Intel introduced a pair of new dual-core ultra-low voltage processors, the Core i5-3439Y and Core i7-3689Y, based on the current 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" architecture. The two feature a stunning 13W TDP, and are designed for cool Ultrabooks, with minimal cooling. The Core i5-3439Y features a nominal clock speed of 1.50 GHz, with 2.30 GHz maximum Turbo Boost, HyperThreading enabling four logical CPUs, 3 MB of L3 cache, and an SDP (scenario driven power) of just 7W. It is priced at US $250. The Core i7-3689Y, on the other side, features the same 1.50 GHz nominal clock speed, but a higher maximum Turbo Boost frequency of 2.60 GHz, and 4 MB of L3 cache. Other features are identical between the two. The i7-3689Y is priced at $362.

The Slidebook S20, the ideal mobile work station and leisure companion, just hit the market. Its elegant streamlined exterior, all-in-one design, Intel's third generation Ivy Bridge Core i5 processor, and all-weather, long-life battery meet are designed to meet your work and leisure needs and make the Slidebook S20 stand out from the crowd of other ultrabooks.

Another MSI ingenious design, the Slidebook S20 not only offers all the audiovisual, multimedia, reading, and gaming enjoyment of a tablet, it also sports a keyboard, USB, and HDMI capabilities of a mobile office notebook. This chicly mobile machine satisfies the needs of both on-the-go businesspeople and students and the extended battery power ensures that you have plenty of time to do what you're doing. Ideal for Internet browsing, social networking, and word processing, the Slidebook S20 is the perfect choice for anybody on the go. The S20's design with keyboard and sliding cover eliminates the limitations most people feel when they use tablets. MSI's innovative, user-friendly design have you the user in mind.

2013 promises to be another year, with another new line of processors by Intel, and like every alternate year, the company will introduce a new client desktop CPU socket. With its 4th generation Core "Haswell" processor family, Intel will introduce a brand new CPU architecture that steps up IPC over current Core "Ivy Bridge," hence, Intel's Core desktop processor lineup will not ship with higher clock speeds, yet higher performance. The new chips will be built in the LGA1150 package, and will be accompanied by Intel's 8-series "Lynx Point" chipset.

By Q2-2013, Intel will have launched as many as 14 Core desktop CPU models, including six in the mainline, and eight power-optimized ones. Its nomenclature is somewhat similar to that of current Core "Ivy Bridge" lineup, except the 4000-series numbering. Leading the pack is the Core i7-4770K (unlocked) and i7-4770, clocked at 3.50 GHz with 3.90 GHz Turbo Boost, featuring eight threads with HyperThreading, 8 MB of L3 cache, Intel HD Graphics 4600 iGPU clocked up to 1250 MHz, with 84W TDP; followed by Core i5-4670K (unlocked) and i5-4670 clocked at 3.40 GHz with 3.80 GHz Turbo Boost, and 6 MB L3 cache. The Core i5-4570 and i5-4430 are clocked at 3.20 GHz (3.60 GHz Turbo) and 3.00 GHz (3.20 Turbo).

MSI expanded its entry-level socket LGA1155 motherboard lineup with the B75MA-G43, featuring Intel Small Business Advantage. The micro-ATX board is positioned to be a notch below the B75MA-G45. It features a simpler 5-phase CPU VRM. The CPU socket, which supports 32 nm "Sandy Bridge" and 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" processors, is wired to four DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory, and a PCI-Express 3.0 x16. Other expansion slots include a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4, wired to PCH), and two legacy PCI.

Storage connectivity on the B75MA-G43 includes one SATA 6 Gb/s, and five SATA 3 Gb/s ports. The chipset gives out four USB 3.0 ports, two of which are given out by a standard header, and two at the rear panel. Display connectivity includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, PS/2 combo, LPT and COM (by headers), and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports make for the rest of it. The B75MA-G43 is expected to be priced under $60.

