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Intel Unveils 'Sandy Bridge' Architecture
njkobie writes "Intel has officially unveiled Sandy Bridge, its latest platform architecture, at the first day of IDF in San Francisco. The platform is the successor to the Nehalem/Westmere architecture and integrates graphics directly onto the CPU die. It also upgrades the Turbo Mode already seen in Core i5 and i7 processors to achieve even greater speed improvements. Turbo Mode on Sandy Bridge processors can now draw more than the chip's nominal TDP where the system is cool enough to do so safely, enabling even greater boosts in core speeds than those seen in Westmere. No details of specific products have been made available, but Intel has confirmed that processors built on the new architecture will be referred to as 'second generation Core processors,' and are expected to go on sale in early 2011. In 2012 it is due to be shrunk to a 22nm process, under the name Ivy Bridge."
Yup if you shelled out for a Socket 1366 (high end i7), you're going to be sticking with Nehalem until Socket R comes out down the line.
If you went with 1156, which I did (P55 Classified + i7 860 @ 4.0 Ghz), then you're screwed, just earlier, since it's now Socket 1155, which isn't compatible even though it's just a 1 pin difference.
I wasn't very happy with Intel when I found this out, since they've recently switched sockets after holding on to 775 for so long, but from my understanding AMD has also done something with the AM-2/3 socket where some motherboards are back/forwards compatible, but others aren't. I think there is a derivative socket, Am-2/3+, that is backward compatible but the Am2-3 standard version isn't forwards compatible. Don't take my word on it though, my builds have been Intel since the Q6600 came out. AMD has done a better job of backward compatibility but the sweet spot for price/performance + overclocking has been Intel chips whenever I've done my last few builds, and I only do builds every few years, usually after new architectures are released so my motehrboards are usually replaced as well.
Anandtech covered upcoming socket changes in more detail in their writeup
Wow. The nonsense..it hurts my brain.
First, IA64 is not a "64-bit x86 extension", it's a new ISA. AMD released x86_64 and Intel did very shortly after.
Second, Intel has had integrated CPU/GPUs out for a while. And you're crazy if you think Intel chips (now, not back in the bad old P4 days) draw more power and run hotter than AMD chips.
Basically everything you said is either wrong or backwards, and you confuse me because of this.