What with the likes of the Apple MacBook Air and similar ultrathin laptops in production, Intel is recognising that there will be an increasing problem with heat, especially with its new chips around the corner. Mooly Eden, general manager of Intel's Mobile Platforms Group was speaking at a keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei.

When you design a very thin system, cooling the skin is a very big challenge... If you put [a laptop] on your lap, it can feel very uncomfortable. Very hot.

Eden went on to say that if this problem is not addressed there will be a limit as to how thin a laptop can me made. They used the example of a jet engine explaining that the high temperatures inside the engine (up to 1000 degrees centigrade) must not be transfered to the plane's wing, as that is where the fuel is stored. The technology used on aircraft to accomplish this is called laminar airflow cooling, which is what Intel plans license to manufacturers for use in cooling its products, it is a system in which a fluid flows in layers.
Fortunately this is not the only trick up Intel's sleeve, Eden also explained that laptop platform for Intel's Nehalem architecture will have the memory controller, IGP and CPU all on one die and that the native power saving features will allow processor cores to turn on and off without the use of software.

[It is done] automatically on the fly. It is transparent to the operating system

Intel informed today that it will be phasing out a large number of server Xeon processors during the next eight months. That's mainly because of the forthcoing Nehalem platform and the new Core i7 processors. Intel also said that it is already producing more 45nm processors than 65nm chips, so it's time for some of the 65nm parts to drop off the charts. The list includes six dual-core Xeon processors with Woodcrest core, these are the 1.86GHz Xeon 5120, 2.66GHz 5150, 2.33GHz LV 5148, 1.60GHz 5110, 2.0GHz 5130, 2.33GHz 5140 and 3.0GHz 5160. The list continues with nine quad-core models with Clovertown core, the 1.86GHz E5320, 1.86GHz L5320, 3.0GHz X5365, 2.66GHz X5355, 1.60GHz E5310, 2.33GHz E5345, 2.0GHz E5335 and 2.0GHz L5335. Sales of different variations of these CPUs are also going to be phased out. The total count is 31 server models, that won't be produced anymore. Final customer orders for these processors can be submitted until April 23, 2009. Intel plans the final shipment of these processors for July 23, 2009.

ASUS, the world's leading producer of motherboards, today unveiled the most advanced and highest performing enthusiast motherboard at present: the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Rampage II Extreme. In keeping with ROG's commitment to producing cutting-edge, boundary-redefining products for the serious gaming and overclocking community, the ROG Rampage II Extreme incorporates the latest innovations and components into its architecture, such as the latest Intel chipset and SLI/CrossFireX on Demand-delivering blistering performance through its support for the new range of Intel processors and multi-GPU technologies such as 3-Way SLI and CrossFireX. To enable users to push the capabilities of the new platform to the limit, the ROG Rampage II Extreme features ROG Extreme Engine, a true multi-phase power management system-16 phases for the CPU and 3 phases each for QPI/DRAM, the Northbridge and memory-with premium Multilayer type Polymer Capacitors (ML Caps) that keep the power supply stable even under the most demanding loads.

Intel has ported the Core 2 Quad Q9400 to the embedded platform, where it would be used in industrial PCs. The Q9400 is a 64-bit x86 quad-core processor based on the 45nm Yorkfield core. On the embedded platform, the Q9400 would be supported by the Intel Q45 and 3210 core-logic (chipset).

According to Doug Davis, vice president of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group and general manager of the Embedded and Communications Group, the company assures seven years of support and product lifetime for the new processor. The provision of four advanced execution units would step up parallelism and responsiveness in multi-threaded and multi-tasking environments.

As promised, today Intel sliced the prices of several of its Core 2 and Xeon processors, just before the Nehalem launch. Below is the list that describes best all price reductions.

Expreview has got its hands on the NVIDIA Forceware Beta Driver 180.32 and used it to setup and enable SLI with two Galaxy GTX260-216, on an Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard. The cards scored a 3DMark Vantage score of P21623, compared against a single card score of P10920 gives an approximate 98% increase. Currently it is only possible to enable SLI officially on NVIDIA based chipsets, only AMD's equivalent Crossfire system works on Intel chipsets. It is evident that the 180 series of Forceware drivers from NVIDIA (dubbed Big Bang II) not only brings multi-monitor SLI support, but also paves the way to enabling SLI on the Intel X58 Chipset. In another article, Expreview have also mentioned that the beta driver 180.42, will be officially released from NVIDIA later on today, with the final version set for November 17th this year, coinciding with the launch of Intel's Core i7 and X58.

