You may have heard of Intel’s new 32-nanometre Core CPUs (codenamed Clarkdale and Arrandale), when they were launched as part of a big CES bonanza last month.
But seeing these “mainstream” processors, especially with their new onboard graphics power, in action is another thing.
At a road show here at Dempsey Road here yesterday, the Intel folks in Singapore showed off systems running the dual- and quad-core Clarkdale chips for desktops, as well as the dual-core Arrandale chips for notebooks.
The big promise on these mid-end chips, which come in mobile, desktop and embedded formats, is the HD graphics capability onboard. And I was quite surprised by the performance.
Yes, for the longest time, the industry has been talking about putting graphics on a CPU. The Intel HD Graphics shown at the demo ran a smooth 20+ to 40 frames per second in a UT3 game, as well as two simultaneous HD video streams. That’s probably enough graphics muscle for most of the entertainment you need on the road, or even in a budget desktop PC at home.
For you diehard World of Warcraft fans out there, this is probably your ticket to a budget gaming sytems that plays the only one game you play.
Home theatre PC (HTPC) fans should also be happy with these 32nm chips, because they offer the speed without the power draw of older 45nm chips (to be fair, the more powerful Core i7s are still the tops in performance – if you need it).
There’s also support for multichannel Dolby TrueHD and DTS Premium Suite home theatre audio, so there’s no more worrying about getting the best sound out of your Blu-ray disc.
Yesterday, using an Intel mini-ITX board based on the new Intel H57 chipset, the Intel folks here showed off several HTPC setups, including one on a nice Thermaltake LUXA 2 case. The default heatsink/fan is low enough to fit many a small HTPC casing.
Folks, this is not like using a under-powered Atom (i.e. “lite” HD video performance), or using a somewhat “overkill” 45nm Core2 or Core i5 chip. Slotting in between the two options, the 32nm Core i3 or Core i5 seems like a good balance here in performance and energy savings.
With these mainstream chips that are branded “2010 Core i3, i5 and i7 CPUs”, it’s clear Intel is keen to retake the low-end market from rival AMD, and it’s doing so with a new 32nm manufacturing process. This is good news for most folks looking for a low- to mid-end PC.
The geekiest among us, however, will have to wait for a few more months before the power-packed six-core Gulftowns appear from Intel. Those will be the true replacements for your current Socket-1366 Core i7s desktop chips.
