NVIDIA Corporation today announced that Intel Corporation has licensed NVIDIA SLI technology for inclusion on the Intel DX58SO motherboard for the Intel Core i7 processor. As a result, customers with Intel X58-based motherboards and the Core i7 processor can now equip their PCs with any combination of NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, including Quad SLI, for the ultimate visual computing experience.

"The addition of NVIDIA SLI technology to the Intel DX58SO motherboard has been a welcome addition," said Clem Russo, VP and General Manager of Channel Desktop Platform Group at Intel Corporation. "The pairing of our new Core i7 processors on our Extreme Series motherboard and NVIDIA GeForce graphics has resulted in some of the world's fastest consumer gaming PC platforms. For playing any of today's hottest PC titles, this is one awesome combination that our customers have been asking for."

Intel today spread opens its plans to deal with the mainstream and value markets using its Nehalem micro-architecture. The company introduced to the media and analysts, its plans concerning the upcoming Westmere family of processors, a term used to describe Intel processors built using the company's 32 nm second-generation high-K silicon fabrication technology, while being based on the Nehalem micro-architecture. The presentation demystifies all confusion surrounding the company canning plans of dual-core 45 nm Nehalem-derivatives. The presentation also sheds light on what approach Intel plans to adopt with bringing the new architecture to the enterprise segment.

Earlier this month, news surfaced of Intel working on a new Extreme Edition (XE) Core i7 chip, model 975, that displaces the existing Core i7 965 XE from its existing price-point to grab the $999 in 1,000 unit tray quantities price-point. The 975 XE is to be accompanied by another new SKU in the making: the Core i7 950.

The new chip is bound to displace the Core i7 940 from its existing price point of $562. It features higher clock speed, bus multiplier value and is built on the newer D0 revision of the Bloomfield core. The chip will feature a clock speed of 3.06 GHz. It achieves this speed using a multiplier value of 23X. The new chip is expected to be introduced sometime in Q2, 2009.

Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini today announced the company would spend $7 billion over the next two years to build advanced manufacturing facilities in the United States. The investment funds deployment of Intel's industry-leading 32 nanometer (nm) manufacturing technology that will be used to build faster, smaller chips that consume less energy. The commitment represents Intel's largest-ever investment for a new manufacturing process.

On the course of coming up with mainstream derivatives of the Nehalem architecture, for Intel, there seems to be a big deal of uncertainty surrounding the dual-core parts. Havendale (desktop) and Auburndale (notebook) were stated by initial company road-maps as the company's dual-core chips. Later, news emerged of Intel reportedly scrapping both chips to find a 32 nm replacement in another chip codenamed Arrandale. In the latest company-slide exposé by VR-Zone, details emerge of yet another iteration to Intel's plans: Clarkdale. Correct spelling is Clarkdale and Arrandale by the way (not Clarksdale or Arandale).

While it is unclear at this point, if this chip, like the Arrandale (32 nm CPU + 32 nm IGP), is built to be deployed on both desktop and mobile platforms, the reason behind its development gains clarity. The Ibex-Peak platform design by Intel, be it dual-core or quad-core, consists of a standard multi-chip module (MCM)-based design, where two dice populate a package: the central processor, and the northbridge. The design gives the company flexibility by introducing a degree of modularity. After scrapping plans of a full-on processor built on the 45 nm high-K manufacturing process, Intel seems to have realised that its foundries won't be able to cater to many designs based on the 32 nm process initially, at once. Taking advantage of the MCM design, Intel is working on this new chip: Clarkdale, which consists of the processor die built on the 32 nm second-generation high-K process, with the northbridge being built on the existing 45 nm process. This design helps evade the manufacturing constraints Intel might have initially. The northbridge die will feature an integrated graphics processor that connects to its output using the flexible-display interface. With this, Intel is looking to bring in immediate and cost-cutting to the extant feasible.

Hynix forms one of the top-tier DRAM manufacturers. On Sunday, the company made it official that its new 1 Gb (128 MB) DDR3 memory chip built on the new 40 nm silicon fabrication process, will enter mass production by the third quarter, and be available to manufacturers soon after. The chip (model: H5TQ1G83CFR) operates with a top-speed of 2,133 Mbps, at a wide range of voltage.

Using the three-dimensional transistor technology, the company has stepped-up productivity by more than 50% over its current DRAM chips built on the 50 nm process. The new technology is said to minimize electric leakages and reduces overall power consumption of the DRAM chip. The new 1Gb memory chip meets Intel's DDR3 DRAM specification compliance and the memory module will be examined for certification by Intel.