Intel Clarksfield, the company's Nehalem based mobile platform, was reported on Monday to begin production in the second half of 2009. Although mass production of the first Core i7 processors is scheduled for next month, on the mobile front Intel users will have to wait until late next year. Clarksfield will be produced using the same 45-nanometer production process that's used to make Intel's current chip lineup. The upcoming chip will be the heart of a new Intel Centrino platform, codenamed Calpella. As its desktop variant, Clarksfield CPUs will have all the enhancements Nehalem offers, as well as the brand new integrated memory controller all in one package. Clarksfield is also expected to include more advanced power-management features than Intel's current mobile chips.

Intel made an addition to its desktop processor lineup, by making Core 2 Duo E7400 official. The E7000 series dual-core processors mark the company's attempt to offer the benefits of the 45nm Penryn architecture with great value. Intel on its part, has respected the US $133 mark, with the new chip displacing the older E7300 chip to $113.

The Core 2 Duo E7400 is based on the 45nm Wolfdale-3M core. It features a clock speed of 2.80 GHz, and FSB speed of 1066 MHz. What it also means, is that it comes with a relatively high 10.5x FSB multiplier value. The processor features 3 MB of L2 cache.

In his keynote today at the Intel Developer Forum in Taiwan, Intel's senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Ultra Mobility Group discussed how technology innovation and strong industry collaboration have driven the digital economy over the past 40 years, and the universal impact that the Internet and mobile Web has had in people's lives. Also highlighted was the progress Intel is making in the Mobile Internet Devices (MID) market segment with the world's first working "Moorestown" platform demonstration. Scheduled for the 2009-2010 timeframe, the Moorestown prototype comprises of an SOC, codenamed "Lincroft," which integrates a 45nm processor, graphics, memory controller and video encode/decode onto a single chip and an I/O hub codenamed "Langwell". Langwell supports a range of I/O ports to connect with wireless, storage, and display components in addition to incorporating several board level functions. The Moorestown platform will support a range of wireless technologies including 3G, WiMAX, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and mobile TV. During his keynote Chandrasekher also stated that Intel hopes to revolutionize the MID world with Moorestown when released.

Industry sources tell DigiTimes, that Intel would be launching a fleet of mid-thru-high end mobile processors on December 28, later this year. These processors fall under the 35W Core 2 Duo range, for use in notebooks. The processors include Core 2 Duo models T9800, P9600, T9550 and T8700. It also includes Core 2 Quad Q9000. The dual-core chips are priced (in above order) US$530, $348, $316 and $241, while the Q9000 will sell for $348, in thousand-unit tray quantities.

Around the same time, Intel would give the desktop Core 2 Duo E8600, a much needed price cut sending its price from $241 to $209. In other news, the P55 PCH chipset for LGA-1160 socket, would be available in the third quarter of 2009, note sources at motherboard manufacturers.

OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today unveiled the industry's first triple channel memory kit designed specifically for the impending Intel Core i7 processor / Intel X58 Express Chipset. Optimized for the Core i7's triple channel mode, these new 3GB and 6GB kits ensure optimal performance via an ideal combination of low voltage requirements, speed, and latency.

Intel Corporation has begun shipping its highest- performing solid-state drive (SSD), the Intel X-25E Extreme SATA Solid-State Drive, aimed at server, workstation and storage systems. Unlike mechanical drives, the SSDs contain no moving parts and instead feature 50nm single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory technology. Systems equipped with these drives will not suffer from the performance bottlenecks associated with conventional drives. By reducing the total infrastructure, cooling and energy costs, SSDs can lower total cost of ownership for enterprise applications by more than five times.

In the weeks to come Intel and its partners, would be buzzing with activity, in the form of product launches. Three models of the Core i7 series processors, accompanied by supportive motherboards, and possibly tri-channel DDR3 memory kits, would hit shelves. The LGA-1366 socket would serve as an extreme and performance segment offering, on the whole. The mainstream segment would continue in the form of the newer LGA-1160 socket, and the Ibex Peak platform. Processors would essentially use the same architecture as the upcoming i7 processors, but feature dual-channel memory interfaces, and continue using the DMI front-side bus as the system interface.

