As expected, Intel’s lined up a new series of processors to follow the successful Core 2 Duo range. And no, it’s not calling it the Core 3 but the Core i7.

The processor company mailed releases out to media early Monday and already there’s been quite a buzz. Intel’s new microarchitecture, codenamed “Nehalem” has already been talked about in the usual hardware circles with bets already being places as to when the chips would officially be launched.

“The Core name is and will be our flagship PC processor brand going forward,” said Sean Maloney, Intel Corporation executive vice president and general manager, Sales and Marketing Group. “Expect Intel to focus even more marketing resources around that name and the Core i7 products starting now.”

So expect a new black Core i7 logo rolling out for “Extreme Edition”-running PCs with Intel including processor model numbers on the logos to differentiate each chip. The new range will have four processor cores, capable of handling eight software “threads”.

The Register’s not too convinced that consumers will see the Core i7 as much of an improvement over the Core 2. Says Tony Smith: “We’re not convinced they will, especially after Intel made such a song and dance about naming the fifth incarnation of its Centrino platform ‘Centrino 2′.” Well, the bigger the company, the more ludicrous the hype-machine. The real question here is – when are the chips coming out? 

Intel claims the chips will be in production by this year’s fourth quarter though there really is no hurry. Its own real competitor, AMD, is not in much shape to catch up. AMD’s been struggling with delayed product roll-outs and questionable product choices. AMD’s triple-core processor was something its own marketing people struggled to pitch as a good idea and consumers have pretty much shown, in sales, that they’d take a Core 2 Duo over AMD’s triple-core alternatives.

Though Intel’s been steadily churning out the chips for it, multi-thread computing has yet to take off in the consumer space. Perhaps that should be Intel’s next challenge.         

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Entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 10:54 pm under Intel.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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