedly received in return for an exclusive purchase agreement for Intel's microprocessors. Chip maker Intel claims that the accusations are just a renewal of similar previous complaints by chip maker AMD (Advanced Micro Devices). Dell would not comment on the lawsuit. In the past Dell has only used processors manufactured by Intel, but just last year began buying processors from Intel's competition AMD.

In addition, Dell is also currently under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Justice Dept. for its accounting practices.

Source: CNNMoney

Pictures of parts of a motherboard using Intel's P35 Express chipset have been posted at Chile Hardware:Motherboards featuring the upcoming Intel P35 Express variant from the upcoming Bearlake-family desktop chipsets will be some of the first to support DDR3 memory. They are officially slated for late 2007.

Apparently the chipset not only supports DDR3, but is also backwards compatible with DDR2. However, both cannot be used at the same time. The leaked motherboard supports up to four sticks of DDR3 memory rated at 800 MHz or 1066 MHz.

It will also support up to a 1333 MHz front-side-bus on Socket T, also known as LGA775 processors. LGA775 processors supported by the upcoming P35 Express-based board include Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Celeron 4xx-series. There is no mention if previous Pentium 4, Pentium D and Celeron D processors for LGA775 remain supported on the new platform.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 11, 2007 - Intel Corporation researchers have developed the world's first programmable processor that delivers supercomputer-like performance from a single, 80-core chip not much larger than the size of a finger nail while using less electricity than most of today's home appliances. This is the result of the company's innovative 'Tera-scale computing' research aimed at delivering Teraflop -- or trillions of calculations per second --performance for future PCs and servers. Technical details of the Teraflop research chip will be presented at the annual Integrated Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) this week in San Francisco.

As you probably know, Intel is working on their own graphics card. Most people scoff at this idea, considering that Intel was rumored to buy NVIDIA so that they could have graphics cards. However, in a few years (late 2008/2009), Intel is planning on becoming a serious threat to the market dominance owned by NVIDIA and ATI. Intel is claiming that by late 2008 they will have at least sampled a card with multiple cores (up to sixteen) on one die. They also claim they will be able to do this on a 32nm architecture. This 16 core, 32nm GPU is estimated to run sixteen times faster than the 8800GTX.

For the first time in 66 years, there are an equal number of female and male finalists.

Forty high school seniors today were named finalists for the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) 2007. The competition is America's oldest and most prestigious high school science competition; six former finalists have won the Nobel Prize and others have been awarded the Fields Medal, the National Medal of Science and MacArthur Foundation fellowships.

Intel expects to introduce its high-end Core 2 Extreme branding to notebooks in Q3'2007 according to the latest roadmap. The upcoming Core 2 Extreme X7800 uses the same Merom core used by the Core 2 Duo mobile family of processors. Intel's Core 2 Extreme X7800 will arrive clocked at 2.6GHz with 800MHz FSB and 4MB of L2 cache like the rest of the Core 2 Duo family. Intel technologies such as VT, EIST, EM64T and XD/NX bit are also supported, though Intel has removed support for Intel Dynamic Acceleration. The Core 2 Extreme X7800 for mobile will remain at the top of Intel's chain of mobile processors until the upcoming Core 2 Extreme X7900(2.8GHz 4MB L2) dethrones it in Q4'2007. The price of Core 2 Duo Extreme X7800 for notebooks in Q3'2007 is expected to be $795 per-unit in 1,000-unit quantities.

The Intel Core 2 Duo series is about to embark on a die shrink, from 65nm to 45nm. The new Core 2 Duo's, codenamed "Penryn", will have a slew of new features. The Penryn's will support a new set of SSE instructions, have higher clock speeds while maintaining the same power draw, and have a larger L2 Cache. The dual core Penryn will have 410 million transistors, and the quad core Penryn will have 820 million. All of the Penryn's will be on a 300mm package. Like with the current generation quad core offerings, the quad core Penryn's will have two dual core processors on one package. The Penryn series will have the same power requirements as the Conroe, which translates to 35W laptop chips, 65W dual-core desktop chips, and 80W quad-core desktop chips. Intel has successfully tested the Penryn's on several operating systems for stability, and we should see something commercially available around Q2 2007.

Penryn, the 45nm successor to Conroe on the Intel roadmap, will have several new features the previous lacked. One of these is Intel HyperThreading, which would give a computer four logical cores on a dual-core processor. Intel's Penryn may also have up to 6MB of L2 Cache, and other than the die shrink, will have a lot of minor performance tweaks.

Intel Corporation today introduced the Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N network connection, an upgrade to the wireless component found inside Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology and other Intel-based laptops that helps consumers better connect to wireless networks. As notebook PCs increasingly download broadband-intense content such as movies, videos and music, a more powerful networking solution is needed. Based on the draft 802.11n Wi-Fi specification, the Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N technology addresses that need by offering users up to five times the performance and twice the wireless range - while providing up to an extra hour of notebook battery life when compared to existing Draft-N products.

