Intel's 32nm Clarkdale - Nehalem for Everyone

To help kick 2010 off right, Intel has filled out the rest of its current-gen processor line-up with the help of Westmere. We're taking a look at the desktop variant here, which brings a lot to the table compared to the previous generation. For those who've been holding out for that next affordable PC upgrade, the wait has been worth it. This past September, Intel released a follow-up to its successful Nehalem architecture, called Lynnfield. Throughout its launch campaign, Intel touted Lynnfield as being "Nehalem for the mainstream", hence the title of our launch article. That title was appropriate, because Nehalem, for the first year of its life, was the only choice for those who wanted in on the company's latest architecture, but thanks to the $300+ price tag, many held off and waited for more budget-conscious models to come along.

Lynnfield improved the situation, because its lowest-priced model, the Core i5-750, came in at around $200. Aside from its lack of HyperThreading, that particular model had everything that made Nehalem so great. In fact, it even improved on certain aspects, such as with its more effective Turbo feature. In the end, the entire Lynnfield line-up proved to be packed full of winners, as we discovered in our launch article. However, even at $200 for the lowest-priced chip, there are many who are missing out on what Nehalem and its sub-microarchitectures bring to the table, and that's where Westmere comes into play, with its dual-core models set to sell for between $100 - $284. At the low-end, the prices finally allow virtually anyone to take advantage of Intel's latest architecture, and with a few extra benefits tossed in.

At its heart, Westmere is based on Lynnfield, which was derived from Nehalem. That means that these Westmere chips share the equally-impressive Turbo multipliers of Lynnfield, along with the removal of the Northbridge. Compared to Core 2 processors, Westmere has other benefits as well, such as HyperThreading, the AES-NI instruction set, and of course, improved power efficiency. Oh, and not to mention integrated graphics for its dual-core models.