Intel's plans to overhaul its desktop processors early next year have been detailed almost entirely in a roadmap published today. The lineup is now believed to be headlined by low-powered S versions of the Core i5-750 and i7-860 that will run all four cores at 2.4GHz and 2.53GHz respectively; they should use just 82W of power versus 95W or more and fit into tighter spaces. Each will have 8MB of Level 2 cache, though the Core i7 chips will scale up to 3.46GHz where the Core i5 will stop at 3.2GHz.
Notably, the Impress details suggest overlap between the dual-core and quad-core i5 models. The first dual-core Core i5 will be significantly faster and launch at a minimum 3.46GHz clock speed, ramping up to 3.73GHz. A Core i5-660 should start from 3.33GHz (max 3.6GHz) and will be accompanied by a i5-650 that starts at 3.2GHz and peaks at 3.46GHz. All of these will have 4MB of L2 cache and use 73W of power.
Core i3, which lacks the Turbo Boost feature that overclocks the i5 and i7 models, will start with 2.93GHz (i3-530) and 3.06GHz (i3-540) versions. Just one Pentium, the 2.8GHz G9650, will carry the new architecture and will have a smaller 3MB of cache.
The next performance leader in Intel's lineup, the Core i9 or Gulftown architecture, isn't expected until spring in this schedule.
Source: electronista