Intel shows off working quad-core mobile CPU
'Penryn' part, due this time next year
15th October 2007 09:54 GMT
Intel has demo'd the 45nm quad-core mobile processor it's planning to release next year. The chip maker claimed it was on track to bring the part to market in H2 2008 - in Q3, to be precise, though that's not a timeframe Intel has yet made public.
The prototype chip - said to have rolled out of one of the chip giant's fabs mere days ago - contains 840m transistors and is based on Intel's upcoming 45nm 'Penryn' microarchitecture. The transistor count points to an on-board L2 cache extending to 12MB in two 6MB units shared between each core pair.
It's expected to operate over a 1066MHz frontside bus, clearly marking its ability to work with the components of next May's 'Montevina' Centrino update. That said, the quad-core chip isn't expected to be part of the Centrino refresh, thanks to its higher operating temperatures.
The quad-core chip, which will almost certainly ship as a Core 2 Extreme family member, consumes 45W - 10W more than mainstream mobile Core 2 Duos' 35W power envelope but within reach of the kind of cooling technologies available to today's developers of high-end, desktop-replacement gaming notebooks.
Print story
Antec Nine Hundred Two Mid Tower (ATX/Micro ATX/Mini-ITX, 9 Bays)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Dual Core Processor (3GHz, 6MB, 1333MHz FSB, LGA775 Socket T)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processor (2.40GHz, 4x2MB, 1066MHz FSB, Socket T)
Intel Core i7 I7-920 Quad Core Processor (2.66GHz, 4x256kB, 4.8GT/s QPI, LGA 1336 Socket B)
Intel Core 2 Q9550 Quad Core Processor (2.83GHz, 4x3MB, 1333MHz FSB, LGA775 Socket T)
