Although Intel will launch its first 3rd Generation Core processor family, based on the 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" silicon, towards the end of this month, it will not be in a position to launch Core i3 desktop processors until Q3. These include 3.40 GHz Core i3-3240, the 3.00 GHz Core i3-3240T, the 3.30 GHz Core i3-3225, the 3.30 GHz Core i3-3220 (slower IGP) and the 2.80 GHz Core i3-3220T. All these chips pack two cores, four threads (with HyperThreading enabled), and 3 MB of L3 cache.

The standard models have 55W TDP, with the energy-efficient "T" models bearing just 35W rated TDP. Introduction of these chips was originally slated for June, but the delay to Q3 may have been caused due to a variety of factors, such as undigested inventories of current-generation chips or even lack of 22 nm production volumes (with a bulk of them being allocated to mobile chips). Q3 begins in July.

For those who thought with the Indilinx buyout and release of Everest and Kilimanjaro series NAND flash controllers, OCZ is on course of becoming a largely self-sufficient SSD industry player, here's a revelation. Its new Everest series silicon, used in recently-launched SSD families (such as Octane and Vertex 4), is essentially a re-badged Marvell controller (found on SSDs such as Crucial M4, Intel SSD 510), with custom firmware developed by OCZ. This discovery by Anandtech was confirmed by OCZ (Indilinx).

The Indilinx Everest (Octane and Petrol series) and Everest 2 (Vertex 4 series), are both re-badged Marvell chips with Indilinx firmware. Although it doesn't change anything, it perfectly explains how OCZ could come up with two "new" SSD controllers (Everest and Everest 2) almost instantly, after the Indilix acquisition. Everest 1 is essentially a higher-clocked Marvell 88SS9174, while Everest 2 could very well be a re-badged Marvell 88SS9187, according to the source.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announced the launch of its GIGABYTE B75 series motherboards, designed to offer small business users a simple, easy to manage office IT infrastructure using the new and exclusive Intel Small Business Advantage software suite.

"The GIGABYTE B75 series represents an exciting step up in GIGABYTE's commitment to Intel's business platforms, and we are investing significant company resources to promote broad adoption amongst our global customer base," commented Henry Kao, Vice President of GIGABYTE Motherboard Business Unit. "We plan to go to market on launch day with no less than 4 models that will be an integral part of our product portfolio as we believe the features offer an opportunity for our system integrator and retailer partners to differentiate their products and services with the elegant and easy-to-use Intel Small Business Advantage IT management system."

Intel is on the brink of launching its new line of enterprise PCI-Express SSDs, codenamed "Ramsdale", carrying the market name "SSD 910 Series". The new SSD 910 series is coming to existence leapfrogging SSD 710 series, which was also codenamed "Ramsdale", but never made it to the market. The original Ramsdale SSD 720 was meant to be primarily based on SLC NAND flash memory with the probability of an MLC variant, Intel decided against launching it, probably because it was hedging its bets on 25 nm HET-MLC NAND flash, which provides endurance levels closer to SLC, while offering the capacity-advantage of MLC. The SSD 910 implements this new NAND flash standard that attempts to offer the best of both SLC and MLC.

The new SSD 910 will be available in two capacity options: 400 GB and 800 GB. Built as a PCI-Express expansion card, the SSD 910 consists of three stacked PCBs that hold SSD subunits and HET-MLC NAND flash chips, lots of them. Each of these subunits interfaces with the core logic over SAS. The core logic connects to the host over PCI-Express 2.0 x8 bus interface. The 400 GB variant provides sequential read speeds up to 1 GB/s, and up to 750 MB/s writes. The 800 GB variant provides up to 2 GB/s reads, with up to 1 GB/s writes.

Over the past few days, several retailers have been reporting shortages of 15-inch MacBook Pro 2011 (including its variants based on higher processor clock speeds), suggesting that Apple is lowering its production to make way for the new 2012 MacBook Pro. Apple is a known early-adopter of technologies, and the advent of low-TDP 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" processors by Intel could catalyze 2012 MacBook Pro.

The new MacBook Pro launch is imminent, according to Apple Insider, and could happen any time this month. We know from older reports that by design, the new MacBook Pro closely resembles Apple's successful MacBook Air. The new MacBook Pro could be driven by Intel's Core i7-3820QM or Core i7-3720QM "Ivy Bridge" quad-core processors, with integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics, and options for discrete graphics.

Throughout Intel Corporation's developer forum that starts today, company executives emphasized the importance of collaborating with China's government and industry to help create new business and innovation opportunities for Intel and its 14 million developers worldwide. The management team detailed its vision of how such collaborations could potentially spawn the next-generation of advances in business, consumer electronics and many more industries around the globe.

