Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition

Conquer the world of extreme gaming with the fastest processor on the planet: the Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition. With faster, intelligent, multi-core technology that responds to your workload, it delivers an incredible breakthrough in gaming performance.

In the last few months you may have seen previews and news stories regarding Intel's new Core i7 desktop processor family, formerly known as Nehalem. Today, we're able to publish our impressions of Intel's new chip and ultimately its new platform. We've selected the flagship, $999 Core i7-965 Extreme Edition CPU to represent the Core i7 family, which at launch later this month will include three other processors, starting at $284. These new chips all require a new chipset, which will only exist at first by way of a very expensive new motherboard. We don't expect mainstream users will adopt Core i7 in any variation at first, at least until the motherboard prices come down. But the well-heeled performance hounds who do make the leap will enjoy the fastest consumer CPUs on the market.
Core i7 has enough architecture changes to require a brand new connection design between the chip and the motherboard. This is no small change, because Intel has stuck with the LGA775 (land grid array) chip socket since the days of Pentium 4. The new socket design, LGA1366, will not accept any older Intel CPUs, nor will Core i7 work on any older motherboards.

Unlike a new socket design, new chipsets aren't uncommon with updated Intel CPUs. The last three Extreme Edition chips Intel has launched each required its own new motherboard circuitry, and Core i7 is no different. Intel's new Core i7-supporting X58 chipset will only appear in very high-end boards. We conducted this review with the Intel Extreme Motherboard DX58SO board, and we've already reported on a new X58 board from Asus. Expect Gigabyte, MSI, and Intel's other typical board partners to introduce their own new X58 boards, and we expect prices will stay at or around the $300 mark. For this reason, Core i7 will remain an enthusiast CPU until Intel introduces a more moderate, mass consumption-friendly Core i7-compatible chipset.


Faster memory access:
The reason for this platform shift has to do in part with a fundamental design change in Intel's CPU architecture. As has long been rumored, Intel has finally adopted an integrated memory controller into its Core i7 CPUs. What this means is that instead of the CPU communicating with a separate controller on the motherboard before it can talk to the system memory, Core i7 can save a step, and essentially receive data from the system RAM directly.


AMD adopted this integrated controller strategy in the early days of its Athlon dual-core processors, and it was one of the factors that led them to dominate the competing Intel Pentium D CPUs of that generation. Through superior design since then, Intel has regained its performance lead over AMD, and we suspect that by adding the on-chip memory controller to Core i7, Intel has only made it more difficult for AMD to find a design advantage moving forward.
A potential complication here is that the new memory controller has three channels to the RAM. That means that unlike most desktop setups, which involve two or four memory sticks, Core i7 systems will want memory sticks in multiples of three. Hence why Intel shipped our test system with only 3GB of RAM (we got creative with a 2x1GB, 1x2GB RAM configuration, for 4GB total for testing), and why in high-end PCs that use the new X58 platform, 3GB, 6GB, and 12GB configurations will be common. X58 will also only support DDR3 RAM, whose prices have thankfully come down over the past year.

Four cores, sometimes eight
If you've followed Intel's chips designs over the years, the term "Hyperthreading" shouldn't be unfamiliar. This technology lets Intel simulate more processing threads on top of its old dual-core Pentium 4 chips. It abandoned that strategy with the Core 2 family, but Intel has resurrected it with Core i7, and it's why you'll see eight processing threads when you bring up Windows' system performance screen. Few day-to-day programs will benefit from Hyperthreading, and it's more of a situational benefit for processing reliability and the scant few applications that can actually support so many threads. Core i7 will eventually hit eight native cores on a single CPU, or 16 processing streams with Hyperthreading, but Intel has not made it clear when that will happen. It may be worth the wait, if you know you'll need that much parallelism, but few consumers will.


