A lot of controversy and uncertainty is surrounding the future of lower end Core i7 models. Recently surfaced information suggested that the company would phase out lower models of Core i7 to make room for higher Core i5 ones. The recently introduced Core i7 950, is already staring at its successor, which will displace it from its price point, and put in in line for being phased out, as early as in Q4 2009.

The Core i7 960 inherits a part of its specifications from the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition, which is now replaced by the 975 Extreme Edition. The i7 960 comes with a clock speed of 3.20 GHz, with a bus multiplier of 24 (24 x 133 MHz). Unlike the 965 Extreme Edition chip, the multiplier will be capped at 24x, and it will use a 4.8 GT/s QPI interface, unlike 6.4 GT/s for the 965. The rest of its specs remain standard. It comes with a triple-channel DDR3 memory interface, and 8 MB of L3 cache. It is expected to be priced at US $562, displacing the Core i7 950 from its range.

Intel plans its own public demonstration of the overclocking capabilities of the Core i7 processors. This, in response to rival AMD achieving an overclock of well beyond 5.00 GHz, and booting at speeds above 6.00 GHz. The engineers at Intel reportedly carried out a large-scale binning of Core i7 processors, to cherry-pick the best performing part. The scale of binning could well be best of 100,000 units.

A chief engineer at Intel, Francoise Piednoel expressed his reservations regarding the 6.00 GHz overclocking feat AMD carried out with its upcoming Phenom II X4 processor last week, saying that the overclocking capabilities of the Phenom II X4 demonstrated do not reflect those of release-grade products, and cannot be replicated in a real-world setting. AMD may have disabled several sensors on the cherry-picked chip used in its demonstration, which facilitated that overclock. In response to this, Intel would be disabling the same sensors, in its special demonstration chip. The demo could be held at CES 2009. The professional overclocker chosen to achieve this feat would be none other than FUGGER from XtremeSystems. FUGGER could be set the task of taking the most desirable, binned Core i7 965 Extreme Edition chip all the way up to a stellar 7.00 GHz, if all goes well.

Alienware introduced its fleet of high-performance gaming PCs based on Intel's newest Core i7 processors. The range is branded as Area 51 X-58. Its range starts from US $1,349, with the base model using the Core i7 920 processor, which is configurable to Core i7 940 and the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition. Memory options go up to 12 GB of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, and base graphics card being the ATI Radeon HD 4870, configurable up to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 SLI or Radeon HD 4870 X2 CrossFireX.

There are options for up to 2 TB of storage, or the option to pick performance over storage, with two WD VelociRaptor 300 GB drives in RAID 0. Parallel to this brand is Alienware's other brand, the ALX X-58. The ALX comes with the same base CPU and memory, but ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 or two GeForce 9800 GTX, 2 TB of storage, along with the option of a Blu-Ray burner. The ALX X-58 starts at $3,699. These systems come equipped with 700, 1000 or 1200W power supplies depending on the hardware opted for.