The Intel Developer Forum (IDF) serves as a platform for technologists to discuss Intel technologies and products based on or around Intel technologies. With China and Taiwan being almost the epicenters of consumer electronics manufacturing and development, Intel began holding annual events in the two countries, apart from the event at San Fransisco, United States. The IDF schedule for 2008, for example, included events in Shanghai, China and Taipei, Taiwan.

Fresh news emerging from Taiwan, sourced by industry observer DigiTimes suggests that Intel canceled IDF Taiwan 2009, originally slated for November, later this year. The company is holding this as part of its cost-reduction efforts to counter the global economic slowdown. The move comes as a surprise to Taiwanese computer hardware firms affiliated with Intel technologies, as the company has been hosting the IDF Taiwan event since the year 1996. Additionally, the company plans to restructure the IDF Beijing event scheduled in April from a two-day event to a one-day event focusing on China. Intel however clarified that it will continue to maintain its cooperation with the Taiwanese to sustain the country's industrial growth, which it hopes to achieve through presence at the Computex event. The main event held in San Fransisco, however, will not be affected. The company hopes to maintain the event in the same proportions as it was, in the past.

Intel's mainstream market implementation of the Nehalem architecture will come in the form of monolithic quad-core a dual-core chips that have northbridge machinery integrated. Based on the Lynnfield (quad-core) and Arandale (dual-core) designs, Intel will place the processors on a common system design dubbed the "Ibex-Peak". The processors are likely to be branded as Core i5, Core i4 or even Core i3 depending on a lot of factors. Additionally, Intel plans enterprise variants of the said chips.

To seat these chips, Intel is designing new sockets: LGA-1155, LGA-1156 the two can be classified into the sockets for the desktop variants, with another LGA-1167 socket most likely to be exclusive for the Xeon variants. PCGH sourced some images from Intel's Design Development Tools (DDT) portal (found here), which tell that Intel names its new series of sockets as "socket H". Pictured below is a processor package viewed from its business-end. The other three you can see, are interposer-boards. These are devices that resemble the actual product packages that sit on the sockets. You can see a grid of leads over the "IHS" of the package. The leads serve to help in the technical development of products based on the package design, hence it is found on the DDT portal. It should give you an idea of what an LGA-1155, LGA-1156 and LGA-1167 processor should look like, sans the leads on the IHS. The images below in the same order. Finally, pictured much earlier, is the Ibex-Peak platform motherboard that demonstrates the design.

The Inquirer reports that Intel has just announced it will be slashing the prices on most of its state of the art solid-state drives. The Intel X25-M 80GB for notebooks will drop from $595 to $390 whilst the server X25-E 32GB SSD will go from $695 all the way down to $415 for quantities up to 1,000. The story continues to claim that Intel's X25-M 160GB and X25-E 64GB drives will also have their prices down, but Intel is not saying by exactly how much yet.

Intel pushed its performance supremacy lead further up with the introduction of the Nehalem micro-architecture. The introduction served as a milestone event in the company's history, where it sought to rearrange various components of the PC, by moving certain parts of the chipset to the processor package. In the months to come, with the introduction of the Ibex-Peak platform, the company hopes to migrate even more components from the system core-logic to the CPU package. A lot of engineering potential is unlocked due to the modularity of the various components of a Nehalem-derived CPU.

At the upcoming International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) event, Intel plans a decent set of technology demonstrations and papers. The advance program information document shed some light on Intel's itinerary. In session 3 held on February 9, Intel will present papers on its 8-core Xeon processor, following which is a session on 45nm IA processors. The session is on processors built with features characteristic of the Nehalem micro-architecture, in having integrated memory controllers, a coherent point-to-point interconnect, and up to 8 processing cores. Interestingly, the description included a note on the power consumptions, ranging from "sub-10W to 130W", which leads us to believe Intel to have plans on making derivatives of the Nehalem micro-architecture with some very low energy footprints. Another interpretation would be that a new breed of processors could have idle power consumptions as low as <10W. Currently the most energy-efficient Nehalem-based processor known to be in the works is the Xeon L5520 that has identical features to those of the Core i7 series while having a clock speed of 2.23 GHz and a rated TDP of a mere 60W.

Having reacted rather sharply to the ongoing global economic slump by planning massive workforce and production cuts, one would expect Intel to be conservative with its development potential. In a contradiction to just that, a recent conversation EETimes had with Mark Bohr, director of Intel's technology and manufacturing group, the director said that the company is on course with its plans to introduce the newer 32 nm silicon fabrication technology by late 2009.

