Intel's desktop roadmap leaked, with faster i5 and i7, introduction of i3
Just when you thought you had enough gigahertz in your life, along come the folks at Impress to blow the doors off Intel's upcoming crop of desktop processors. In the highly detailed charts there's wild talk of a low-powered "S" version of Core i5 that lowers the chip from 95W to 82W, a new Core i3 line that strips out the Turbo Boost technology and dips into budget-priced territory, and word that at the time of this roadmap at least the Core i9 "Gulftown" chip isn't slated for until Q2 of next year. We could probably bore you all day with the details, so hit up the source link for all the sordid details before we get ourselves too worked up.

















Perhaps it's best that I waited to build a new PC.
@SoulinEther this happens every 6 months man, gotta take the plunge at some point :D computers are always getting better so you should just buy when you really need to instead of getting suckered into the marketing of "this is our fastest chip evaar" and such.
@jefwif Yeah, I'll be taking my plunge with one of these here new CPUs.
@SoulinEther
This kind of thing happens every time I build a new one. Speakina, anyone need a 939 AMD Athlon and mobo? It has USB 2.0!
yep, wait for i9 along with usb 3 and sata 6 and nvidia 300 series. big upgrade.
@va jj
Yeah and $4k out of your pocket.
@va jj
I understand paying $1000 for the i9 but only if it was 3.2 GHz or higher, had full support for PCIE3, USB3 and the newest SATA.
The Core i9 will not be so impressive in terms of bang for yer buck. With 6 cores, early tests show it's about 50% than a similarly clocked i7, yet will cost almost 4 times more at $1000!! For that price, you should get about 14 cores (in terms of price/performance ratio, which to be fair is never linear). I'm curious why they don't just make dual CPU consumer systems instead of overpriced processors.
@(Unverified)
They tried that once with the Skulltrail which was really just a dual socket Xeon board sold as a consumer product. Can't say it was really any cheaper as Xeon's and cheap never seem to belong in the same sentence.
Kinda looks like this roadmap from two months ago:
http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=6923
why does it have gpu listed?
It has its own graphics controller
... waits for lawsuit from BMW over naming convention.
@buoy
Yeah, because they are exactly the same model numbers.
...
@Hydraulics well... not exactly the same. just the use of "i" and "s" and the prime numbers for the main family of cars/chips...... except in BMWs case they use that at the end, and the "S" to denote a sporty coupe version, eg 328is, whereas you may get an i3 2.8ghz "s" model.
My line was actually a touche dig @ Apple's attempt to sue Woolworths over the use of the logo resembling an "apple", which failed miserably as their case for the suit was not only across different industry sectors but their supporting case was flimsy.
@buoy Didn't they get the permission from the Beamer Company to name their CPUs like their favorite sports sedan?
@buoy
Intel has been "borrowing" from BMW's naming convention for years, from the Pentium 4/M/D series (eg: 5xx, 6xx, 7xx, 8xx, and 9xx CPUs), with the hundreds digit differentiating the class, the tens digit the performance, and the ones digit any minor variations.
Of course, neither Intel's previous naming scheme nor BMW's are particularly useful beyond the class differentiation (hundreds digit) -- there are big differences between the Pentium M 733, 735, and 738 (1.1ghz, 1.7ghz, and 1.4ghz respectively), though by the numbers themselves it isn't apparent.
The new i3-xxx, i5-7xxx, i7-6xx/7xx/8xx/9xx etc scheme does help make it a bit easier to classify microarch differences in addition to core speed and other features, so kudos to Intel for trying to clear it up a bit.
@(Unverified) interesting.......... thanks very much for the info!
The PC Watch link has a huge intel roadmap from 2005 till 2010.
Still waiting for a $400 i7 PC.
@pika2000 $400 i7 pc? I'll see you in 2012.
@(Unverified) 2012? Do you see the roadmap? That will never happens until AMD put up some serious fight. intel will keep Atom and Pentium for the low end, and reserving the i7 for upper mid-range.
I literally just bought an i5 from microcenter.
Ah well i got it for a pretty good price i guess...
@RampantConsumerism
hhahahah same lol i got mine for 126
140 - (new microcenter account 10% off)
@RampantConsumerism Unless you REALLY wanted an integrated GPU, you're better off with your current i5 than with the two new products on the roadmap. It has four real cores (instead of two real and two hyperthreaded), as well as more cache and better virtualization tech.