Multigraphics agnostic
Another significant change with the Core i7/X58 landscape had to do with graphics cards. Intel's Skulltrail platform of last year supported both standards as well, but the specialized CPUs that made the board worthwhile were prohibitively expensive. With the X58 chipset, yes, it comes on an expensive motherboard, but you can purchase a Core i7 chip to go with it for less than $300. The Core 2 Extreme QX9775 Skulltrail CPU started at $1,500. Gamers who stay current with graphics cards should be especially happy with this flexibility, as changing 3D card vendors will no longer require a wholesale system rebuild.

We tested both SLI and Crossfire setups on our Core i7 test bed and found both worked without trouble, requiring nothing more than installing the hardware and appropriate graphics-driver software as you would normally. As for their performance, AMD has issued a series of so-called "hot-fix" drivers to improve compatibility and frame rates of its cards with various PC games, which suggests that its software still needs to work out a few kinks on X58. Nvidia has not been shy to point out this fact (its beta drivers have worked fine), but we also find it telling that all three of the high-priced Core i7 gaming desktops we're currently reviewing come with multicard AMD configurations.

A quicker path
Finally, the last major change with Core i7 is the introduction of what Intel's calling the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI). Essentially this is the Intel version of AMD's HyperTransport interface between the CPU and the chipset. The major impact of the QPI for consumers is that Intel uses different QPI ratings to distinguish the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition from the non-Extreme Core i7 chips. Rated by Gigatransfers per second (Gigatransfers, or GT, refers to a million transfers of data), the Extreme Edition comes in at 6.4GT/sec, where the non-Extreme versions handle only 4.8GT/sec. In addition to that speed advantage, Intel also ships the Extreme version with an unlocked clock multiplier, which means it can be overclocked. The standard Core i7's will have to remain at their shipping speeds.


Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650
Est. cost $999 $999
Manufacturing process 45 nanometer 45 nanometer
Transistors 731 million 820 million
Clock speed 3.2GHz 3.0Ghz
L2 Cache 256kb/core 2 x 6MB
L3 cache 8MB 2MB
Front side bus NA 1,333MHz
TDP 130 watts 130 watts


To put the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition in perspective, we compared it with the year-old Core 2 Extreme QX9650. The Core i7 boasts a faster clock speed and an L3 cache shared by the four cores that's four times larger than that of the older chip. With the integrated RAM controller on Core i7 replacing the need for a front side bus, the platforms are quite different from each other, so the specs don't tell the whole story. The performance results speak more clearly.

Multimedia multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition
95
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650
109

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition
117
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650
122


Adobe Photoshop CS3 test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition
74
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650
84


CineBench 10
(Longer bars indicate faster performance)
Rendering multiple CPUs Rendering single CPU
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition
19,434
4,443
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650
13,192
3,707


CPU-limited Far Cry 2
(1,024 x 768, low-quality, no AA/AF)

Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition
176
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650
154


Power consumption (in watts)
(Shorter bars indicate faster performance)
Load Idle
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition
328
201
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650
335
201
The Core i7 chip is faster than the QX9650 on every test, but we were most impressed by the CineBench multicore test and the Far Cry 2 benchmark, where Intel's new CPU established a sizable performance advantage. Gamers and digital-media editors may likely have assumed that Core i7 is worth their attention. As we can see from our testing, any such assumption is clearly justified.
We should add that the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 was actually surpassed earlier by the Core 2 Extreme QX9770, a $1,500 CPU that uses Intel's X48 chipset. Time constraints prevented us from testing that CPU as well, but based on early results from PC World Greece (via Engadget), it appears that Core i7 trounces that chip as well. We expect the Web will flood with reviews of the entire Core i7 family at the same time that this review launches. We encourage anyone considering a new CPU purchase to read as much coverage as possible to make the most informed buying decision. Any CPU with a $999 price tag merits careful consideration.
Power consumption
You'll note from our power-consumption tests that the Core i7 consumes almost the exact same amount of energy both at idle and while under load. We didn't expect major gains here, as each chip uses the same 45 nanometer process, runs at a similar clock speed, and with roughly the same number of transistors. Typically Intel gains power efficiency with chips introduced in a "tock" year, which involves a more efficient design of the chips from a "tick" year such as these. The Core i7-965 Extreme may have improved its relative power usage, in that it uses fewer transistors to do more work and at faster clock speeds than the older Core 2 Extreme chips. But anyone building a system with this new processor should expect to need an equivalently beefy power supply, especially if you intend to add multiple graphics cards and hard drives.
Find out more about how we test desktop systems.
System configurations:
Intel Core i7-956 Extreme Edition
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit; Intel DX58SO motherboard 4GB Kingston 1,066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 graphics card; 74GB Western Digital 10,000 rpm hard drive
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit; Asus Maximus Formula Special Edition motherboard; 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX280; 74GB Western Digital 10,000 rpm hard drive