"The 32 nm technology is getting ready to go into the manufacturing phase, we are lining up fabs to support it and we expect great demand. We are on track for shipping products in the fourth quarter and have 22 nm technology in development for 2011" said Mr. Bohr. The conversation previewed some of the papers Intel plans to present at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference that convenes next week.

Intel follows a "tick-tock" model of product development cycle, wherein, the company designs new microprocessor designs and silicon fabrication technologies in alternation. In each cycle, an architecture gets to be made on at least two successive fabrication technologies before itself being succeeded by a newer design. Currently Intel employs the 45 nm High-K metal gate manufacturing technology, on which it introduced later variants of the Core 2 series CPUs, and has introduced its Nehalem architecture, with Core i7 being its first commercial implementation.

Following the news which we covered here, Hexus.net has got hold of a slide which officially details Intel's new 8-core Enterprise Xeon processor. Codenamed Nehalem EX, it will feature 8 processing cores, with 2 threads per core, totaling 16 threads and as had been previously said, a transistor count of 2.3 Billion. This information was obtained as part of a pre-ISSCC conference call, but more information is expected to be officially announced at the start of the ISSCC on 8th February.

RealTemp got its major face-lift today with the introduction of the third major version. RealTemp is a nifty utility used to monitor the temperatures of Intel processors, with a breakdown of temperatures on a per-core and T-junction basis. The application makes use of the digital thermal sensor component Intel Core series processors come with. With version 3.00, RealTemp gets Core i7 friendly, supporting monitoring of its temperatures, including in Turbo Mode, where the software controls frequencies and power of individual processing cores.

The new release adds a host of features including plug-in support for RivaTuner, the ability to report temperatures of NVIDIA graphics cards, updated detection algorithms as per Intel specifications, and several UI improvements. The release covers as many as a hundred changes that include preliminary support for the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. For a list of major changes and other information, head over to the RealTemp homepage.

DOWNLOAD: RealTemp 3.00

Intel is planning on a newer flagship desktop CPU to lead the Core i7 Extreme Edition pack: the Core i7 975 Extreme Edition (XE). The model surfaced at an XtremeSystems forum thread where overclockers FUGGER and Mikeguava took a shot at the 3DMark05 world record of 45,474 3DMarks, set by AMD at its presentation of the Phenom II X4 processor running at speeds of around 6.30 GHz. The overclockers used a bench consisting of the new Core i7 975 XE, Gigabyte GA-EX58 Extreme motherboard, two Radeon HD 4870 X2 accelerators in a CrossFireX setup, powered by a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W PSU. The CPU was cooled by a custom-made copper cooling pot. At a clock speed of 5,239 MHz and the graphics cards running at reference speeds, the bench cracked the world record to reach 47,026.

During the course of this feat however, we get to know more about the Core i7 975 XE. The new premium offering by Intel comes with a clock speed of 3.33 GHz. It achieves this frequency using a bus multiplier of 25X. Intel built this chip on the new D0 revision of the Bloomfield core, on which the company also plans to release fresh batches of the Core i7 920. Apart from the unlocked bus multiplier and the broader QuickPath Interconnect bandwidth of 6.4 GT/s, other features remain standard: 4 processing cores supporting 8 threads with HyperThreading enabled, 256 KB of L2 cache per core, 8 MB of shared L3 cache, and a triple-channel DDR3 memory interface.

Silicon giant Intel, has reportedly decided to lay to rest, seven of its popular CPUs, under the Core 2 Extreme and Core 2 Quad series, by Q3 2009. The process of phasing these models out takes place in two stages: issuing product discontinuation notices (PDNs) to channel vendors and other key distributors, and to declare the product end of life (EOL) shortly after. Likely to face the axe are Core 2 Extreme models QX9770 and QX9650; Core 2 Quad models Q9450, Q6700 and Q6600.

As of now, Core 2 Quad Q9450 has already been phased out, while the older Q6700 is awaiting EOL declaration within this month. For Core 2 Quad Q6600, one of Intel's most popular offerings, and perhaps the most successful quad-core desktop processor SKU at the markets, PDNs will be issued in February, and it will reach EOL sometime in Q2 2009. Meanwhile, for the Yorkfield-based Core 2 Extreme models, PDNs will be issued in February, and they will be reach EOL in Q2. In related news, Core 2 Duo E7200 and Pentium E2200 will be phased out by Q3 this year, with no word on the specifics of their PDNs.

