Intel has sent a notification to system vendors that it has begun removing the Celeron D 331 and 336 models from its product portfolio. The two Celeron D processors are based on the 90nm Prescott core and Intel's Netburst architecture. The 331 (2.66GHz 256KB L2 Cache) and 336 (2.8GHz 256KB L2 Cache) are currently offered as the two cheapest processors in the firm's desktop processor portfolio. Both CPUs are selling for a tray price of $34 and $37 respectively. According to Intel's product change notification, the Celeron D 331 and 336 will be available for order until September 7 of this year, while the last shipment is scheduled for May 9, 2008.

The Znote 6625WD, as one of the most advanced notebooks in the market, will be the first in the market to be driven by Intel's new super processor Santa Rosa. The Zepto Znote 6625WD is equipped with Nvidia's Geforce 8600, which is 'state of the art' in the graphics card market. The Znote 6625WD is ideal for heavy graphical assignments and for multimedia functionality.

Zepto Computers has again succeeded in being the first in the market to offer the latest technology of Intel. Santa Rosa, the name of Intel's new platform, will set new standards in the use of notebook PC's.

Intel is rolling out a pair of ultra-low power chips for compact notebooks and small PCs.

The two new Core 2 Duo chips only consume a maximum of 10 watts of power when running full speed, which makes them ideal for ultraportable notebooks or other devices where size or battery life is at a premium. As a comparison, Intel's Core 2 Duo processors for regular notebooks consume about 34 watts of power at maximum performance.

Intel will offer the chips in two speeds, the U7600 runs at 1.2GHz and the U7500 runs at 1.06GHz.

Intel Q6600, Xeon X3220 and X3210 to Receive New Stepping

Intel has informed its customers that the Core 2 Quad Q6600 desktop quad-core processor as well as the Xeon X3220 and X3210 server quad-core CPUs have been transitioned to a new stepping. According to a product change notification released on Friday, the three processors were transitioned from the B-3 to the G-0 processor stepping. All new stepping CPUs have 10W lower TDP - 95W instead of the original 105W. The new CPUs, which can be identified by the CPUID "06FB" (B-3 processors were labeled "06F7"), also increase the Tcase, a value that describes the maximum temperature a CPU can sustain, by 11 degrees Celsius. All three G-0 CPUs require BIOS updates. Samples of the processors are expected to be available on May 11. General availability of the units is scheduled for July 16.

In respond to AMD's Quad FX, Intel announced in January at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, new platform dubbed "V8". The guys at HotHardware.com have managed to take a good look at it and run some benchmarks. The "V8" consists of Intel workstation-class S5000XVN dual-socket motherboard, coupled to a pair of Xeon X5365 processors, 4GB of Samsung DDR2-667 FBDIMMs, and a GeForce 8800 GTX. The motherboard is based on Intel's 5000X chipset and the processors are clocked at 3.0GHz a piece(1333MHz FSB). Click here, to see some preliminary testing on this rig.

Laptops based on Intel's new Centrino platform Santa Rosa are starting to leak out, this time they're from Lenovo (a few Fujitsu models got out last week). The new ThinkPads T61 and R61 are both based on Intel's Core 2 Duo processors and use Intel's Gm/PM965 chipset. Other specs include both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista and Windows XP Pro, Intel's new Wi-Fi Link 4965AGN, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 IGP (for systems using integrated graphics), NVIDIA graphics (for other systems), 14.1" screens, Intel Turbo Card, smartcard support and full hard disk encryption. These laptops should be available from May this year, with a Blu-Ray version coming in July. Lenovo will also finally be removing the IBM branding from palm rests after acquiring Big Blue's laptop division in 2005.

Silicon giant Intel certainly has the upper hand in the current chip market, with its market share rising to over 80% for the first time since Q3 2005. Back in Q4 2006, AMD was enjoying a market share of 15.7% according to market watcher iSuppli, with Intel on 75.7%. However, the latest figures show that these statistics have now changed to 11.1% and 80.2% respectively, quite a noticeable drop for AMD. Intel has been gradually clawing back the market share it lost to AMD ever since the release of the Core 2 Duo processors, with AMD's market share peaking at 16.7% in Q3 2006. AMD will be hoping for improved sales later this year when it releases its new desktop and server CPUs.