Architecture & latest Silicon Technology

In the age of Moore's Law, Intel has delivered architecture and silicon technology with amazing transistor counts—as many as two billion and growing. With steady gains in energy efficient performance, and innovative uses of new materials, our innovations continue to enable industry leading firsts.
Intel Micro architecture
As the foundation for Intel's processor-technology, Intel® micro architecture employs next-generation, 45nm multi-core technology. Optimized to deliver state-of-the-art features that raise the bar on energy-efficient performance, Intel micro architecture continues to be the catalyst for innovative new designs
Intel® Micro architecture, Codenamed Nehalem
Intel's latest-generation micro architecture, first exemplified as the Intel® Core™ i7 processor, represents the next step in faster, multi-core technology that intelligently maximized performance to match your workload. Designed from the ground up to take advantage of 45nm Hi-k next generation Intel® Core™ micro architecture, Intel® micro architecture, codenamed Nehalem, unleashes parallel processing performance enabled by an integrated memory controller and Intel® Quick Path Technology providing high-speed interconnects per independent processing core.
The next level of multi-core performance
Intel® micro architecture, codenamed Nehalem, offers the latest in processor innovation, including:
• Dynamic scalability, managed cores, threads, cache, interfaces, and power for energy-efficient performance on-demand.
• Design and performance scalability for servers, workstations, notebooks, and desktops with support for 2-8+ cores and up to 16+ threads with Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology (Intel® HT Technology), and scalable cache sizes, system interconnects, and integrated memory controllers.
• Intelligent performance on-demand with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology taking advantage of the processor's power and thermal headroom. This enables increased performance of both multi-threaded and single-threaded workloads.
• Increased performance on highly-threaded applications with Intel HT Technology, bringing high-performance applications into mainstream computing with 1-16+ threads optimized for new generation multi-core processor architecture.
• Scalable shared memory features memory distributed to each processor with integrated memory controllers and Intel Quick Path Technology high-speed point-to-point interconnects to unleash the performance of future versions of next-generation Intel® multi-core processors.
• Multi-level shared cache improves performance and efficiency by reducing latency to frequently used data.