Intel has announced plans to supply its partners and distributors with a new batch of Core i7 920 processors, that have their stepping updated from the current C-0 to D-0. Ready to ship on March 2nd, the new stepping will feature:

• New S-spec (from SLBCH to SLBEJ) and Material Master numbers for the converting products.
• CPUID will change from 0x000106A4 to 0x000106A5.
• The electrical, mechanical and thermal specifications remain within the current specifications. Intel anticipates no changes to customer platforms designed to previous Intel guidelines.
• Readable serial number will be removed from the package ink swatch to fully mitigate the potential risk of the IHS cosmetically overlapping a marked serial number. There is no change to the ULT matrix content which continues to contain the serial number.

A motherboard BIOS update will be required to identify the new stepping CPUs correctly.

Grappling with a deteriorating world economy, and overstocked inventories with current-generation Core 2 platforms, Intel seems to have had a change of plans with regards to its dual-core Nehalem-derivatives. Company roadmaps originally pointed at two chips, codenamed Havendale and Auburndale to be the dual-core MCM implementations of the Nehalem architecture, for desktops and notebooks respectively. The "MCM" (multi-chip module) part comes to light in the way the chips were originally conceived: two dice on a package, one holding the CPU complex and the other holding the northbridge, consisting of a memory controller, PCI-Express root complex, and a graphics controller.

Theo Valich, noted industry commentator, in his latest blog post in Theo's Bright Side of IT, mentions that Intel scrapped Havendale and Auburndale in its conceived form. The two were set to make possible Intel Core i4 and i3 SKUs. Instead, Intel is working to push forward the launch of their common successor by six months: the Arandale core. Arandale features in the future series of Nehalem-derived processors to be built on the 32nm high-K silicon process, slated for 2010. Arandale from all that is known thus far is the dual-core Nehalem implementation on 32nm lithography, apart from speculation of it holding a higher amount of L3 cache: possibly 6 MB against 4 MB on the Havendale/Auburndale. The Arandale core was originally slated for "back to school" season, 2010 (around September~October). After rescheduling the launch, it could arrive by March.

The guys over at VRZone have got their hands on the roadmap for Intel's SSD products. It has been said that Intel will be moving to a smaller fabrication process from 50 nm to 34 nm by Q4 2009 with capacities available up to 320 GB. The successor to Intel Turbo Memory has also been detailed, known as Braidwood and set for release in Q1 2010, it is said to, "provide SSD-like performance on second generation Ibex Peak chipsets like Q57, P57 and H57." Though to use Braidwood you will need, "Firmware support, Intel Rapid Storage Technology as well as the Braidwood module." These come in smaller capacities ranging from 4 GB to 16 GB, and will also be based on Intel's new 34 nm fabrication process. There is no official word on pricing as yet, but these new products are not expected to be cheap.

Sitting tight on the desktop and server performance thrones with the Core i7 and Xeon Dunnington series procesors, Intel is looking to carry on with its product launch-cycle with the introduction of octo-core (8 cores) enterprise processors later this year. The company is expected to detail the industry about this upcoming processor series as early as next month at the Solid State Circuits conference in San Fransisco between February 8 and 12.

The processor in question will be based on the Intel Nehalem architecture and will consist of eight x86 processing cores, a massive transistor-count of 2.3 billion, and will be built on the company's current 45nm manufacturing process. It will hold 24 MB of L3 cache, a quad-channel memory interface and QuickPath Interconnect system interface. Furthermore, it is aimed at quad-socket server platforms. Intel will keep this only upto a presentation level at the conference and not a launch. It is expected to start off with quad-core Xeon processors based on the new architecture later in this quarter.

TC Magazine reports that Intel is preparing a little upgrade on its modest 2.33GHz 45nm Core 2 Quad Q8200 processors. The Q8200 CPUs will pass from M1 to R0 stepping next month. The revised R0 processors will begin to be supplied from February 23rd through April 20, 2009. As reported Q8200 R0 will feature a halide free package, new S-spec and MM numbers, a CPUID changed from 10677 to 1067A, and Power State Indicator (PSI) support with Intel 4 series chipsets. To decrease energy consumption and update monitoring functions, the R0 quad-core processors will bring in three new low power states (Extended Stop Grant State, Deep Sleep State and Deeper Sleep State) and new XSAVE/XRSTOR instructions. A BIOS update for your motherboard will likely be needed if you happen to own a R0 quad-core.

