HANDS ON GUIDE

New Names

What's in a name? Core i7 is here...

Nehalem-based processors will be known as Core i7 processors, as the big blue logo shows. Nehalem is the codename for the entire family of processors, the first of which will be on sale in the next two to three months.

Six designs of Nehalem will soon be launched, two for servers and workstations, two for desktops and two for laptops:

Nehalem server/workstation processor

Nehalem-EP
Nehalem-EX

Nehalem desktop processors

Lynfield
Havendale

Nehalem laptop processors

Clarksfield
Auburndale

Each of these names pertains to a design of a CPU core, just as Conroe, Wolfdale or Yorkfield describes a certain design of Core 2 Duo processor. As before, products within these design families will sport different model numbers depending on their core frequency.

OCTO-CORE

Intel has confirmed that Nehalem-EX will be feature eight physical cores, but hasn’t said anything about the other processors. We expect Nehalem-EP will be a quad-core chip. One of the benefits of the modular design of Nehalem is that it allows scaling up to more cores than four, something that would have been extremely difficult with the approach Intel took of merging two dual-core dies together with Core 2.

CORE i7 QUAD?

We’d expect branding to be something along the lines of Core i7 Duo and Core i7 Quad. We also know there will be a Core i7 Extreme. The exact product names and model numbers will depend on the various speeds of the CPUs in the range, but this is one detail of Nehalem Intel remains tight-lipped about.

We’ll be interested to see which names Intel decides upon, as the current four-digit model numbers it uses have already reached 9770 with the Core 2 Extreme QX9770.

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