Intel has confirmed that they formed the "Visual computing group" which shall be the future of computing for "high-throughput workloads". Intel is already looking to hire graphic engineers for this purpose. Together this might suggest Intel is indeed going to create chips for add on cards once again.
Even though the high end market is quite small compared to on board graphic processors it still has a value of $5 billion a quarter, which is a lot, even for a giant like Intel. Having their own high end GPU would also give them a chance to strengthen their grip on the console market.
Intel did not comment on these speculations.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Intel Corporation today announced a broad strategic alliance centered on Intel's endorsement of the Solaris Operating System (OS) and Sun's commitment to deliver a comprehensive family of enterprise and telecommunications servers and workstations based on Intel Xeon processors. The new Intel-based enterprise systems from Sun will enhance its current X64 portfolio and complement its industry-leading, powerhouse SPARC systems.

Intel has released its newest addition to the Core 2 Duo family with the new low-end E4300. Running at 1.8GHz, this CPU has a frontside bus speed of 800MHz and a 2MB L2 cache, the first processor in the range without a 1,066MHz FSB. Although Intel hasn't provided any details yet itself, news of this processor was first released in November 2006 when it was leaked on the company roadmaps. Two more low-end Core 2 Duos are expected next quarter, the 1.6GHz E4200 and the 2GHz E4400, both with an 800MHz FSB. These new CPUs are aimed at lower performing systems with a tighter budget in mind - the E4300 should cost around $163.

Intel Corporation today announced fourth-quarter revenue of $9.7 billion, operating income of $1.5 billion, net income of $1.5 billion and earnings per share (EPS) of 26 cents. Excluding the effects of share-based compensation, the company posted operating income of $1.8 billion, net income of $1.7 billion and EPS of 30 cents.

For more details of Intel's Q4 2006 earnings, please read the full release PDF here.

With AMD announcing disappointing figures for 2006 regarding its share of the CPU market, silicon rival Intel also suffered at the end of 2006 with profits falling by 39% compared to 2005. During Q4 2005 the company made $2.24bn, but during the same period of 2006 it made only $1.5bn, with overall revenue for the last quarter down 5%. This still beat analyst expectations however, achieving a turnover of $9.7 instead of the predicted $9.44, with the fall mostly accredited to increased competition from AMD forcing prices down. The firm is now hoping for its revenue to be between $8.7bn and $9.3bn for Q1 2007.

With AMD's Quad FX processors recently launched with the ability to run a pair of dual-core CPUs, Intel has unveiled its next step to strengthen its hold on the market. At CES 2007, the silicon giant announced a proof-of-concept PC designed to counter AMD's 4x4 systems, named the V8. The system contains a pair of quad-core processors running at 2.4GHz using a 1066MHz system bus - when paired with an NVIDIA 8800GTX it manages to score 6089 on the 3Dmark06 CPU benchmark. However, it isn't all good news for Intel fans. The V8 system requires FB-DIMMs and only works with a single GPU at present, whilst Quad FX systems can use standard unbuffered memory along with multiple GPUs. If Intel doesn't manage to solve the problem with multi GPU support soon this may give AMD time to release 8x8 systems, which wouldn't be part of Intel's plan.

Further testing by Intel and Microsoft has found that integrated graphics can run the Vista Aero interface just fine. It may not be the best choice for laptop users (the same ones using these integrated graphics chipsets, as it drains laptop batteries very quickly. However, Aero Glass sure does look pretty, which matters to some people more than battery life.

Intel started shipping the three new quad-core processors, we told you about here. One new mainstream Core 2 Quad Q6600 and two single processor workstation and server Xeon X3220 and X3210 processors are now available. Official pricing for the Q6600 per unit in 1,000 unit quantities is $851 with a price drop to $530 expected in Q2'2007. Online retailer ZipZoomFly currently has the Core 2 Quad Q6600 in stock for $989.99. Pricing for the Xeon X3220 is identical to the Core 2 Quad Q6600 at $851 per unit in 1,000 unit quantities with an expected price drop to $530 in Q2'2007. The lower clocked Xeon X3210 is priced at $690 per unit per 1,000 unit quantities with an expected price drop to $425 in Q2'2007.

Intel plans to launch three quad-core processors on Monday, covering two Xeons for lower-end servers and one mainstream model, the Core 2 Quad 6600 for desktop computers. The new Core 2 Quad 6600 processor will run at 2.4GHz with 1066MHz FSB. Also set to arrive are two low-end Xeons, the 2.13GHz 3210 and 2.4GHz 3220. Both are designed for single-processor servers. The chips have 8MB cache and a 1066MHz front-side bus. Intel declined to comment the story, but the three CPUs are expected to show up at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week.

Intel Corporation and CinemaNow, a leading Internet provider of downloadable videos, today announced a collaboration that will allow consumers using Intel technology-based media PCs, such as those with Intel Viiv technology, to legally download and record major motion picture movie content to blank DVD discs for playback on both the PC and consumer electronics devices, including most standard DVD players.

In a small city near the Nile River where cars compete with cattle and modern conveniences are scarce, Intel Corporation is using computers and wireless technology to help Oseem's 200,000 residents tap into vast "knowledge resources" on the Internet in hopes of bettering their lives.

"Technology has expanded what is possible for the people of Oseem," said Intel Chairman Craig Barrett. "Intel is committed to support Egypt's leaders in accelerating access to technology so its people can get better health care, education and work skills."

AMD today announced a significant legal victory in its ongoing antitrust suit against Intel Corporation. In an order effective yesterday, the Federal District Court in Delaware overruled Intel's objections and ordered it to produce documents and other evidence bearing upon Intel's exclusionary conduct outside of U.S. borders.