Earlier this month, Intel released a series of its Core 2 Quad processors with low power ratings, rated TDPs at 65W. This move served two purposes: to bring down the energy footprints of the CPUs, and to propagate quad-core chips to even those platforms whose electrical components are built for CPUs in that 65W power range. An example of that would be small form-factor PCs, mini-ITX motherboards with LGA-775 sockets, and some variants that might make it to notebooks. Intel now has plans to bring in a low-power Lynnfield processor sometime in Q1 2010. Given the amount of machinery the Lynnfield processors hold: four x86 processing cores, a dual-channel IMC, internal QPI and PCI-Express root complexes, in some cases even an IGP, a low-power variant sounds like a great engineering feat. We don't exactly know as to what low-power in context of Lynnfield is, at this point, but we can tell it will bring down platform power consumptions, given that the processor could end up being the single largest power consumer on a motherboard, and its power consumption affects that of the entire platform significantly.

Silicon giant Intel flexed its IPR muscle by reportedly calling rival AMD to discussions on possible violations of past license agreements. AMD and Intel share license agreements dating back to 1976, which eventually transformed into the agreement of letting AMD use Intel's x86 micro-architecture in making its own products. Later in 2001, the two companies met again to share x86-related technologies. Such agreements bind licensees of the x86 architecture to confining their technologies to themselves as the license is non-transferable.

The two companies are expected to meet to discuss on how the past two major events in the recent history of AMD: the acquisition of ATI Technologies, and the spin-off of the manufacturing division to The Foundry Company respect the terms of the agreements. Earlier, AMD stated that the ATI acquisition does not violate any of its cross-agreements with Intel, while the company sounds optimistic about getting The Foundry Company to existence smoothly through one of its big hurdles: a clean-chit from Intel, after having crossed bigger hurdles such as government approvals and support from the various countries it holds its facilities in.

Intel seems to have finally taken its economic future seriously in wake of the company anticipating a red quarter, which is the first in 22 years. This announcement comes following CEO Paul Otellini's statements pointing towards the company seeing red in Q1 2009, this merely a month into the quarter. In the latest statement issued, the company pointed out that around 5,000 of its employees (around 6,000 when combined with associated support functions) will be affected as part of the company's workforce reduction plans. The employees are from across various positions and divisions of the company.

Additionally, terming it as corporate restructuring, Intel will cease operations in as many as four facilities at: Santa Clara in California, Hillsboro in Oregon, Penang in Malaysia and Cavite in Philippines. The company attributes this to severe drops in profits. For example, Intel's least week's earnings saw a 90 percent drop in profits from the same point in 2008. Craig Berger of FBR Capital Markets was among several analysts Wednesday who said he wouldn't be surprised if Intel falls in red this quarter. "We have seen pretty significant deterioration in demand" for computer chips, he said, though he added that no one , including probably Intel's top executives, can predict where the company is heading in the coming months, due to a great deal of uncertainty with the world economy. If Intel does suffer a loss this quarter, it's still in a lot better shape than most other chip makers and should have no trouble surviving the recession, said Nathan Brookwood, a research fellow at the Saratoga market consulting firm Insight 64. "If Intel can't do OK in the longer term," he said, "then the United States economy and the world economy are in one heck of a lot of trouble."

Microprocessor mogul Intel, has been fairly invincible to the ups and downs of world economy, in its 40+ years of existence, owing to the market position it has been holding since the success of its microprocessor technologies. For the first time in 87 quarter fiscal years, the company is bracing itself for a red-quarter, meaning losses.

Intel's CEO Paul Otellini thinks that with the company seeing profits go down by as much as 19% in Q4 2008, one can expect only the worse of Q1, with an ailing world economy coupled with the expected fall in sales post the winter shopping season. The company is exercising all means to cut operational costs while attempting to meet sales targets, though it is not looking at workforce reductions as an option just as yet.

More Details Trickle in on Intel's New Atom Platform, the Pine Trail-D Based Nettop

Following the story which we covered just a few days ago, Expreview has got more information on the new Intel Atom platform, codenamed Pine Trail-D. From the new information, we see that the CPU, IGP and MCH will in fact all be integrated into one chip, as opposed to just being moved onto the same die. The CPU has also been listed as at least 1.6Ghz, double that of the current entry level Atom processor. Despite the platform having no need for a northbridge, with it all moved into the CPU, Intel have managed to keep the die size at 484 sq. mm. On that note however, it seems that the IGP is still DirectX 9 based, though further details on the graphical capabilities are still not yet known. We also see, that the new Tigerpoint southbridge, will support 8 USB devices, 4 PCI-E x1 lanes, 2 PCI ports, 2 SATA ports and HD audio.