With the dawn of 2013, and no catastrophes in sight, Intel is going ahead with its usual business of phasing out old processor models, and making way for new ones. By the end of 2012, Intel will stop taking orders for several processor models mostly based on the older 32 nm "Sandy Bridge" silicon. These include chips such as the Core i7-2700K, Core i5-2310, Core i3-2105, Pentium G440, and surprisingly, an early demise of the 22 nm Core i5-3450, which is cannibalized by the Core i5-3470 at the same price point. Pentium G870, G645 and G645T as well as Celeron G555, G550 and G550T are the other chips on the chopping block.

Come 2013, Intel will release Pentium and Celeron series processors based on its 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" micro-architecture. These include the Pentium G2130, G2020 and G2020T and Celeron G1620, G1610 and G1610T. In the mobile (notebook) CPU sphere, Intel will launch dual-core "Ivy Bridge" chips to layer out its Ultrabook product segment. These include the Core i7-3687, Core i5-3437U, Celeron 1037U, 1007U, 1020M and 1000M. In March, the company is expected to launch its 4th generation Core "Haswell" line of processors.

Ahead of its December launch, Lenovo gave us a sneak peak of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch Ultrabook on its website. The 14-incher retains the essential design of its August 2012 launched predecessor, with the addition of Windows 8 Pro, a multi-touch screen, and a screen-resolution marked "HD+," which most probably is 1600 x 900 pixels. No other details were revealed. We don't expect the new X1 Carbon to deviate from its formidable system specs, which includes Core i5 "Ivy Bridge" with vPro processor, GeForce graphics, and SSD/HDD storage options.

MSI has announced the launch of its new-generation barebone PC system: the Hetis H61 series. This series uses the latest Intel H61 chipset, and support the 3rd Generation Intel Core Processor and 2nd Generation Intel Core Processor as well, the first processor of its kind to have the graphics processing unit (GPU) and CPU integrated onto the same chip, while also building a set of visual functions into the chip that ensure higher image quality when viewing video content or photos.

Iomega, a global leader in data protection, today announced the worldwide availability of the new Iomega StorCenter px12-400r Network Storage Array, a rackmount unit that leverages easy-to-use best-in-class EMC storage technologies at price points ideal for small and medium business, remote office/branch office installations and distributed enterprises.

The StorCenter px12-400r combines extremely high data throughput with quad-Gigabit Ethernet connectivity and an Intel Core i3 Processor in user-friendly storage configurations ranging from a diskless model that allows users to add their own hard drives to models that incorporate the flexibility of 1 TB, 2 TB, 3 TB and 4 TB Server Class hard drives.

In late-2011, ASUS set itself a target of shipping 25 million PC motherboards in the following year. Contributing to its optimism were three new platform launches - Intel Core "Ivy Bridge" (7-series chipset), AMD "Trinity" (socket FM2), and AMD Vishera; and Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, prompting PC upgrades. Falling demand in US and Europe, and weaker-than-expected shipment growth in China forced ASUS to trim its 2012 target down from 25 million to 22.2 million. In 2011, the company shipped 23.2 million motherboards.

In the first three quarters, ASUS shipped 16.7 million motherboards, and expects to ship no more than 5.5 million; down 5% sequentially, and flat year-over-year. The company faced severe competition from Gigabyte, which shipped 14 million motherboards in the three quarters thus far, and expects to ship 4.5 million in Q4, totaling 18.5 million for the year. The third biggest motherboard vendor, ASRock, is astray from its 2012 goal of 9 million shipments, and is hoping for a more conservative 7 million units target for 2012.

Initially announced for the Chinese market, Lenovo's ThinkPad Helix tablet is expanding its reach and is set to arrive in Israel, and likely other countries, in the not too distant future. The Helix is a business-oriented offering that runs Windows 8 and features an 11.6-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS screen supporting both finger and pen input, an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU (up to a Core i7), WiFi, 3G, NFC, and a battery allowing up to 10 hours of operation. The tablet comes with a ThinkPad -style keyboard dock for improved productivity.