As for its supportive chipset, Intel plans to label them under the P5x series. Chipsets without IGPs, would have so little machinery, with the memory controller shifted to the CPU, that even high-performance chipsets could be monolithic. A single chip would handle the system's peripherals, storage, and connect it to the CPU. There are indications that the CPU could house PCI-Express switches on-die. This would provide direct connections between PCI-E devices such as graphics cards, and the CPU. The P5x series chipsets could include a confirmed P55 chipset that rules its roost, with P53 and P51 chipsets that fabricate the lineup.

Intel Corporation today announced record third-quarter revenue of $10.2 billion along with operating income of $3.1 billion, net income of $2 billion and earnings per share (EPS) of 35 cents.

"Intel delivered the best third-quarter revenue in its history," said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO. "We were solidly profitable, with operating income of over $3 billion, reflecting strong across-the-board execution and best-of-class products."

To read the complete earnings release, click here.

As the computer enthusiast community gears up for Nehalem November, with reports suggesting a series of product launches for both Intel's Core i7 processors and compatible motherboards, Industry observer PC Online.cn have already published an in-depth review of the Core i7 940 2.93 GHz processor. The processor is based on the Bloomfield core, and essentially the Nehalem architecture that has been making news for over an year now. PC Online went right to the heart of the matter, evaluating the 192-bit wide (tri-channel) memory interface, and the advantage of HyperThreading on four physical cores. In the tests, the 2.93 GHz Bloomfield chip was pitted against a Core 2 Extreme QX9770 operating at both its reference speed of 3.20 GHz, and underclocked to 2.93 GHz, so a clock to clock comparison could be brought about.

The evaluation found that the performance increments tri-channel offers over dual-channel memory, in real world applications and games, are just about insignificant. Super Pi Mod 1.4 shows only a fractional lead for tri-channel over dual-channel, and the trend continued with Everest Memory Benchmark. On the brighter side, the integrated memory controller does offer improvements over the previous generation setup, with the northbridge handling memory. Even in games such as Call of Duty 4 and Crysis, tri-channel memory did not shine.

It's high time to break the dogma. Core i7 965 Extreme, Intel's next generation flagship desktop processor based on the Nehalem architecture, does indeed overclock satisfactorily. IT OC Taiwan overclocked the chip, which sports an unlocked FSB multiplier, to a respectable 4.20 GHz, at a FSB speed of 200 MHz, and multiplier value of 21.0xFSB. A vCore setting of 1.72 V was used, which is above the danger-mark, taking Intel's own warnings into account. The CPU was aided by dual-channel DDR3-1600 memory operating at timings of 8-7-7-24. It provided a tested bandwidth of close to 16,000 MB/s. The CPU took 3DMark Vantage for a spin, with 3596.76 plans/s in CPU Test 1, and 32.87 steps/s in Test 2. The chip used in the attempt was an engineering sample.

After reporting a $344 million fourth-quarter loss last week Micron today said it is going to reduce its global workforce by approximately 15 percent during the next two years. Most of the workforce cuts will occur in Boise.

The combination of declining customer demand and product oversupply in the marketplace has driven selling prices for NAND flash memory significantly below manufacturing costs,

Micron said in a statement.
As a result, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), a joint venture between Micron and Intel, will discontinue the supply of NAND flash memory from Micron's Boise facility. The NAND operation shutdown will reduce IMFT's NAND flash production by approximately 35,000 (200 millimeter) wafers per month, according to Micron. Production in the other two joint ownership NAND flash facilities in Lehi and Utah will continue operating at full speed for now.

AMD spokesman reassured today that the deal between AMD and Advanced Technology Investment Company won't violate any of the patent agreements AMD made with its main competitor Intel. Let me remind you that earlier that day Intel said it would review its processor licensing agreement with AMD, especially the agreement which allows AMD to use Intel's x86 chip instruction set, to ensure the ATIC deal does not violate any patent agreements. Phil Hughes, an AMD spokesman, wrote in an e-mail today:
"We are completely confident the structure of this transaction takes into account our cross-license agreements,"
"Rest assured - we plan to continue respecting Intel's intellectual property rights, just as we expect them to respect ours."
Financial analyst Hans Mosesmann even believes that the dispute between the two giants may become a weapon for Intel to solve some of its problems in court. If Intel manages to find something is wrong with this deal it can use it against Advanced Micro Deviced and make AMD drop the long-standing anti-trust suits against the company. Continue reading the full story here.