"The impact of major global trends, such as the rapidly growing middle class as well as the explosive growth of connected, mobile Internet and cloud computing traffic, is playing out ten-fold in China," said Sean Maloney, executive vice president of Intel Corporation and chairman of Intel China.

Intel Corporation today introduced an Intel studybook, a tablet that is part of the Intel Learning Series family and features unique classroom-ready features and capabilities including an ultra rugged design and specialized educational software. Purpose-built for 1:1 e-learning, a studybook's innovative features include front and rear cameras, microphone, light sensor support project-based inquiry and mobile learning environments. It comes with a capacitive multi-touch LCD screen and is based on an Intel Atom processor Z650.

The rugged tablet reference design is constructed from a single piece of plastic and includes shock-absorbers around the screen. It is designed to withstand accidental drops from a standard student desk and is also water- and dust-resistant. Young students, often owners of slippery fingers can learn and have fun in and out of the classroom with reduced stress for parents and teachers concerned about damage.

Toshiba's Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced its newest All-in-One Desktop PCs, the 21.5-inch LX815 and 23-inch LX835, which perfectly blend high performance, style and affordable pricing. These All-in-One computers serve as all-purpose devices ideal for the kitchen, family room and dorm room for effective multitasking and HD entertainment.

ZOTAC International, a global innovator and manufacturer of graphics cards, mainboards and mini-PCs, today debuts the ZOTAC Intel 7-series powered mainboards for the latest 3rd Generation Intel Core family processors. The new ZOTAC Z77-ITX WiFi and H77-ITX WiFi mainboards pack support for Intel LGA1155 processors into a mini-ITX form factor without sacrificing expansion capabilities.

"ZOTAC is the global innovator when it comes to mini-ITX mainboards. We continue to push the performance envelope with mini-ITX to rival much larger systems," says Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International. "The latest Intel Ivy Bridge processors paired with our ZOTAC Intel 7-series mini-ITX mainboards make an unbeatable performance combination without sacrificing energy-efficiency."

AMD's upcoming "Trinity" family of desktop and mobile accelerated processing units (APUs) will use up to four x86-64 cores based on the company's newest CPU architecture, codenamed "Piledriver". AMD conservatively estimated performance/clock improvements over current-generation "Bulldozer" architecture, with Piledriver. Citavia put next-generation A10-5800K, and A8-4500M "Trinity" desktop and notebook APUs, and pitted them against several currently-launched processors, from both AMD and Intel.

It found integer and floating-point performance increases clock-for-clock, against Bulldozer-based FX-8150. The benchmark is not multi-threaded, and hence gives us a fair idea of the per core performance. On a rather disturbing note, the performance-per-GHz figures of Piledriver are trailing far behind K12 architecture (Llano, A8-3850), let alone competitive architectures from Intel.

The new Intel 7-series Chipset family is now available and shipping in mobile and desktop OEM systems and motherboards worldwide. These new chipsets provide the companion logic to the 2nd Generation Intel Core processors today and will support the 3rd Generation Intel Core processor family (codenamed Ivy Bridge) later in Q2.

The new Intel 7-series Chipset family also integrates USB 3.0 and enables responsiveness technologies like Intel Smart Response, Intel Smart Connect, and Intel Rapid Start in desktop and mobile platforms. Intel is also introducing several desktop motherboards that feature the new Intel 7-series Express Chipset.

ORIGIN PC announced today the availability of their completely overhauled EON17-S and EON15-S high-performance laptops. Featuring the next generation Intel HM77 chipset, overclocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M graphics cards, and NVIDIA Optimus Technology. These amazing new EON laptops are ideal for gamers, artists, enthusiasts, and professionals. They debut with the exclusive ORIGIN PC design available in silver, matte black, matte red, or with custom paint jobs.

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), the world's top 3 motherboard maker, today reveals their first production of Z77 Black Extreme Series - Golden Limited Edition. Available in two models, Z77H2-AX and Z77H2-A2X, they are the top-of-the-line motherboards in the ECS Black Extreme Series, which enriches the series' themed slogan -- 'My Game, My Rules'.

The ECS Z77 Black Extreme Series - Golden Limited Edition features triple-thickness gold plated connectors and has passed the strictest quality tests, giving power users the security that the gold plating won't wear out after extensive component upgrades, safe guarding the board from the threat of corrosion.

MSI, the manufacturer of World's fastest mainboard and graphics card is happy to announce the availability of the new MSI Intel 7 Series mainboards for the LGA1155 socket, powered by MSI's renowned Military Class III components.

