Hasta La Gadget!

Like the well-oiled global superpower that it is, Intel has performed a smooth and immediate transition from the announcement of its new 32nm CPUs to actual chips hitting shelves. Newegg has stock of the Core i5-670 (3.46GHz), i5-660 (3.33GHz), and i5-650 (3.2GHz), all of which come with 4MB of cache and that ultra-efficient power profile we drooled over not too long ago. There’s also the i5-661 (which sucks up a bit more juice but has higher integrated GPU clock speeds) as well as a pair of Core i3 options. Hit up our Clarkdale review roundup here for a handy guide to distinguishing between all these.

[Thanks, Keenan]

Intel Core i5 and Core i3 desktop parts start shipping originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whoa, Nelly! Just weeks after Intel came clean with its new Pine Trial nettop and netbook platform, the company is today cutting loose with a few more. This go ’round, we’ve got the 32nm Arrandale (which consists of the Core i5 Mobile and Core i3 Mobile) heading for the laptops and the 32nm Clarkdale chips over on the desktop front. Starting with the former, most reviews found the CPU + GPU solution to be faster than rivaling Core 2 Duo + integrated GPU options, with the Core i5 being particularly potent in highly threaded applications. Better still, battery life didn’t seem to take a hit even with the extra performance, though high-end, high-res gaming was still a lesson in futility when working without a discrete graphics card. Overall, the chip was a welcome addition to the fold, but we got the feeling that the first wave was priced too high and offered too little of a performance increase on the gaming side to really warrant a wholehearted recommendation. As for the Clarkdale? The Core i5 661 that everyone seemed to snag was found to be blisteringly fast, with most folks deeming it the outright champion in the dual-core realm. Unfortunately, the integrated GPU was — again — not awesome for hardcore gaming, and the questionable pricing didn’t exactly thrill some critics. Do yourself a favor and dig into the benchmarks below — we get the feeling we’ll be seeing oodles of machines hit the wires this week with these chips within.

Arrandale reviews
Read – HotHardware
Read – AnandTech
Read – Tom’s Hardware
Read – PCPerspective
Read – Legit Reviews

Clarkdale reviews
Read – NeoSeeker
Read – HotHardware
Read – HardOCP
Read – TechSpot
Read – AnandTech
Read – PCPerspective
Read – Legion Hardware
Read – Overclockers Club
Read – Bit-tech

Intel’s Arrandale and Clarkdale CPUs get benchmarked for your enjoyment originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Details are still fuzzy at best, but word on the street has it that ASUS is preparing to unveil a new mobile gaming rig in short order. The biggest news is the powerhouse within: it’ll purportedly be based on Intel’s dual-core Core i5-430M processor. In addition to that, the rumored GPU will be a potent ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730, which is likely to feature DDR3 memory. You’ll also find a pair of 500GB hard drives, 4GB of RAM, an eSATA and HDMI port and a 1,600 x 900 LED panel that spans 17.3-inches diagonally. There’s no official availability or pricing information to speak of, but Fudzilla is reporting that it should show up in just a few weeks for around€1,000 ($1,435).

[Thanks, Karl]

ASUS prepping 17.3-inch Core i5-powered X77 gaming laptop? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since the dawn of computing, gamers on a budget have been flaunting their ability to best higher-spec’d systems courtesy of a little extra cooling and a lot of time fiddling with BIOS settings. So, no real surprise here that an Intel Core i5 processor can keep up with a Core i7 when properly configured. What is surprising is that you can get one suitably configured with a warranty. The provider in this case is Digital Storm, the system is the Core i5-750, and the warranty is three years. HotHardware put one through its paces and found that, if anything, it was too aggressively overclocked. But, with a few minor tweaks (which hopefully will be made standard for future iterations) the machine was stable, fast, and rather noisy. It managed to keep up with Alienware’s Core i7 Aurora ALX in most benchmarks, despite being about $2,000 cheaper. That kind of savings should buy enough thermal paste to last you at least 18 months.

Digital Storm’s gaming rig shows that Core i5 can trump i7 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just when you thought you had enough gigahertz in your life, along come the folks at Impress to blow the doors off Intel’s upcoming crop of desktop processors. In the highly detailed charts there’s wild talk of a low-powered “S” version of Core i5 that lowers the chip from 95W to 82W, a new Core i3 line that strips out the Turbo Boost technology and dips into budget-priced territory, and word that at the time of this roadmap at least the Core i9 “Gulftown” chip isn’t slated for until Q2 of next year. We could probably bore you all day with the details, so hit up the source link for all the sordid details before we get ourselves too worked up.

Intel’s desktop roadmap leaked, with faster i5 and i7, introduction of i3 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Nov 2009 05:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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