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Intel demos mobile quad-core CPU

Published on 15th October 2007 by Phil Cogar

Quad-core CPUs are coming to a laptop near you.

Mooly Eden, vice president of Intel's mobile platforms group, kicked off IDF Taiwan earlier today. During his keynote presentation, Eden demonstrated a quad-core CPU that will be aimed at mobile computers. The CPU ran Enemy Territory: Quake Wars seamlessly throughout the presentation.

The new mobile quad-core, while being very fast, will come at a high cost - a shorter battery life. The CPU will have a 45W TDP that is likely to require some heavy cooling.

Fear not the leg scorching thermal output of this beast though, Intel has also announced a cooling technology that will be more than capable of keeping your laptop cool. The cooling system is based off of compressor technology like that used in air conditioners, refrigerators, and high-end desktop computer systems.

A compressor on display was about 2cm in diameter and 10cm in length. A system of three of them used in conjunction would reduce the chassis temperature by around 10 degrees Celsius.

Another cooling feature that Intel introduced was the ability to cool a laptop through the keyboard instead of through air vents on the sides and bottom. The design will still protect the innards from spills but will also give motherboard designers more flexibility when it comes to designing their layout.

Expect to see the mobile quad-core launch in the second half of 2008 and the cooling technologies within a year or two.

Is your laptop battery life already too short for you or do you not mind having to stay near a wall most of the time? Leave your thoughts over in the forums.

11 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

kenco_uk 15th October 2007, 13:31

Third para - "The cooling system is based off of compressor technology" - replace with 'on'.

Next person who uses 'off of' gets pushed through an infinite portal.

Very interesting tech!

mclean007 15th October 2007, 14:12

While 45W may be impressive for a quad core CPU, it is hardly frugal in the context of mobile CPUs. And a phase change cooled laptop?! Welcome to the future where you need a car battery to power your laptop for more than 5 minutes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenco_uk
Third para - "The cooling system is based off of compressor technology" - replace with 'on'.

Next person who uses 'off of' gets pushed through an infinite portal.

Seconded. Horrible phrase *shudder*.

Faulk_Wulf 15th October 2007, 16:35

1) What's wrong with "off of". Obviously by asking this, I am not a grammar Nazi. It seems perfectly common place to me.

2) Regarding the battery life, wouldn't you be able to disable the extra cores when you didn't want to use them to conserve power. I mean if you're just sitting in a restaurant posting on a message board or typing up your homework assignment, you don't need all four cores. (Well maybe for Vista? ) But seriously, I thought that dual-cores could already toggle between using one or both-- Surely using just one or two cores would put the battery life in a comparable field to what's already on the market. Please correct me if I am wrong!

drakanious 15th October 2007, 17:15

So it's a laptop with a dumbed down phase-change cooling system? Anyone else think that's absolutely awesome?

zerolock 15th October 2007, 17:51

sounds totally sweet, hope they will get it out for sale soon..

mclean007 15th October 2007, 18:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faulk_Wulf
1) What's wrong with "off of". Obviously by asking this, I am not a grammar Nazi. It seems perfectly common place to me.

2) Regarding the battery life, wouldn't you be able to disable the extra cores when you didn't want to use them to conserve power. I mean if you're just sitting in a restaurant posting on a message board or typing up your homework assignment, you don't need all four cores. (Well maybe for Vista? ) But seriously, I thought that dual-cores could already toggle between using one or both-- Surely using just one or two cores would put the battery life in a comparable field to what's already on the market. Please correct me if I am wrong!

(1) It just doesn't make any sense as a phrase and uses too many words to convey a simple idea. Something is "based on" something else. That is the correct English construction. Why should it be "based off of" something else? Even if the word "off" were appropriate in this situation (which it isn't), the word "of" is ALWAYS superfluous and nonsensical - e.g. "he jumped off of the wall" should just be "he jumped off the wall" or "he jumped from the wall". I know it's perfectly common in the US, but it's one of those phrases, like "gotten" instead of "got" (other than in the phrase "ill-gotten gains") that just jars in the ears of English speakers from outside the US. I'm sure we British have some phrases that annoy our fellow Anglophones from across the water.

(2) I don't know. To be fair, the latest generation of Intel processors is phenomenally power efficient compared to what came before, and I understand that they have very low power states and each core can to a limited extent power parts of itself down independently of other cores. However, each core, even in idle state, still requires some juice, so you will definitely not get the same battery life out of a quad core laptop as you would from an otherwise identical dual core running the same tasks. That having been said, you will get more processing power so processor intensive things will happen more quickly, and the difference in battery life on non-intensive tasks might not be too horrendous.

Nexxo 15th October 2007, 19:37

I'm thinking: 45W quad-core CPUs in a desktop. Two of them still would generate only the same amount of heat as a standard quad-core CPU now... nice. B)

HourBeforeDawn 15th October 2007, 19:47

honestly its a laptop, sure the idea of a quad core is neat but is it really needed??? I prefer portability and battery life then being attached to a power plug still, if I wanted that then I would build a PC or buying one of those over priced gaming (desktop replacement) laptops which Im sure is where this core is aimed at but even still not for me.

tzang 15th October 2007, 22:36

As much as I enjoy high performance laptops where I can do serious work and play real games away from my desktop, manufacturers really need to work on the overall size. For example, the latest Dell XPS M1730 is bigger and far heavier than my M1710, which is already heavy enough and moving away from my extremely portable HP laptop was a mission itself. Sure, they have SLi and PhysX but carrying a laptop almost as heavy as my weekly Sainsbury shopping isn't what I call... portable or convenient.

Just over 2 hours battery life on my M1710 vs my 4 hours battery life on my old HP and with a 130ish watt power requirement on the M1710, even an in-car charger struggles or refuses to work on it at times. Manufacturers need to look up the meaning of the word laptop :p

completemadness 15th October 2007, 23:18

Quote:

Another cooling feature that Intel introduced was the ability to cool a laptop through the keyboard instead of through air vents on the sides and bottom.

Haven't they been doing this with "Tough Books" for who knows how long ....

wuyanxu 16th October 2007, 15:24

can i put it in my LGA775 and overclock it?