The new Intel Z77, H77 and B75 chipset based mainboards support both 2nd Generation Intel Core CPUs as well as the upcoming 3rd Generation Intel Core CPUs. Built on this basis of Quality components and technology the MSI Intel 7 series mainboards have overclocking features to match with OC Genie II. Not only does OC Genie II enhance CPU, Memory and hard-drive speed but now, in combination with Lucid Virtu MVP, also Discrete DirectX 11 Graphics performance can be boosted! Well-known for its power saving hardware features such as Active Phase Switching (APS) and DrMOS II, MSI Intel 7 series mainboards can combine its performance with best-in-class power saving. MSI's Intel 7 series mainboards are truly one of the most well-rounded mainboards ever created and will surely find its way in many PC builds.

World's top 3 motherboard manufacturer, ASRock Inc, unveils its latest Intel 7-series motherboard at 2012 Annual Global Tour. The latest 7-Series motherboard supports 2nd and 3rd Generation Intel Core i7 / i5 / i3 Processors. Featuring unique XFast 555 technology (XFast RAM, XFast LAN, XFast USB), ASRock 7-Series motherboard allows users to experience "REAL" performance boost (up to 5X better) in terms of PC's overall performance, LAN speed and USB transfer speed. ASRock has built up a reputation for building bulletproof mobos with very competitive price tag. In 2012 Global Tour, ASRock will be showcasing the long-awaited motherboards based on Intel 7-series chipsets.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today launched their long awaited 7 series motherboards designed to deliver the ultimate performance for 3rd generation Intel Core processors. Combining the world's first Dual UEFI BIOS, a new and unique All Digital power design, and the latest GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 4 technologies, GIGABYTE 7 series motherboards offer an extremely compelling case for a system upgrade.

"The new GIGABYTE 7 series motherboards are designed to offer a seamless upgrade for enthusiast PC DIYers by providing specifications and features that will be compatible with future CPUs, VGA cards, memory, SSDs, and wireless protocols for years to come," commented Henry Kao, Vice President of GIGABYTE Motherboard Business Unit. "It makes sense then for us to aggressively transition to GIGABYTE Z77 and H77 motherboards so that enthusiasts can purchase them in anticipation for the release of Intel's highly sought after 3rd Gen Core processors."

Memory overclocking feats over 3000 MHz, aren't new. Last month, we've seen G.Skill and and GIGABYTE achieve a whopping 3736 MHz on the dual-channel AMD "Llano" platform. The duo has now cracked the 3000 MHz mark with four modules, achieving 3077 MHz. The record (>3000 MHz with four modules) was set by Coolaler, using an Intel Core i7-3770K "Ivy Bridge" processor, and GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H motherboard. The memory of course was four 4 GB G.Skill DDR3-2600 MHz modules. The entire setup was air-cooled.A video of the feat follows.

First unveiled this January, Reeven's extreme-cooling pot (model: RECC-01) launched in various markets. In Japan, it is being marketed by Scythe. Measuring 70 x 70 x 160 mm (WxDxH), and weighing 900 g, the RECC-01 is a liquid nitrogen or dry-ice evaporator. Aluminum makes up most of its body, while nickel-plated copper makes up its base. Its base dissipation surface has 18 circular pits. An AEROFLEX polymer insulation sleeve is included. Also included are a retention module supporting Intel sockets LGA2011, LGA1155/LGA1156, LGA1366 and LGA775; and AMD sockets FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2; and a thermal probe port. It is priced at 19,980 JPY (US $242).

The computing industry will see its next transition to a new memory standard only by 2014, and enterprise processors based on the "Haswell" microarchitecture will drive the change, according to a VR-Zone report. While client processors based on the Haswell architecture will retain current DDR3 memory standard with a possibility of higher DDR3 clock speeds, enterprise processors under the "Haswell-EX" family will feature the industry's first DDR4 memory controllers for x86. Following that, DDR4 will filter down to future client platforms. Pictured below, is a DDR4 UDIMM by Samsung.

Intel Corporation's biggest marketing campaign in nearly a decade kicks off this week with television commercials, online experiences and print ads that the company is hailing as "cinematic and epic."

The multi-faceted global campaign, called "A New Era of Computing," is aimed at marketing the Ultrabook experience in exciting and innovative ways to consumers. Valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, the campaign is the largest marketing spend for the company since launching Intel Centrino in 2003.

Intel made its SSD 313 series official, its product page was activated, and ARK pages of its variants maintain the products are already launched. The SSD 313 series succeeds SSD 311 series, it consists of SSDs specifically designed for SSD-caching technologies such as Intel Smart Response Technology, and upcoming technologies that the upcoming "Ivy Bridge" platform brings with it, including "Rapid Start" and "Smart Connect". The SSD 313 Series is introduced in two variants, a 20 GB variant, and a 24 GB variant.