A few big retailers and etailers have confirmed that Intel actually can check if you overclocked your CPU. When you burn your CPU Intel asks its retailers and etailers to return the CPU back to its factory. Intel then reads data from a hidden part of the CPU, and instantly finds out if the CPU has been overclocked or overvolted.

Retailers and etailers said that they are not sure about Intel's methods of judging who gets the new CPU, but they said that Intel gets back to them if you overclocked too much, and simply refuses to RMA the part.

Intel unveiled the first benchmark numbers of its recently announced Penryn quad-core processor, which runs at 3.33GHz, at the IDF event in Beijing, China. Intel presented the benchmark numbers of a Penryn 45nm quad-core processor running at 3.3GHz with a 1333MHz FSB and 12MB cache versus an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800 introduced last week at 2.93GHz with 1066FSB and 8MB cache. Another dual-core version of the Penryn family named Wolfdale with 6MB L2 cache was also included in the comparison. Intel said that the three test systems were configured with identical hardware, including Intel D975XBX2 BadAxe 2 motherboard, single GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card, 2GB of DDR2-800 memory with 5-5-5-15 timings, and a 32-bit version of Windows Vista Ultimate. The results are available below:

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 17, 2007 - Intel Corporation today announced first-quarter revenue of $8.9 billion, operating income of $1.7 billion, net income of $1.6 billion and earnings per share (EPS) of 27 cents. The results included the effect of a $300-million reversal of previously accrued taxes that increased EPS by approximately 5 cents.

"The strong momentum of our industry-leading Intel Core microarchitecture product family, combined with ongoing structural cost improvements, delivered solid financial results in the first quarter," said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. "Our product strength is reflected in the fact that average selling prices for the quarter held up well in a very competitive environment."

Click here to continue reading the Q1 2007 Earnings Release [PDF 236KB]

At the Intel Developer Forum today Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, introduced the Intel Ultra Mobile platform 2007 (formerly codenamed "McCaslin") for MIDs and UMPCs and said systems will be available over the summer from Aigo, Asus, Fujitsu, Haier, HTC and Samsung. The Intel Ultra Mobile platform 2007 is based on the Intel processor A100(600MHz) and A110(800MHz), built using 90nm manufacturing process and 512KB of L2 cache. The processors run at 400MHz FSB and have a thermal design power (TDP) of just 3W. Both processors are paired with the new Intel 945GU Express Chipset and Intel I/O Controller Hub (ICH7). The chipset features a single x1 PCI Express interface and support for up to 1GB of DDR2 memory. The IUMPC2007 graphics core is assaigned to the Intel GMA950, which delivers resolution of up to 1024x768 pixels. Full product information for the Intel Ultra Mobile Platform 2007 can be found here.

INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, Beijing, April 17, 2007 -- Intel Corporation executives today detailed more than 20 new products, technology innovations and industry initiatives -- many of them industry firsts -- aimed at making the World Wide Web, computers and consumer electronics devices much more responsive, friendlier and secure.

Under the backdrop of Intel's leadership in 45nm Hi-k metal gate silicon technology and how it will ignite new innovation and growth opportunities, Intel executives at the Intel Developer Forum disclosed new performance details for its next-generation "Penryn" processor family. The company also unveiled two product roadmaps for Intel architecture (IA)-based System on Chip (SOC) consumer electronic (CE) devices and business uses.

Intel should begin to ship a new clock-unlocked Core 2 Duo mobile processor in the second half of this year, aimed mostly at gamers who like to play on the move. This new CPU is likely to become the Extreme version of the Core 2 Duo mobile, with Intel Mobility Chief Mooly Eden subtly commenting about "taking mobile gaming to the Extreme", going on to say it will be an "ass-kicking" product. He also hinted at a four core laptop CPU sometime in the future, but didn't give any indication of when.

