Intel's Core i7-875K and i5-655K processors

In CPUs, it's good to be king, because the king gets to decide things. If you're not king, you may be able to get away with all sorts of shenanigans, but you ultimately serve at the king's pleasure.

Take, for instance, AMD's recent resurgence in desktop processors. Although Intel has held the overall performance crown in an unbroken run since the introduction of the first Core 2 Duo, AMD has been able to stay on the radar of PC enthusiasts through cunning and guile. When it had no hope of catching up to the fastest Intel chip in a given price range, AMD cooked up its Black Edition processors that removed clock speed caps and made overclocking dead simple—without the huge price premium traditionally commanded by Extreme Edition and FX processors. Even though Intel's CPUs were more attractive by most conventional standards, folks wanting value and performance suddenly had to weigh another variable. When it couldn't keep pace with Intel's quad-core processors using four cores of its own, AMD uncorked the Phenom II X6 and priced it directly opposite Intel's Lynnfield quads. You were quite literally getting more chip for your money from AMD, and the X6's strong value proposition was enough to earn it positive reviews.

Smart strategy will only take you so far, though, when you're not the king. Intel's chips extract more computational throughput from a smaller silicon area while consuming less power. From manufacturing to design and architecture, it has every advantage. Intel is king. As a result, Intel gets to decide how much performance it will deliver to customers and at what price. And now it appears, the king is a little miffed—cheesed, peeved, horked off, if you will—about the Phenom II X6's critical success.

Thus, the king has lifted his hand from the armrest of the throne and made a quick flourish—perhaps a slicing motion across the throat—and tilted his head in the general direction of the Phenom II X6. A little fiddling in the royal factories and a few marketing slides later, and the king's official response rides forth across the drawbridge, the Core i7-875K and the Core i5-655K. Both of the K-series CPUs are priced attractively and have unlocked core and memory multipliers for easy overclocking. And they offer precious little room for those pesky Phenom IIs to breathe.

Make way for the K series
Neither of the K-series processors is new speed grade from Intel. The Core i5-655K is just an unlocked version of the Core i5-650, and the Core i5-875K is an unlocked Core i7-870. The K-series parts have the same core clock, Turbo frequencies, and thermal envelopes as their unlocked brethren. What makes them different is the ability to crank up and down the core and memory multipliers at will. Well, there's one more major bit of news for the i7-875K, best illustrated by a look at how it fits into Intel's lineup.

Model	Cores	Threads	Base core clock speed	Peak Turbo clock speed	L3 cache size	Memory channels	TDP	Price
Core i5-650	2	4	3.2 GHz	3.46 GHz	4 MB	2	73W	$176
Core i5-655K	2	4	3.2 GHz	3.46 GHz	4 MB	2	73W	$216
Core i5-661	2	4	3.33 GHz	3.6 GHz	4 MB	2	87W	$196
Core i5-670	2	4	3.46 GHz	3.73 GHz	4 MB	2	73W	$284
Core i5-680	2	4	3.6 GHz	3.86 GHz	4 MB	2	73W	$294
Core i5-750	4	4	2.66 GHz	3.20 GHz	8 MB	2	95W	$196
Core i7-860	4	8	2.80 GHz	3.46 GHz	8 MB	2	95W	$284
Core i7-870	4	8	2.93 GHz	3.60 GHz	8 MB	2	95W	$562
Core i7-875K	4	8	2.93 GHz	3.60 GHz	8 MB	2	95W	$342

Intel charges a bit of a premium for the 655K versus the 650, but the 875K is $220 cheaper than the Core i7-870—at least right now. One would expect the Core i7-870's price to snap into line or the product to be canceled, but Intel says it has no plans to change the i7-870's price "in the near term." So it may just hang around as a singularly poor value. Whatever happens, the 875K gives you a more flexible CPU for a whole lot less cash.

In fact, the i7-875K costs roughly 50 bucks more than the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, AMD's fastest desktop processor, which is also unlocked. No doubt Intel charges a little more because, at stock speeds, the Core i7-875K is faster than the X6 1090T. We know this because the Core i7-870, with the same stock clocks, was faster overall in our review of the 1090T. Still, the price is close enough that 875K's intended target is pretty clear.

The Core i5-655K isn't such an obviously good value. At $216, it slots into the existing price structure for Clarkdale-based dual-cores, and we've long thought Intel charges too steep a premium for the higher clock speeds of those CPUs. Heck, the 655K costs more than the Core i5-661, which has higher stock clocks for both the CPU cores and the integrated graphics, so there's a premium for the unlocking, too. If you leave overclocking out of the equation, we'd prefer Intel's $199 quad, the Core i5-750. The closest competition from AMD has more cores, as well: the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition is $185, and the Phenom II X6 1090T is $199.

Then again, you can't really leave overclocking out of the conversation when you're talking about a 32-nm Clarkdale processor, for reasons we'll make clear shortly.

Spotted: New Intel Core i7 Quad Mobile and i5 Mobile processors

New Core i5 and Core i7 mobile processors leaked!