The ThinkPad Helix has not been priced.

MSI designed the new Hetris H61 Ultra, a 10 liter commercial barebones desktop for the European market. Measuring 330 x 94 x 320 mm, its chassis houses an Intel H61 chipset-based socket LGA1155 motherboard, which supports Core/Pentium/Celeron processors based on the 32 nm "Sandy Bridge" and 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" micro-architectures. It features two 240-pin DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 8 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1333 MHz memory. Among the drive bays in the chassis are a 3.5-inch/2.5-inch SATA bay for hard drives, and a 5.25-inch bay for optical drives.

The Hetris H61 Ultra packs an 80 Plus-compliant 270W power supply. It features a PCI-Express riser that allows you to install up to two PCIe expansion cards along the plane of the motherboard. Connectivity includes 6-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports on the front, four USB 2.0/1.1 ports on the rear, a pair of serial COM ports, PS/2 keyboard/mouse, eSATA 3 Gb/s, and display connectivity that includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. The Hetris H61 Ultra could also be sold with a number of entry-level CPU, memory, and HDD combinations.

Intel made an addition to its performance mobile processor lineup, the Core i7-3632QM. Targeting performance notebooks in the $1200 range, the i7-3632QM is a quad-core chip based on the 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" silicon. It features HyperThreading, enabling eight logical CPUs. Surprisingly, the new chip comes with slightly lower clock speeds than the i7-3630QM, but a significantly lower TDP. While the i7-3630QM comes with 2.40 GHz core, 3.40 GHz Turbo Boost, and 45W TDP; the new i7-3632QM comes with 2.20 GHz core 3.20 GHz Turbo Boost, and 35W TDP: 8.5% lower clock speeds, resulting in 25% lower TDP.

The Core i7-3632QM features 256 KB L2 cache per core, and 6 MB shared L3 cache. It features Intel HD 4000 graphics core, clocked at 650 MHz. While it features PCI-Express 3.0 root complex, and Intel VTx, it lacks Intel vPro and Trusted Execution Technology, features found with certain "business class" Core i5/i7 mobile chips. Available in BGA and rPGA packages, the new chip should be available to notebook makers.

NEC's Celron-driven VersaPro VZ 12.5-inch tablet and UltraLite VG 13.3-inch Ultrabook received a specifications update, with Windows 8 Pro being the standard OS. Originally launched in March and July 2012, respectively, the two originally featured Windows 7 Professional. Driven by dual-core Celeron ULV CPU, the VersaPro VZ packs 4 GB memory and 128 GB SSD storage. The UltraLite VG, on the other hand, is driven by Core i7-3517U "Ivy Bridge" dual-core processor, with 4 GB dual-channel memory, and 128 GB SSD storage. The the two refreshed NEC products could hit the racks after October 26.

Eurocom, is launching five new Intel Core i7 mobile processors in the line of Eurocom Fully Upgradeable Notebooks, including the Intel Core i7-3940XM, 3840QM, 3740QM, 3630QM, 3612QM. The 3rd generation Intel Core i7 quad core mobile processors will give Eurocom Notebooks increased power efficiency, performance and security. All Eurocom notebooks are fully upgradeable and customizable, allowing customers to choose exactly the processor they need to get the job done right.

"The low thermal design point and energy consumption of the 3rd generation Intel Core i7 processors allow Eurocom to provide top of the line video capability within our small form factor notebook designs because of the limited cooling needs of the processor" said Mark Bialic, Eurocom President.

By early 2013, Intel's "Ivy Bridge" micro-architecture will have finally trickled down to the most-affordable (and one of the largest) market-segments. The company is planning to launch three new Celeron socket LGA1155 processor models based on the 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" silicon. The three include the class-leading Celeron G1620, affordable Celeron G1610, and its energy-efficient variant, the Celeron G1610T. The three are dual-core chips that lack HyperThreading, and are configured with 2 MB of L3 cache, DDR3-1333 MHz memory clock limit, and 650 MHz iGPU clock.

