Intel plans to unleash its Penryn family processors next quarter, shortly after AMD releases Barcelona. Penryn is a base of all 45nm Core 2 micro architecture products, including quad-core Xeon Harpertown, quad-core Core 2 Yorkfield and dual-core Xeon, Core 2 Wolfdale processors. Intel improves existing Wide Dynamic Execution, Advanced Smart Cache, Advanced Digital Media Boost and Intelligent Power Capability, technologies that previously made its debut with Conroe and Merom. Intel expects SSE4 optimizations to deliver performance improvements in video authoring, imagine, graphics, video search, off-chip accelerators, gaming and physics applications.
Mobile Penryn processors is featured enhanced power saving technologies. The new technology in the mobile Penryn is a deep power down state. Using this technology, Intel claims significant power savings in idle modes for extended battery life with the new power state. For servers and workstations, Intel has designed Harpertown with additional headroom for the front-side bus. Intel plans to debut Penryn-based Xeon DP, MP and UP processors with 1333 MHz front-side bus, but the architecture has headroom for up to 1600 MHz front-side bus. Penryn-based quad and dual-core Xeons will have three thermal envelopes. Quad-core Harpertown Xeons will have 50, 80 and 120-watt TDP ratings while dual-core Wolfdale Xeons have 40, 65 and 80-watt ratings.
And the desktop Core 2 and Core 2 Extreme processors have less thermal bins. Quad-core Yorkfield models have 95 and 130-watt TDPs while dual-core Wolfdale models have a single 65-watt TDP. Intel hasn't set thermal ratings for its mobile Penryn processors yet.
Following Penryn is a new Nehalem architecture, based on 45nm with Intel's new QuickPath technology, formerly known as common-system interface. Nehalem is set for a 2008 introduction, beginning with the Xeon family for servers and workstations. Intel plans to shrink Nehalem to 32nm with the Westmere core. Following Westmere is Sandy Bridge, a new micro architecture based on 32nm.
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