Intel is also set to launch its 'auto-overclocking' CPUs next month - using Dynamic Acceleration Technology, the new processors will be able to automatically run faster than the specified frequency whilst monitoring the chip's heat emission in order to prevent it overheating. It can also overclock just one core whilst keeping the other in a low power state to reduce power consumption whilst maintaining gaming performance (most games will only use one core anyway).

Intel plans to further strengthen its leadership by releasing 1333MHz FSB Kentsfield Quad-Core processors. The new Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 processor will operate at 3.00GHz/1333MHz FSB with 2x4MB L2 cache and 130W TDP. Coupled with the upcoming X38 chipset, Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 will provide the most powerful Core 2 platform up to date. The QX6850 is set to cost US$999 when released. At the same time the QX6800 CPUs will cost US$999 as well.

Intel Corporation today announced the availability of new versions of its Intel Thread Checker, Intel Thread Profiler, Intel VTune Performance Analyzer and Intel Threading Building Blocks. These software development products enable developers to create more reliable, scalable applications, and have now been enhanced for the latest multi-core processors - Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6800 and Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 - and newest operating systems - Microsoft Vista*, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise*, Red Hat Enterprise Linux* and Fedora Core*.

"Our Intel Core 2 processors have essential new profiling capabilities we're taking advantage of for the first time in our VTune Analyzer 9.0. Since nearly all systems shipping with Windows Vista will be multi-core systems, developers targeting Vista have been asking us for these parallelism tools," said James Reinders, director of marketing for Intel's Developer Products Division. "Developers on all operating systems want their move to parallelism well supported by development tools and we're committed to keeping up with our aggressive pace of supporting developers in as many ways as possible."

Chief Architect Douglas Carmean, responsible for Intels rather new Visual Computing Group (VCG), is on a tour to universities looking for new recruits supporting Intel in the upcoming GPGPU war. The article is made of several slides out of Carmeans "Future CPU Architectures - The Shift from Traditional Models" presentation with additional notes and estimations on the part of Beyond3D. Carmean pictures Intels approach on a GPGPU design, consisting of an in-order 4-thread 'throughput' core that draws a mere 6.25W and a super-wide Vec16 FPU attached to it. If you look at such a single GPGPU processor it doesn't look promising, but that quickly changes if you take the great scalability of this object into account. It is small (and therefore cheap to produce) and somewhat fast and you can attach literally thousands of them together. At this point one usually expect some kind of a drawback of this design, which I won't deny here: It seems as this core doesn't support x86 instructions at all. In the article you will find enough speculation about it so I won't spoil anything more now. Further you will see what Intel thinks of where CPUs and GPUs are heading for, which type of application processings they will be best in and so on.

It is particularly interesting to note that they place video processing firmly in the CPU camp, and yet all current premium video solutions for high-end codecs rely on GPU power to accelerate this function smoothly.

Intel today bumped the clock speeds of its quad-core Core 2 Extreme processors with the addition of the QX6800. The new Core 2 Extreme QX6800 clocks in at 2.93 GHz, matching last summer's dual-core flagship X6800. Intel's new Core 2 Extreme QX6800 features 8MB of total L2 cache and an unlocked upper multiplier for overclocking goodness. As with the previous Core 2 Extreme QX6700 and Core 2 Quad Q6600, the new QX6800 shares the 65nm Kentsfield core. Intel prices the Core 2 Extreme QX6800 at $1199, however, aggressive Q3'07 price cuts will drop the QX6800 down to $999.

Intel has given the official name "Turbo Memory" to the flash memory addon to future notebooks. The technology, called Robson in the past, works as a cache to speed up every day tasks and booting of computer. A recent video shows a Turbo Memory enabled laptop finishing a series of tasks in just under 100 seconds while an identical notebook without the flash memory takes much longer to do the same task.