The Celeron G1610 is the most affordable of the three, it is clocked at 2.60 GHz, with a TDP of 55W. The Celeron G1620 is the fastest among the three, with 2.70 GHz clock speed, and the same 55W TDP. The Celeron G1610T achieves a TDP of just 35W, with a significantly lower clock speed of 2.30 GHz. The three will occupy sub-$100 price-points. The three will by compatible with current 6-series and 7-series chipset-based socket LGA1155 motherboards.

Here is the first picture of MSI's upcoming performance all-in-one desktop based on Windows 8, the AE2712. As its model number might suggest, the AE2712 derives its name from its 27-inch display. The display is touch-capable, and features 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. Under the hood is an Intel Core "Ivy Bridge" processor; a variety of CPU, memory, and graphics options will be available. MSI will launch the AE2712 close to that of Windows 8. More details are awaited.

Acer America, the number two notebook provider, today announced that the Acer Iconia W700 tablet PC, a high-performance mobile PC in a tablet PC form factor, will be available for the U.S. market. Acer's first Windows 8-based tablet PC for the U.S., the Iconia W700 features a versatile, portable design that delivers a first-rate touch and typing experience for productivity-focused PC users.

The Acer Iconia W700 tablet PC with Windows 8 delivers excellent performance using responsive and fast Intel Core i3 and Core i5 (Ivy Bridge) processors, enabling the system to take on spreadsheets, presentations, and more with ease. The powerful processors allow customers to use the Iconia W700 as their main PC for all of their everyday computing tasks, such as content creation, running multiple apps, and sharing multimedia.

ORIGIN PC announces the availability of Intel's latest mobile Ivy Bridge processors, the Intel Core i7-3940XM, Intel Core i7-3840QM, and the Intel Core i7 3740QM to their line of award-winning EON Laptops. Now you can experience the incredible speed and performance of Intel's Core i7-3940XM processor, packing a quad-core 22 nm chip, HD 4000 series GPU and 8MB of L3 cache with ORIGIN PC professional overclocking support. Customers can also choose to upgrade to the latest Intel Core i7-3840QM or the Intel Core i7-3740QM mobile processor and take full advantage of their increased speed and performance over their predecessors.

Panasonic announced the new Let's Note AX2, 11.6-inch notebook that converts to a tablet. The AX2 is designed for the Windows 8 era, and features a new start key on its screen bezel. The AX2 is updated with a 1366 x 768 pixel 11.6-inch capacitive touchscreen, a DoCoMo module that gives it LTE and WiMAX support.

Under the hood is an Intel Core i5-3427U (1.80 GHz with 2.80 GHz Turbo, 3 MB cache) or Core i5-3317U (1.70 GHz, 2.60 GHz Turbo, 3 MB cache) "Ivy Bridge" dual-core processor options, 4 GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory, 128 GB SSD, and connectivity that include WiMAX/LTE, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, SDXC, HDMI, and USB 3.0. The screen bezel embeds a 720p HD web-camera. The AX2 comes with Windows 8 Pro pre-installed. Prices range from 160,000 JPY (US $2,057) to 250,000 ($3,214).

The 1 TB, 2.5 inch HDD is the world's first SATA III (6 Gb/s) hard disk drive , and Eurocom is the first to offer it in such a small form factor netbook. Adding the advanced storage technology of the Hitachi Travel Start 5K1000 to the EUROCOM Monster allows Eurocom to meet user's demand for super large storage capacity and high performance .

"The EUROCOM Monster is like we stuffed a High Performance Notebook into a Netbook form factor, it always had the performance and now it can be customized with a massive amount of high capacity 1 TB, high speed 6 Gb/s SATA storage, in other words, the Monster lives inside of this beast!" Mark Bialic, Eurocom President.