Intel® Multi-Core Technology

What is Intel multi core processor?
Multi-core technology is the term that describes today's processors that have two or more working processor chips (more commonly referred to as cores) working simultaneously as one system. Dual cores or chips with two processors that work as one system are the first type of multi-core technology applications.
Permanently altering the course of computing as we know it, Intel® multi-core technology provides new levels of energy-efficient performance, enabled by advanced parallel processing and next-generation hafnium-based 45nm technology. Incorporating multiple processor execution cores in a single package delivering full parallel execution of multiple software threads, Intel multi-core technology enables each core to run at a lower frequency, dividing the power normally given to a single core. This provides a breakthrough experience in notebook and desktop PCs, workstations, and servers.
Central to our technology roadmap, Intel® multi-core processors based on 45nm Intel® Core™ microarchitecture are paving the way to the next revolution in processor technology—next-generation 32nm multi-core processors. By innovating future architectures that can hold dozens or even hundreds of processors on a single die, we're ensuring that Intel® technologies will continue to outpace demands well into the future
A multi-core processor (or chip-level multiprocessor, CMP) combines two or more independent cores (normally a CPU) into a single package composed of a single integrated circuit (IC), called a die, or more dies packaged together. A dual-core processor contains two cores, and a quad-core processor contains four cores. A multi-core microprocessor implements in a single physical package. A processor with all cores on a single die is called a monolithic processor. Cores in a multicore device may share a single coherent cache at the highest on-device cache level (e.g. L2 for the Intel Core 2) or may have separate caches (e.g. current AMD dual-core processors). The processors also share the same interconnect to the rest of the system. Each "core" independently implements optimizations such as superscalar execution, pipelining, and multithreading. A system with n cores is effective when it is presented with n or more threads concurrently. The most commercially significant (or at least the most 'obvious') multi-core processors are those used in personal computers (primarily from Intel and AMD) and game consoles (e.g., the eight-core Cell processor in the PS3 and the three-core Xenon processor in the Xbox 360). In this context, "multi" typically means a relatively small number of cores. However, the technology is widely used in other technology areas, especially those of embedded processors, such as network processors and digital signal processors, and in GPUs.
The amount of performance gained by the use of a multicore processor depends on the problem being solved and the algorithms used, as well as their implementation in software (Amdahl's law). For so-called "embarrassingly parallel" problems, a dual-core processor with two cores at 2GHz may perform very nearly as quickly as a single core of 4GHz. Other problems, though, may not yield so much speedup. This all assumes, however, that the software has been designed to take advantage of available parallelism. If it hasn't, there will not be any speedup at all. However, the processor will multitask better since it can run two programs at once, one on each core.


Applications
Multi-core technology is useful especially in very demanding applications and tasks such as video editing, encoding and 3D gaming. The full effect and the advantage of having a multi-core computer, however, is felt only when it is used together with a multithreading operating system such as Windows XP or Linux and with applications that are capable of multithreading.
Even when applications are not multithreaded, it is possible for a multithreaded operating system to properly delegate tasks to multiple cores helping the system manage the workload on each core. Applications that are large resource consumers, such as 3D games, or office suites with lots of middleware will be less effective, however, since all tasks related to those specific applications will have to be delegated to a single core for proper operation.
It is expected that most application development efforts will focus on multithreaded models, making multi-core systems more and more desirable.

Intel Corporation

The world's largest semiconductor company and the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers. Intel was founded on July 18, 1968 as Integrated Electronics Corporation and based in Santa Clara, California, USA. Intel also makes motherboard chipsets, network cards and ICs, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors, and other devices related to communications and computing. Founded by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, and widely associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove, Intel combines advanced chip design capability with a leading-edge manufacturing capability. Originally known primarily to engineers and technologists, Intel's successful "Intel Inside" advertising campaign of the 1990s made it and its Pentium processor household names.
Intel was an early developer of SRAM and DRAM memory chips, and this represented the majority of its business until the early 1980s. While Intel created the first commercial microprocessor chip in 1971, it was not until the success of the personal computer (PC) that this became their primary business. During the 1990s, Intel invested heavily in new microprocessor designs fostering the rapid growth of the PC industry. During this period Intel became the dominant supplier of microprocessors for PCs, and was known for aggressive and sometimes controversial tactics in defense of its market position, as well as a struggle with Microsoft for control over the direction of the PC industry The 2007 rankings of the world's 100 most powerful brands published by Millward Brown Optimor showed the company's brand value falling 10 places – from number 15 to number 25.
In addition to its work in semiconductors, Intel has begun research in electrical transmission and generation.