@ATimson Yea I think ill be happy with the i5. It should definitely be a step up from my dusty old core 2 duo.
@Jopher Yea I had no idea microcenter had such good deals (at least on some things). Makes me glad to go to school right down the freeway from one!
I dont't understand why Intel are so keen to hang on to Pentium.
If they are going for a i... theme then why not ditch it or call it i1?
What are we on now? Pentium 5 or 6?
@Oli D intel used "Pentium" because prior to this, the processor branding was 486, 386, 286 etc, etc... and numbers aren't trade-markable by and of themselves.
The pentium brand was designed to allow Intel to hold on to a level of exclusivity via the name that clearly couldn't be put on to competitor's chips.
It was then found that continually rebranding for each iteration of processor was counterproductive, because of the familiarity and reputation built up over the "Pentium" name, it stayed on for a very long time.
@buoy Thanks for the history lesson mr wikipedia, but that doesn't answer his question. Go on now, try once again.
@PEZ
what part of "familiarity" do you not fuckin' get?
the "fam", "ili", "ari", or "ty"?
Dumbass.
@Oli D
I think they are, with the 'Core' name. In general Intels aren't called Pentiums anymore. But I see your point about i5,7,9
Still waiting for Calpella Core i7 ULV... That's when I change my laptop.
@revoltracers January 2010.
Wait, so which processors will use what sockets?
I just don't want to be buying another motherboard in a year because intel unexpectedly pulled the plug on one of its connectors.
@(Unverified)
Socket 1155 for CPU Series 5xx-6xx
Socket 1156 for CPU Series 7xx-8xx
Socket 1366 for CPU Series 9xx
Socket 1366 will see 32nm i9 CPUs (6 Core) at some point, but these will be damned expensive.
Socket 1155 is for onboard graphics. Basically, all people that don't need a fast graphics card.
Socket 1156 is for discrete graphics. For people that need good graphics.
@(Unverified)
The Bloomfield CPU's will use socket 1366 while all the other cpus wil be using 1156. 1156 is the mainstream socket now, and the 1366 is the high end as they call it which will include the core i9 as well
I'll wait for the Core M5
The technical word is just getting more and more ridiculous with each and every day.
Me thinks that if AMD was lighting a fire under intel's foot, we would of already had these chips rolling out sooner. Maybe they would of jumped to Core i9 sooner?
@Eternity Exactly. The less than mild competition from AMD is also part of the reason we're not seeing aggressive pricing.
And why they are doing these subtle changes and have this huge variety of chips out trying to milk the customers....
Whoa... I might have to wait for i3, considering how much i5 and i7 rock. Darn, let's hope Phenom III comes out fast.
Is anyone else really confused now?
So, i5 will be Hyperthreaded dual-cores and native, non-hyperthreaded quads?
@archkron Yep. It's a bit of a mess.
How about we get better multi-core software support before you start piling on tons more cores?
@Hazdaz Bit of a chicken/egg thing there isn't it? Why should software makers support what doesn't have market penetration?
@JackValentine
Actually, most PCs that are shipping are multi-core processors. The ones that aren't at least dual-core are predominantly netbooks. At this stage there's very little excuse for software programmers to not start taking advantage of that.
@JackValentine
You kidding me?
Multi-core CPUs have been around for quite some time now... the Core2Duo and Quad came out in '07, and the Athlon 64 dual-core came out in '05, which is an eternity in the computer world. The trend toward multi-core CPUs has been in motion for a long time, it's not like it was just yesterday everyone was using single-core CPUs and the software industry was blind-sided by the transition.
@Hazdaz If your software doesn't have good multicore support, get better software. It's not Intel's job to write the code for deveopers.
@spin cycle
While it might not be Intel's responsibility to write the code for developers, it IS their problem if they are trying to push 4 (and 8+) core CPUs onto a market that no way shape or form uses those cores to their full benefit.
And tell me, what "better" software should someone run to use all those cores if "bad" apps like 3DS MAX, MAYA, Solidworks and Premiere don't use all those cores most of the time. Short of rendering, you'll rarely see all 4 cores maxed out.
@Hazdaz Actually Intel does develop and sell optimized compilers for software developers. So if Intel sold those and dictated how the compilers as used they could have some push for multi-core development.