CES 2008: Intel Releases 16 New 45nm Desktop Processors

16 New 45nm Intel Desktop Processors

Just a few months ago Intel announced the release of their first 45nm CPU, the QX9650 and then a few weeks later they released the QX9770. Today Intel has announced the pending release of 16 new processors, all of which are based on the 45nm node size, which is following their tick-tock product release strategy. In keeping with tradition, Legit Reviews are here to give our readers the low down on these new processors.

Of the 16 new processors coming our way, 12 of these are of interest to us with the remaining 4 CPUs targeted for the server environment.

Seven of these new CPUs will be for Desktop usage. They will all have lower power consumption, thanks to the smaller and improved manufacturing process. The new chips will also have a larger on board cache, which is beneficial when gaming among other things.

Intel hasnt forgotten the mobile users either. There will be five new mobile chips coming soon too. They will have speeds ranging between 2.1GHz and 2.6GHz and cache sizes of either 3MB or 6MB and all using a 800MHz front side bus. Lower power consumption will also be a welcome attribute, as mobile users are always looking for added battery life.

When combined with new 965 Express Chipset you should see some great performance gains and longer battery life.

Later on this quarter Intel will release their new Menlow platform, which was previously demonstrated back in April 07. This will allow for ultra low power computers and handheld devices, without compromising on performance.

We might have to wait until the summer to see these devices on sale from vendors.

It is interesting to note that the high end E8500 Dual-Core and the low end Q9300 are listed at the same price. They share the same amount of total cache, so less cache is available per-core. The consumer will have to choose between the faster, yet only dual core processor compared to the slower clocked quad. My money is on the Quad, and it certianly seems as if Intel is bringing quad-core processing to the masses.

9 of the 16 listed processors are scheduled to be released this month, 5 of which will be mobile parts and the remaining 4 are desktop Dual Core CPUs all with 6MB of cache and a 1333MHz front side bus.

All of the new processors will bring mainstream support for the new SSE4 instruction set, which Adobe recently announced that the next version of Premiere Pro will have support for and also the DivX codec.

You can read our previous reviews on Intels 45nm processors here and here.