Corporate history
Intel was founded in 1968 by Gordon E. Moore (a chemist and physicist) and Robert Noyce (a physicist and co-inventor of the integrated circuit) when they left Fairchild Semiconductor. A number of other Fairchild employees also went on to participate in other Silicon Valley companies. Intel's third employee was Andy Grove a chemical engineer, who ran the company through much of the 1980s and the high-growth 1990s. Grove is now remembered as the company's key business and strategic leader. By the end of the 1990s, Intel was one of the largest and most successful businesses in the world
Origin of the name
At its founding, Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce wanted to name their new company Moore Noyce. The name, however, sounded remarkably similar to more noise — an ill-suited name for an electronics company, since noise is typically associated with bad interference. They then used the name NM Electronics for almost a year, before deciding to call their company INTegrated ELectronics or Intel for shortHowever, Intel was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so they had to buy the rights for that name at the beginning.s
Company's evolution
Intel has grown through several distinct phases. At its founding, Intel was distinguished simply by its ability to make semiconductors, and its primary products were static random access memory (SRAM) chips. Intel's business grew during the 1970s as it expanded and improved its manufacturing processes and produced a wider range of products, still dominated by various memory devices.
While Intel created the first microprocessor (Intel 4004) in 1971 and one of the first microcomputers in 1972, by the early 1980s its business was dominated by dynamic random access memory chips. However, increased competition from Japanese semiconductor manufacturers had, by 1983, dramatically reduced the profitability of this market, and the sudden success of the IBM personal computer convinced then-CEO Grove to shift the company's focus to microprocessors, and to change fundamental aspects of that business model. By the end of the 1980s this decision had proven successful, and Intel embarked on a 10-year period of unprecedented growth as the primary (and most profitable) hardware supplier to the PC industry.
After 2000, growth in demand for high-end microprocessors slowed and competitors garnered significant market share, initially in low-end and mid-range processors but ultimately across the product range, and Intel's dominant position was reduced. In the early 2000s then-CEO Craig Barrett attempted to diversify the company's business beyond semiconductors, but few of these activities were ultimately successful.
In 2005, CEO Paul Otellini reorganized the company to refocus its core processor and chipset business on platforms (enterprise, digital home, digital health, and mobility) which led to the hiring of over 20,000 new employees. In September 2006 due to falling profits, the company announced a restructuring that resulted in layoffs of 10,500 employees or about 10 percent of its workforce by July 2006. Its research lab located at Cambridge University was closed at the end of 2006.
Sale of XScale processor business
On June 27, 2006, the sale of Intel's XScale assets was announced. Intel agreed to sell the XScale processor business to Marvell Technology Group for an estimated $600 million in cash and the assumption of unspecified liabilities. The move is intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses. The acquisition was completed on November 9, 2006.
History of crippling competitors with legal bills
During the time of the 386 CPU, Intel partook in suing companies that tried to develop chips that competed with the 386. The lawsuits were noted to significantly hamper or even cripple the competition with legal bills, even if Intel lost the suits.
Market history
SRAMS and the microprocessor
The company's first products were shift register memory and random-access memory integrated circuits, and Intel grew to be a leader in the fiercely competitive DRAM, SRAM, and ROM markets throughout the 1970s. Concurrently, Intel engineers Marcian Hoff, Federico Faggin, Stanley Mazor and Masatoshi Shima invented the first microprocessor. Originally developed for the Japanese company Busicom to replace a number of ASICs in a calculator already produced by Busicom, the Intel 4004 was introduced to the mass market on November 15, 1971, though the microprocessor did not become the core of Intel's business until the mid-1980s. (Note: Intel is usually given credit with Texas Instruments for the almost-simultaneous invention of the microprocessor.)
From DRAM to microprocessors
In 1983, at the dawn of the personal computer era, Intel's profits came under increased pressure from Japanese memory-chip manufacturers, and then-President Andy Grove drove the company into a focus on microprocessors. Grove described this transition in the book Only the Paranoid Survive. A key element of his plan was the notion, then considered radical, of becoming the single source for successors to the popular 8086 microprocessor.
Until then, manufacture of complex integrated circuits was not reliable enough for customers to depend on a single supplier, but Grove began producing processors in three geographically distinct factories, and ceased licensing the chip designs to competitors such as Zilog and AMD. When the PC industry boomed in the late 1980s and 1990s, Intel was one of the primary beneficiaries.
Intel, x86 processors, and the IBM PC
The integrated circuit from an Intel 8742, an 8-bit microcontroller that includes a CPU running at 12 MHz, 128 bytes of RAM, 2048 bytes of EPROM, and I/O in the same chip.
Despite the ultimate importance of the microprocessor, the 4004 and its successors the 8008 and the 8080 were never major revenue contributors at Intel. As the next processor, the 8086 (and its variant the 8088) was completed in 1978, Intel embarked on a major marketing and sales campaign for that chip nicknamed "Operation Crush", and intended to win as many customers for the processor as possible. One design win was the newly-created IBM PC division, though the importance of this was not fully realized at the time.
IBM introduced its personal computer in 1981, and it was rapidly successful. In 1982, Intel created the 80286 microprocessor, which, two years later, was used in the IBM PC/AT. Compaq, the first IBM PC "clone" manufacturer, produced a desktop system based on the faster 80286 processor in 1985 and in 1986 quickly followed with the first 80386-based system, beating IBM and establishing a competitive market for PC-compatible systems and setting up Intel as a key component supplier.
In 1975 the company had started a project to develop a highly-advanced 32-bit microprocessor, finally released in 1981 as the Intel iAPX 432. The project was too ambitious and the processor was never able to meet its performance objectives, and it failed in the marketplace. Intel extended the x86 architecture to 32 bits instead
386 microprocessor
During this period Andrew Grove dramatically redirected the company, closing much of its DRAM business and directing resources to the microprocessor business. Of perhaps greater importance was his decision to "single-source" the 386 microprocessor. Prior to this, microprocessor manufacturing was in its infancy, and manufacturing problems frequently reduced or stopped production, interrupting supplies to customers. To mitigate this risk, these customers typically insisted that multiple manufacturers produce chips they could use to ensure a consistent supply. The 8080 and 8086-series microprocessors were produced by several companies, notably Zilog and AMD. Grove made the decision not to license the 386 design to other manufacturers, instead producing it in three geographically distinct factories in Santa Clara, California; Hillsboro, Oregon; and the Phoenix, Arizona suburb of Chandler; and convincing customers that this would ensure consistent delivery. As the success of Compaq's Deskpro 386 established the 386 as the dominant CPU choice, Intel achieved a position of near-exclusive dominance as its supplier. Profits from this funded rapid development of both higher-performance chip designs and higher-performance manufacturing capabilities, propelling Intel to a position of unquestioned leadership by the early 1990s.
486, Pentium, and Itanium
Intel introduced the 486 microprocessor in 1989, and in 1990 formally established a second design team, designing the processors code-named "P5" and "P6" in parallel and committing to a major new processor every two years, versus the four or more years such designs had previously taken. The P5 was earlier known as "Operation Bicycle" referring to the cycles of the processor. The P5 was introduced in 1993 as the Intel Pentium, substituting a trademarked name for the former part number (numbers, such as 486, cannot be trademarked). The P6 followed in 1995 as the Pentium Pro and improved into the Pentium II in 1997. New architectures were developed alternately in Santa Clara, California and Hillsboro, Oregon.
The Santa Clara design team embarked in 1993 on a successor to the x86 architecture, codenamed "P7". The first attempt was dropped a year later, but quickly revived in a cooperative program with Hewlett-Packard engineers, though Intel soon took over primary design responsibility. The resulting implementation of the IA-64 64-bit architecture was the Itanium, finally introduced in June 2001. The Itanium's performance running legacy x86 code did not achieve expectations, and it failed to compete effectively with 64-bit extensions to the original x86 architecture, first from AMD (the AMD64), then from Intel itself (the Intel 64 architecture, formerly known as EM64T). As of November 2007, Intel continues to develop and deploy the Itanium.
The Hillsboro team designed the Willamette processor (code-named P67 and P68) which was marketed as the Pentium 4, and later developed the 64-bit extensions to the x86 architecture, present in some versions of the Pentium 4 and in the Intel Core 2 chips. Many chip variants were developed at an office in Haifa, Israel.
Pentium flaw

