Today the company has launched six new CPUs to round out its offerings, filling in some gaps and providing a few new flagship chips.

The most notable addition is a new hexacore, the Phenom II X6 1075T, which slides right in the gap of the $200, 1055T and premier $300,  1090T, allowing consumers to balance performance and price a little better.

Two new Black Edition flagship chips also move in for the Phenom quad core and triple core lines with the 970 BE and 560 BE. It should be mentioned that unfortunately the Phenom II X4 970 BE is in fact still based on the Deneb core, and not Thuban; it will replace the end of life X4 965 BE.

Lastly, for the more budget focused consumer, the Athlon II line has received new faster SKU’s for all cores.

To see a list of reviews on the new inductees, visit our processor review roundup

Based on the 64-bit superscalar ‘Isaiah’ architecture, VIA Nano 3000 Series processors deliver the most compelling thin and light notebook computing experience with their rich HD entertainment capabilities, including support for flawless playback of high bit-rate 1080p HD video, as well as low power consumption resulting in longer battery life.

With a host of advanced features including 64-bit support, advanced CPU virtualization technology, SSE4 for enhanced multimedia processing, and the industry-leading encryption and security capabilities integrated in the VIA PadLock Security Engine, VIA Nano 3000 Series processors also provide a secure, high-performance solution for emerging cloud-based computing environments.

“With the VIA Nano 3000 Series, we are launching our fastest and most power-efficient processors yet,” commented Richard Brown, VP International Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. “Coupled with our market-leading digital media chipsets, they enable the richest experience across a broad range of mobile and all-in-one system designs.”

VIA Nano 3000 Series

VIA Nano 3000 Series processors are built on the successful 64-bit, superscalar architecture that powers the VIA Nano 1000 Series and 2000 Series processors, which have been adopted by leading OEMs worldwide for a growing number of market-leading mini-note, small form factor desktop, and energy-efficient server designs.

Available at speeds from 1.0GHz to 2.0GHz, VIA Nano 3000 Series processors deliver up to 20% higher performance using up to 20% less power than current VIA Nano processors and boast a number of new features including support for the SSE4 multimedia instruction set and VIA VT virtualization technology.

Fully compatible with all Microsoft operating systems, including the new Windows 7, as well as all popular Linux distributions, the VIA Nano 3000 Series processors use the NanoBGA2 package, making them pin-to-pin compatible with VIA Nano 1000 Series, VIA Nano 2000 Series, VIA C7, VIA C7-M and VIA Eden processors for easy upgrades of existing designs.

VIA Nano 3000 Series Availability

VIA Nano 3000 Series processor samples are currently available for OEMs and motherboard vendors, and will enter mass production in Q1 2010.

VIA Nano 3000 processors will be available in the following product skus:

For further information on the VIA Nano processor family, please visit the VIA website at:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/nano/

Benchmark Info Courtesy tcmagazine

• Many customers requiring this very low power processor deploy dense, large-scale IT projects where system power trumps raw performance and every watt of power savings can have significant positive impact on the bottom line.
• AMD offers a wide range of energy-efficient processors; customers now have 15 low and very low power server processor choices available.
• All of AMD’s low power processors are fully-featured and available with the same AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) technology and AMD-P features for advanced virtualization and power savings capability as standard power versions.
• This 40W ACP processor is currently being integrated in custom solutions programs and will be available from system builders for cloud and Web 2.0 customers where density and low power are key considerations.

“It’s important for our industry to look at how technology is being used and where customers have emerging needs,” said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server and Workstation Division. “The AMD Opteron EE processor enables OEMs to deliver energy-sipping servers that don’t compromise on power management, virtualization or performance features. It is specifically designed to help address the challenges that are generating a great deal of discussion these days – building and running very dense data centers for Web services, while doing more with less.”

Source:AMD

A blog post by Intel’s Bill Calder sums it up perfectly,

“Over the last year or so, Intel has been quietly working behind the scenes taking a hard look at our brand structure and exploring ways to make it more rational and easier to understand. The fact of the matter is, we have a complex structure with too many platform brands, product names, and product brands, and we’ve made things confusing for consumers and IT buyers in the process.”

