Includes company's first 32nm chips

Intel has announced a host of new processors for 2010, based on the Core i3, i5 and i7 lines. The company says it has switched over to 32nm manufacturing, which allows for more efficient chips in terms of both speed and power consumption. Many processors also integrate HD Graphics components, which are capable of limited 3D rendering, as well as Dolby TrueHD and DTS Premium Suite audio. Notebook-level processors can switch between HD Graphics and a dedicated video card on the fly.

New mobile processors range from the 1.06GHz Core i5-520UM through to the 2.66GHz Core i7-620M, which can operate at turbo speeds of up to 3.33GHz. Graphics acceleration varies between 166-500MHz and 500-766MHz, depending on the associated CPU. The two Core i3 chips, the 330M and 350M, notably lack any form of turbo capacity.

Desktop processors include the i3-530 and i3-540, and the i5-650, i5-660, i5-661 and i5-670. The i3 chips are rated at 2.93 and 3.06GHz, and lack turbo functions. The i5-650 is clocked at 3.2GHz, while the 670 is rated at 3.46GHz with a 3.73GHz turbo ceiling. Both the 660 and 661 are by default rated at 3.33GHz, but the 661 has the advantage of 900MHz graphics, where all of the other desktop chips are limited to 733MHz.

Intel is also rolling out the 5 Series chipset, which merges several tasks onto a single chip, and four Centrino wireless adapters. The Wireless-N 1000 is limited to 300Mbps throughput on a single band, but the Advanced-N 6200 and Ultimate-N 6300 are both dual-band, the latter permitting speeds up to 450Mbps. The Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 is dual-band over both Wi-Fi and WiMAX.

By Electronista Staff