In June 1994, Intel engineers discovered a flaw in the floating-point math subsection of the Pentium microprocessor. Under certain data dependent conditions, low order bits of the result of floating-point division operations would be incorrect, an error that can quickly compound in floating-point operations to much larger errors in subsequent calculations. Intel corrected the error in a future chip revision, but nonetheless declined to disclose it In October 1994, Dr. Thomas Nicely, Professor of Mathematics at Lynchburg College independently discovered the bug, and upon receiving no response from his inquiry to Intel, on October 30 posted a message on the Internet. Word of the bug spread quickly on the Internet and then to the industry press. Because the bug was easy to replicate by an average user (there was a sequence of numbers one could enter into the OS calculator to show the error), Intel's statements that it was minor and "not even an erratum" were not accepted by many computer users. During Thanksgiving 1994, The New York Times ran a piece by journalist John Markoff spotlighting the error. Intel changed its position and offered to replace every chip, quickly putting in place a large end-user support organization. This resulted in a $500 million charge against Intel's 1994 revenue.
Ironically, the "Pentium flaw" incident, Intel's response to it, and the surrounding media coverage propelled Intel from being a technology supplier generally unknown to most computer users to a household name. Dovetailing with an uptick in the "Intel Inside" campaign, the episode is considered by some to have been a positive event for Intel, changing some of its business practices to be more end-user focused and generating substantial public awareness, while avoiding (for most users) a lasting negative impression.
Partnership with Apple
On June 6, 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be transitioning from its long favored PowerPC architecture to the Intel x86 architecture, because the future PowerPC road map was unable to satisfy Apple's needs. The first Macintosh computers containing Intel CPUs were announced on January 10, 2006, and Apple had its entire line of consumer Macs running on Intel processors by early August 2006. The Apple Xserve server was updated to Intel Xeon processors from November 2006, and is offered in a configuration similar to Apple's Mac Pro.