Since the introduction of Intel’s Core architecture and consequently their “Core 2″ naming scheming, making sense of the nearly four dozen different desktop Core 2 processors alone is a chore. In addition to that we have the Pentium Dual-Core, a basketful of mobile CPU’s, and the numerous technology brands they like to slap on every description possible. Arguably it would be easier learn the countries of the globe before memorizing Intel’s current lineup of products.

In the blog tidbit however, Calder not only promises that Intel’s new Core i# series will be more consumer friendly, but gives us some hints as to where Intel wants to take the lineup.

The Core lineup will expand with the much anticipated Core i5 as a mainstream offering, as well, the market will receive the Core i3 as a budget/ regular consumer level body of processors, which may include the current Core 2 Duos & Quads.

“Over time those [Core™2 Duo and Core 2 Quad, etc] will go away and in its place will be a simplified family of Core processors spanning multiple levels: Intel® Core™ i3 processor, Intel® Core™ i5 processor, and Intel® Core™ i7 processors. Core i3 and Core i5 are new modifiers and join the previously announced Intel Core i7 to round out the family structure”

These “modifiers” are not going to be new brand’s of processors, but identifying markers to help separate and assist the targeted consumers. The current range of Core 2 Duo’s for instance are only marked by “E####”  spanning from the lowest end E4### series, up to the E8###, same with the Quad population, and the Pentium Dual-Core’s. There is no form of separation to easily differentiate to consumers which “family” would best suit their needs. It is based on a numerical system which typically defines what codename the particular CPUs are built on and there is no quick or easy reference guide to look at.

The blog goes further to address the various technologies that Intel currently produces,

“We are changing and transitioning some of the platform brands. Intel vPro technology continues to stand for best in class security and manageability and will henceforth be paired with Intel Core in either Core i5 or Core i7 iterations. Again this wont happen overnight, but beginning next year Intel business client systems will carry either the Intel Core i7 vPro processor or the Intel Core i5 vPro processor name. With this focus on Intel Core, the Centrino processor technology brand will be retired for PCs beginning next year. However, Centrino has tremendous equity as a wireless technology, so we will transition the name to our Wi-Fi and WiMAX products beginning in 2010.”

So there we have it, a look at some treats for consumers in the near future, and hopefully a more common sense division in the product lineups.

Intel is adding two more members to its small i7 aresenal, but at the same time ,there is speculation that they will also be discontinuing two current chips after just 6 months.

Intel’s processor lineup marketting strategy has always been a bit confusing and sometimes frusterating to consumers. Producing and releasing the highest and most mainstream speed chips first, then filling in the gaps months later with CPU’s only fractionally better, so it should come as no surprise that the current i7 lineup is getting a bit of a refresh as well as a new flagship unit.  This time however, reports indicate that Intel doesn’t want to just add to the lineup – giving consumers a few more choices – but wants to flat out eliminate and replace it. The upcoming Core i7 950 and i7 975 Extreme Edition CPU’s are poised to replace the current 940 and 965  EE processors. Various web sources have rumoured that Intel intends to completely phase out the latter by September 2009, less than one year since their release. 

More details emerged yesterday, with online retailer “PC’s for Everyone”  premetively listing both processors before the NDA – Details Below. Whether or not the information or pricing is %100 accurate is unkown, but it seems in line with most of the speculative web chatter. The ETA for release is listed on the website, is May 31st 2009.  

This isn’t all bad news for consumers however. With the new additions, a buyer could reasonably expect the prices for the current lineup to take a dip  as retailers attempt to clear out their remaining inventory before EOL (end of life) .

Core i7 970 Extreme Edition Specs (Intel part #: BX80601975)

Main Specifications

Product Line: Core i7

Socket: LGA1366 Socket

Clock Speed: 3.33 GHz

QuickPath: 6.4 GT/s

L2 Cache: 256 KB

Price: $1,129.00 USD

Detailed Specifications (Same for both CPU’s)

L3 Cache: 8 MB Shared

L2 Cache: 4 x 256 KB

L1 Cache: 4 x 64 KB

Threads: 8

Manufacturing Process: 45 nm

Thermal Design Power: 130W

Thermal Specification: 67.9°C

Core Voltage: 0.8 – 1.375V

Intel VT: Yes