HP does it again! Reading through a recently posted Service Manual of the spanking new HP Envy 17, I’ve spotted three, new and upcoming Intel Core i5 and Core i7 Mobile processors that will be coming to HP Envy’s near you in the coming months (and presumably in other performance notebooks as well). The new processors include:

• Intel Core i7 840QM Quad-core processor – With a ‘native’ clock speed of 1.86 GHz and the ability to go up to 3.20 GHz using Turbo Boost, the i7-840QM is the new flagship processor of Intel’s non-Extreme line of processors. This processor is a wee bit faster than the 820QM, while maintaining 8 MB of L3 cache and 45W TDP rating. Another interesting fact is that the i7-840QM appears as an option alongside, instead of replacing, its 820QM sibling.
• Intel Core i7 740QM Quad-core processor – This looks like the love child of the existing Core i7 720QM and i7 820QM processors, sporting the 1.73 GHz clock speed of the latter and 6 MB of L3 cache of the former, and 45W TDP shared by all the existing Quad Core i7’s (except the i7-920XM). Maximum Turbo Boost speed is 2.93 GHz: that sits somewhere between the two (i7-720QM and i7-820QM).
• Intel Core i5 450M dual core processor – This is a very strange new processor indeed. Strange because it appears like a clone of the i5-520M processor with the same specifications and info on paper. 2.4 GHz dual core, with the ability to go up to 2.93 GHz via Turbo Boost, 3 MB of L3 cache and 35W TDP.

There are also a couple of implied new processors with the appearance of the three above. Here’s what I expect to also arrive (in other notebooks) at the same time:

• Intel Core i7 940XM Quad-core Extreme processor – With the i7 840QM able to hit the same 3.20 GHz ceiling as the i7 920XM via Turbo Boost, expect to see an upgraded i7 940XM mobile processor with 2.26 GHz clock speed and ability to Turbo Boost to 3.33 GHz or more.
• New Intel Core i5 500M series processors (i5 530M and i5 550M) – These new processors will maintain their 35W TDP, while giving an increase in clock speed/Turbo Boost max clock speed.

Well, go right ahead and check out that Service Manual to see those new processor options yourself, along with a wealth of information related to the Envy 17 (like how there’s no battery slice available, the fact it uses the GDDR5 version of the ATI Mobility Radeon 5850 and not DDR3 [rejoice!], how the hard drives and RAM slots are now “customer accessible” and more!). The new processors also make an appearance in the HP Envy 15 Service Manual, hinting that the Envy 15 (and it’s rather not-so-nice keyboard) is not so dead yet… well, there’s always wishful thinking that a redesigned 2nd gen Envy 15 or Envy 16 will come out this fall, right?

Intel to Launch New Processors for Ultrathin Laptops

Intel will soon release new low-power processors for a class of thin and light laptops that bridge the gap between netbooks and mainstream laptops, a company spokeswoman confirmed on Friday.

The new processors will be available under Intel's Core i3 and Core i5 brands and will power laptops that are as portable as netbooks but have larger screens and greater functionality. Called ultrathin laptops, these PCs are usually priced between US$400 and $800 and provide performance that is adequate to run standard applications and high-definition multimedia.

An Intel road map presented during a webcast on Thursday showed that the chips will be less powerful than the standard-voltage Core i3 and Core i5 laptop processors, which are priced between $133 and $294, according to an Intel price list. However, the new processors will be faster than Intel's Atom chips, which go into netbooks.

The road map also showed that the chips are due for release this quarter. The Intel spokeswoman declined comment on further chip details such as release date, performance and pricing. However, ultrathin processors are generally cheaper than mainstream laptop chips.

The new processors will reach laptops in the second half of the year, said Stephen Smith, vice president and director of PC client operations and enabling at Intel, during a webcast speech.

The chips will be made using the latest 32-nanometer manufacturing process, Smith said. The processors could provide a significant performance and power-savings boost over the first ultrathin chips introduced last year by Intel under the Core and Pentium brands. Intel's Core i3 and Core i5 processors integrate the CPU and graphics processor inside a single chip package, which could improve graphics performance while drawing less power. The chips are also capable of running two threads per one core, which could improve application performance.

The ultrathin laptop category first emerged when AMD introduced its Athlon Neo processors in January last year. Intel followed suit, releasing new ultrathin chips a few months later. The laptops were expected to fill a power and performance gap between netbooks and mainstream laptops, but adoption rates were slow.

However, research firm iSuppli said in a statement on Thursday that shipments of ultrathin laptops will pick up this year. iSuppli estimated that ultrathin shipments to total 14.5 million, a 93 percent increase from the 7.5 million ultrathin laptops that shipped last year. iSuppli estimated total laptop shipments to be 209.5 million units this year, a 25.5 percent year-over-year growth.

Acer was the top ultrathin laptop maker last year, shipping 5 million units, followed by Asustek, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Sony. Apple hasn't yet adopted ultrathin processors for its laptops.