At IDF 2012, NEC showed off its newest 13.3-inch Ultrabook, the LaVie Z. Made of a magnesium-alloy chassis, the notebook tips the scales at just 875 g, and is just 15 mm-thin. Its 13.3-inch screen features a native resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels. Under the hood are Intel Core i7 "Ivy Bridge" dual-core processor clocked at 1.90 GHz, with Intel HD 4000 graphics; 4 GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory, 128 GB SSD storage, and connectivity that includes USB 3.0 and HDMI. Bluetooth and 802.11 b/g/n make up network interfaces. The screen is decked with a 1.3 MP web-cam. It ships with Windows 7 pre-installed.

AMD today announced the availability of three pioneering innovations that firmly cement the company as the leader in fabric computing, micro servers and data center technology. The first innovation is a new chassis, AMD's SeaMicro SM15000 server, which extends fabric-based computing across racks and aisles of the data center to connect to massive disk arrays supporting over five petabytes of storage capacity. In addition, AMD is announcing a new generation of compute cards for its industry-leading micro servers based on AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon "Ivy Bridge" processors. These innovations continue the AMD tradition of providing industry-leading density, power efficiency and bandwidth for tomorrow's data center.

"We continue to drive innovation to meet the changing needs of the data center. The rise of virtualization, cloud computing, and big data require a new generation of compute in which networking and storage are equal partners in the solution. This does not fit the mold of traditional servers," said Andrew Feldman, general manager and corporate vice president of the Data Center Server Solutions group, AMD. "We are at the beginning of a new wave of computing that requires data centers to become pools of computing and storage resources with the flexibility to expand in both dimensions. The SM15000 system removes the constraints of traditional servers and allows data centers to expand compute, networking and storage independently. By supporting the newest generation of processors, the SM15000 server will continue our tradition of being the highest-density, and most power efficient micro server in the market."

Signaling its commitment to energy-efficient high- performance computing, Intel Corporation today announced that it will work with HP to help design and provide the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with a supercomputing system that will drive research across a number of energy-related initiatives, including renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies. The new High Performance Computer (HPC) data center promises to become one of the world's most efficient installations.

The system is scheduled to deliver full compute capacity in the summer of 2013 and will feature approximately 3,200 Intel Xeon processors including current-generation Intel Xeon processor E5-2670, future 22nm Ivy Bridge based processors and approximately 600 new Intel Xeon Phi co-processors. The total peak performance of the system is expected to exceed 1 Petaflop (equivalent to a thousand trillion floating point operations per second) and it will be the largest supercomputer dedicated solely to renewable energy and energy efficiency research. Leading energy-efficient capabilities of Intel Xeon processors and Intel Xeon Phi co-processors combined with the new HP warm water cooling solution and innovative data center design will result in this facility likely being the world's most efficient data center with a power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.06 or better.

3rd Generation Intel Core i3 desktop processors are now available providing value-priced CPU horsepower for those wanting to take advantage of features such as Intel HD Graphics with Intel Quick Sync Video, Intel Wireless display, and more. They will be offered in standard and low wattage models, designated by an "s" or a "t" in the processor name, with frequencies ranging from 2.8 GHz to 3.4 GHz. More information is available here.

If the prices trickling in from leading distributors such as BLT are anything to go by, AMD's next-generation A-Series "Trinity" APUs will occupy price-points competitive with Intel's Core i3 and Pentium chips based on the "Ivy Bridge" silicon. AMD thinks its quad-core (two module) Piledriver architecture cores, coupled with VLIW4-based graphics cores have a fair shot against dual-core Ivy Bridge Core i3 chips, with triple- and dual-core A-series "Trinity" chips going up against Pentium "Ivy Bridge." Two of the chips leading AMD's lot will be the A10-5700 (quad-core, 3.40 GHz, 384 SP), and A10-5800K (unlocked multiplier, quad-core, 3.80 GHz, 384 SP).