The 20 GB variant offers sequential performance up to 220 MB/s and 100 MB/s (read and write), while the 24 GB variant offers 160 MB/s and 115 MB/s, which might make one wonder about the need for a 24 GB variant, given that it's also slower at 4K random-seek performance 33,000 IOPS / 4,000 IOPS vs. 36,000 IOPS / 3,300 IOPS of the 20 GB. One reason behind the 24 GB variant's existence could be that a combination of different Intel technologies partition the SSD, taking away small amounts of capacity. The extra 4 GB of capacity might more than make up for the slightly lower performance. Both drives use SLC NAND flash chips, which are more durable than MLC NAND flash, and can take more rewrite cycles (something that factors in heavily for caching SSDs). Both drives are available in 2.5" SATA 3 Gb/s and mSATA 3 Gb/s form-factors. The 20 GB variant was earlier put to test.

A-Tech Fabrication, a company that specializes in hand-crafted HTPCs, unveiled the HeatSync 1200 fanless HTPC. The part that makes it fanless is the chassis itself, which is made of aluminum, with fins on the sides, that dissipate heat. Copper heat pipes transfer heat from key components such as the CPU and chipset to the sides of the chassis, which takes care of the rest. Although most of the chassis is anodized black, with its front-panel, you can choose between silver and black options.

The HeatSync 1200 internally packs an Intel DH61AG thin mini-ITX motherboard, which seats an Intel Core i3-2100T dual-core 35W processor, clocked at 2.50 GHz. 4 GB Corsair Vengeance SO-DIMM memory comes standard. Also standard is the Intel SSD 310 40 GB mSATA SSD. Considering there are no mechanical hard drives, or a PSU with active-cooling (a 160W power-brick does the job), the HeatSync 1200 is literally silent. A consumer IR (CIR) receiver with Windows Media Center remote, and Windows 7 Home Premium make for the rest of it.

Intel activated product pages of nearly all its upcoming Desktop Board products based on 7-series chipsets. Last week, we were treated to detailed pictures of Intel's Z77 chipset-based Desktop Board products. Now we move on to other Desktop Board Media Series motherboards, those based on Intel's other 7-series client chipset the H77. Pin-compatible with Z77, Intel's H77 chipset provides nearly all features of its sibling, with the exception of overclocking. So motherboard designers needn't dedicate resources to implementing strong VRM designs on their H77 products, and can instead focus on other features such as connectivity and expansion.

With 3rd generation Core "Ivy Bridge" processors, and 7-series "Panther Point" chipset, Intel will also release a new line of cache-SSDs to complement its Smart Response Technology (SRT) feature, which provides a decent performance middle-ground between HDDs, and expensive SSDs. The SSD 313 "Hawley Creek" family will replace SSD 310 "Larson Creek" family. It consists of drives that make use of relatively low amounts of SLC NAND flash memory (which have much higher endurance than MLC NAND flash, making them ideal for caching). Built in the 2.5" SATA and mSATA form-factors, the drives will be available in two variants; the 20 GB variant offers 220/100 MB/s (reads/writes), with 36,000 4K random read IOPS, while the 24 GB variant offers 160/115 MB/s (reads/writes), with 33,000 4K random read IOPS.

HWBOX.gr got to test the SSD 313 20 GB variant on a current generation Z68 motherboard (ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z), and post its findings. The Greek tech-site tested its performance in what it's meant to do: SSD caching using Intel SRT. Findings show a healthy boost in performance, with synthetic benchmarks, including synthetic read/write performance, random-access (IOPS), PCMark, and real-world tests such as Windows 7 boot-time, and startup of content-creation applications, but the performance-difference between SRT and plain-HDD narrowed as tests with data-loads grew, which is expected. SSD caching merely places "hot-data" (frequently-accessed data of the HDD on the SSD, for quicker access), and shunts data in and out of the SSD, as "heat" of data on the HDD changes competitively. Find a ton of more test results at the source link.

Sapphire is ready with a high-end socket LGA1155 motherboard based on Intel Z77 chipset, the Pure Platinum Z77. This is Sapphire's second Z77 motherboard disclosed so far, after the Pure Black Z77 it showed us, at CES. Sapphire is offering 3-way multi-GPU support in a very unique way. Three of its four PCI-Express x16 (long) slots are wired to the CPU, all three of them PCI-Express Gen 3.0. The topmost slot is x16 and x8 capable (x8, if any of the other two slots are populated); the middle slot is x8 and x4 capable (x4, if the bottommost blue slot is populated); while the bottommost slot is x4 capable. PCI-Express 3.0 x4 offers bandwidth comparable to PCI-Express 2.0 x8 (or PCI-Express 1.1 x16), which doesn't heavily bottleneck today's graphics cards. An ingenious slot layout, made possible by inexpensive PCIe lane switches, instead of expensive bridges.