Intel's desktop Core i5 and i7 processors and its matching P55 platform are slated to appear in exactly a week, mainboard producers claimed today. A launch is expected on September 8th that should involve three processors already rumored for next month; these would include the 2.93GHz Core i7 870, 2.8GHz Core i7 860 and 2.66GHz Core i5 750. All of these are quad-core, but only the Core i7 models will have Hyperthreading and support as many as eight program threads at once.
Resellers in Taiwan and a handful of other areas are already known to have been selling both the processors and necessary mainboards ahead of Intel's actual unveiling.
Known under their Lynnfield codename, the new wave of Core i5 and i7 chips should be the first truly affordable processors from Intel's Nehalem architecture, which until now has been focused almost exclusively on high-end desktops, servers and workstations. They should be significantly faster in many tasks than even some earlier Core i7 parts but should still initially consume enough power to limit them to typical tower-sized desktops.
While a notebook-oriented quad-core design nicknamed Clarksfield is due this fall, true mobile Nehalem parts are only expected in early 2010 with the laucnh of Arrandale dual-core Core i5 and i7 processors.
Source: electronista