Intel has added two ultra low voltage Core 2 Duo processors to its product portfolio. The new 1.06GHz U7500 and the 1.2GHz U7600 models, are based on the Merom core with 533MHz FSB and 2MB L2 cache. Both CPUs will be targeting mini notebooks, tablet PCs and ultra-portable notebooks. The U7500 and U7600 are introduced as part of the currently shipping "Napa refresh" platform, but will also be available for the upcoming Santa Rosa platform with a slight change in pinout. The new Merom ULV CPUs will be replacing the Core Duo U2500 processor over the coming months. One of the first manufacturers offering the U7500/U7600 will be Gateway who said that its E-100M notebook will be available with the two processors beginning on May 3 of this year.

Under a new brand called Intel Centrino Pro processor technology, Intel Corporation today announced it will extend its innovative and popular features designed for desktop business PCs called Intel vPro processor technology into its forthcoming high-performance laptop offering. IT departments will be able to reliably manage both desktops and notebooks and deal with what plagues them most - security threats, cost of ownership, resource allocation, and asset management -- and do so wirelessly.

Four cores running at 2.93GHz on a 1066FSB will be the base for Intel's upcoming Core 2 Extreme QX6800. Advanced cooling will be required in order to get rid of the 150W this beast will most likely dissipate. This CPU was thought to be released later this month but TheInq doesn't say so. Instead this new Intel flagship will be shown world wide on this Easter Monday - at least the NDA will go up by then. Furthermore don't expect them at your local dealers so soon, even big First Tier OEMs won't get it in substantial quantities the sources say. This all sounds like a paper launch without a real threat for Intel to continue their push-strategy. Or is the upcoming K10 architecture so much better performance wise?

In the second half of this year Intel plans to cut prices of its Viiv platform chipsets in order broaden its market presence. The ICH8-DH did cost round about 5 US$ in the first and only 3 US$ in the second quarter. Its upcoming successor, the ICH9-DH will start with a 1 US$ price tag - the tag will be almost more expensive itself then.
After all Intel got some serious competition with AMD's Live! solution and won't be as successful as with the Centrino platform motherboard makers think.

Marking the next step in Intel's "tick-tock" product strategy and cadence to deliver a new process technology with an enhanced microarchitecture or entirely new microarchitecture every year, Intel Corporation will begin producing its next-generation Penryn family of processors in the second half of this year. These new processors benefit from enhancements to the Intel Core microarchitecture and also Intel's industry-leading 45nm Hi-k process technology with its hafnium-based high-K + metal gate transistor design, which results in higher performance and more energy-efficient processors.

The people at Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) managed to get another long-term contract with Intel that allows them to manufacture and sell chipsets for Intel's upcoming FSB 1333MHz quad-core CPUs. It remains to be seen how this license agreement will strengthen SiS in terms of market share in the high-end desktop segment which is right now, let's say quite inexistent. Sure they are selling notebook chipsets like crazy and since the CeBIT we know about their SiS672FX based mainboards. This time however we are talking about quad-cores, pretty advanced stuff - definitely the heavy weight league if you ask me. And while we are waiting for SiS to flex it's muscles I'll keep my fingers crossed for them that market acceptance will change in their favour as well.

Penryn is Intels next generation of the Core 2 Duo with 'Conroe'-core. Based on a 45nm process and an improved High-k dielectric together with metal gates the Penryn features the SSE4 instruction set (aka Nehalem New Instructions, NNI), and a 6MB/12MB L2-cache (Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad). Power consumption will roughly be the same, 65W TDP for the Duo and 105W for the Quad. The working frequencies will be higher than 3GHz for the top models resulting in around 20% more performance when playing games. Video-trancoding that utilizes the new SSE4 instructions will be around 40% faster Intel says.
The mobile Penryn features an additional 'deep power down'-state where both caches will be deactivated, the core-frequency and -voltage are lowered by a significant amount. Furthermore the chip is able to change both core's frequencies and voltages indepentently from one another. Let's say you are using a single threaded application for a while the second core won't have much to do it will power itself down whereas the other core could power it up to improve the performance.
In late 2008 Intel plans to release the Nehalem architecture which comes with an integrated memory controller. By then the front side bus days will be over, a serial Hypertransport-like interface called 'CSI' (Common System Interface) will replace it.

Update: AnandTech covers the story as well with a whole article dedicated to the Penryn and Nehalem.