HP launches new ProBook range

HP has unveiled the ProBook series of laptops, the 15-inch 4510s and 4515s, and the larger 4710s. All of them include a numeric keypad, if that's important to you in a laptop, and are designed to be recyclable. So you'll feel okay about yourself when you ditch them for a Mac.
Only kidding, folks! There are two 15.6-inch models, the ProBook 4510s with Intel inside, and the ProBook 4515s with interior decoration by AMD. Both sport 16:9 widescreen, high-definition, LED-backlit displays, HDMI and the aforementioned numeric keypads. As well as standard Wi-Fi, you can add mobile broadband and Bluetooth.


Next up is a 17.3-inch model, the ProBook 4710s, above, with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics chip and up to 512MB of GDDR2 for video memory. It packs Intel Core 2 Duo processors.

In a first for its business models, Linux is offered as a pre-installed option as well as Windows. HP has also announced the Intel-packing 4410s AMD-powered 4415s today in the States. HP told Crave these 14-inch models will cross the pond sometime soon.

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than traditional painted surfaces. A silver panel covers the palm rest and touch pad area for clean contrast. HP’s Notebook Design Group has been recognized by distinguished design institutions: International CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards; iF International Forum Design Award; Industrial Design Excellence Awards; ID Magazine Annual Review; Good Design Awards.


What It Is & Why You Need It
• For those who want everyday computing capability that's built to last at a great value, the Compaq Presario CQ50-139WM Refurbished Notebook PC delivers!
• Balancing mobility and performance needs at 6.46 lbs, the CQ50 is powered by Intel® processors and Intel® graphics, and includes integrated high-speed wireless LAN

Intel® Core™2 Extreme Mobile Processor

Extreme Mobile Gaming & Multimedia
Get extreme processing power for mobile gaming and multimedia with the Intel® Core™2 Extreme mobile processor, the world's highest performing quad-core‡¹ and dual-core‡² mobile processors.

Extreme Mobile Gaming & Multimedia

Get extreme processing power for mobile gaming and multimedia with the Intel® Core™2 Extreme mobile processor, the world's highest performing quad-core‡ and dual-core‡ mobile processors. Learn more

Clock Speed

Up to 3.06GHz

Cores

Up to 4 Cores

Silicon Technology

As small as 45nm

Front Side Bus

Up to 1066MHz

L2 Cache

Up to 12MB