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Intel talks up 3-Series chipset, Core 2 Extreme CPU for laptops
Shortly after revealing that a quad-core laptop chip was indeed in Intel's pipeline for 2008, the firm has decided to go public with even more laptop-based processor details over at Computex. Intel's executive vice president Sean Maloney had the honors of "unveiling" the 3-Series chipset family (formerly known as Bearlake), which will of course support DDR3 RAM, PCI Express 2.0, HDMI, and can come stocked with G33 / G35 Express integrated graphics. More importantly, the outfit formally introduced plans for an Intel Core 2 Extreme mobile processor that should be released in Q3 of this year. According to Mr. Maloney, the chip is targeted to be the company's "highest-performing mobile dual-core processor that still includes energy-saving power features for laptop designs." No word just yet on whether or not this CPU will cost more than the rest of your laptop components combined (but we wouldn't be surprised).[Via Laptoping]
Intel's P35 "Bearlake" chipset gets benchmarked, reviewed
Those of you that have been itching to see just how well the first batch of Intel P35 "Bearlake" motherboards perform can now rest a bit easier, as the first reviews and benchmarks are finally starting to trickle in. From the looks of it, HotHardware is among the first to do the honors, getting their hands on Asus's new P5K3 Deluxe motherboard and some Corsair XMS3 DDR3 memory to go along with it. According to their findings, that combination delivered 2 to 5% boost in performance over its 965 counterpart across a range of applications, with the mobo also delivering some modest gains when loaded up with DDR2 memory. While that may seem like a relatively small bump in performance, HotHardware sees plenty more room for the chipset to grow, most notably with the addition of 1733MHz DDR3 memory. About the only downsides they could find are the DDR3 RAM's somewhat high latency and the high cost of the hardware for early adopters, although that's hardly a surprise. Those still craving some more details can hit up the link below for the complete rundown.
Intel's DDR3-friendly Bearlake chipset launching in a week
Get ready for the non-revolution: Intel has pushed forward the launch of its Bearlake chipset from May 27th to May 9th, which means everyone is prepping motherboards and DDR3 memory to join in the fun next week. Unfortunately, while there will no doubt be performance increases seen, DDR2's evolution in the high-performance area means DDR3 doesn't pack too much of a relative punch, and won't really pull away from current DDR2 speeds until it starts to hit 1.33GHz and 1.6GHz. Intel has publications under NDA until May 9th, but we're sure to see huge crop of benchmark results of Bearlake once the NDA lifts, and will prep our pocketbooks accordingly.