Remember the A-DATA DDR3 triple channel memory and the ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard? They are both detailed on our page, but this story aims to show how both parts perform when working coupled with a quad-core Core i7 engineering sample CPU. The results you're about to see below are achieved by three 1600MHz A-DATAs overclocked to over 2000MHz. The result is system memory read/write speeds of up to the incredible 20515/16946 MB/s. The latency time is also worth mentioning - 22.9ns.

Intel Corporation today announced that Peter Cleveland, chief of staff to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) since 2006, will join the company as its new vice president for global public policy and head of the chipmaker's Washington, D.C., office. Cleveland will join Intel immediately after the Nov. 4 presidential election.

Here's an interesting story I found today. It's short, but I'm sure it won't end just like that and there'll be a lot more to discuss later.

Intel Corp. said on Tuesday it has "serious questions" about a deal announced by Advanced Micro Devices to spin off its manufacturing business and focus on chip design, and is ready to defend its patents. Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said that AMD and Intel have a patent cross-licensing agreement under which AMD pays royalties to Intel. "Intel has serious questions about this transaction as it relates to the license and will vigorously protect Intel's intellectual property rights," Mulloy said of AMD's announcement. Mulloy said Intel has asked AMD to make the agreement public but he said it would not, so he was not at liberty to discuss the matter in detail.

Recent reports indicate that memory manufacturer Kingston Technology has teamed up with chip maker Intel to market flash memory-based drives to top makers of laptops and servers. Under the partnership, Kingston will buy SSDs from Intel and then rebrand them and resell them to its partners. Kingston is also set to provide technical support, testing and sell the drives to big brands like Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM and others.
"We have had both an engineering and marketing relationship with Intel for more than a decade," spokesman David Leong said. "This is one market where we believe it will grow quite a bit. The opportunity was there to jump into it right now with Intel," he added.
At the moment Intel produces a few solid state drives, aimed at the notebook and desktop markets as well as models for the server market. It's unclear whether Kingston will take the consumer path, or the server SSD side. The story is yet to be confirmed by both companies.

Nehalem does promise to be a processor to look out for, it would be Intel's next installment, post the successful Core 2 series processors. This time however, Intel made a core modification with the way the system handles memory. The Bloomfield processors house a massive 192-bit wide memory controller for supporting tri-channel DDR3 memory. It however was found that the controller could bring in limitations to the DIMM voltages that the system could support.

The retail version of ASUS P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition motherboard was unboxed by XFastest. Being the retail product, as usually, it comes with precautionary labels attached to parts of the motherboard. The one that covers the 6 DDR3 DIMM slots reads:

According to Intel CPU SPEC, DIMMs with voltage setting over 1.65V may damage the CPU permanently. We recommend you to install DIMMs with voltage setting below 1.65V.

Intel Capital, Intel's global investment organization, today announced an agreement to acquire a $20 million stake in Telligent Systems, makers of social computing solutions and business intelligence tools. Based in Dallas, Telligent will utilize the funds to expand its sales teams and territories, including growth in international markets, as well as increase its marketing and advertising initiatives and product development plans. "Intel Capital makes strategic global investments to help provide enterprises with the latest tools they need for growth, innovation, productivity improvement and cost savings," said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital and executive vice-president of Intel.

Intel would be rolling out an elite fleet of desktop processors based on the new Nehalem architecture soon. The first derivative, the Bloomfield core, is supposed to be the architecture's flagship for the desktop PC market. And for it, Core i7 Extreme 965 is supposed to be the leading processor. Priced at US $999, the processor is clocked at 3.20 GHz and features four cores and eight logical processors thanks to HyperThreading Technology (encore). Details of it are covered here.

Mobile01, unboxed the i7 965 before launch. The contents show a massive stock cooler and the processor itself. The stock cooler is composed of the same fins projecting radially, just that they are much thinner, and more in number (to boost surface area of dissipation). The cooler uses 50% of fins made of copper and the rest 50% made of aluminum. The large CPU contact base is made of copper and pre-applied TIM. The box pictured is the "white-box" part, expect the retail box to be of that exact size.