Rumour control: Nehalem given its proper name

Posted at: 2:39pm 8th August 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

It's the successor to Core 2, but it's not a Core 3

First there was Core, then there was Core 2 and Sesame Street’s infamous purple Count might have a good chuckle after announcing Core 3 is the name for the next Nehalem based Core. He’d be wrong, though, if this rumour is true. Expreview reports that Intel’s new Core architecture is going to be called Core i7.

The site claims that the new processors, as well as a new Extreme Edition CPU, will be announced on 11 August, although they won’t be available until the official launch in the last quarter of this year. Much like Windows 7, the news has led to some speculation about what the ‘7’ means. As The Inquirer says, it’s not Intel’s seventh CPU architecture, although it is the third Core model, which would make seven if you added it to the four models of Pentium before that. We know, we’re clutching at straws here.

Naming aside, Nehalem is going to be an interesting new CPU architecture, featuring an integrated memory controller and a new socket design. As well as this, Nvidia has also announced that Intel’s forthcoming X58 chipset will support SLI through Nvidia’s nForce 200 chip.

If this is true, what do you think of the Core i7 name, and what do you think it means? Answers on a postcard to the comments section below.

Via Expreview.