"Probably means playing WoW at average laptop resolutions (say 1440x900ish) with decent FPS. "

On an Intel graphics chip? LMAO. Doubtful. I'll believe it when I see it. Try 800x600 with settings on low.

Robi5, I can understand the confusion overall for a new user attempting to get into all these options today. But I feel it's not a hobby that should be entered alone and without help. These aren't Lego blocks that just fit and work after all :D

I wasn't confused by the Pentium 4 550/650/651/840/940/945, and few others were either. Here we're now just given a chipset choice which happens to be mated to a socket.

i7/i5/i3 are just levels to me and continue the 9/8/6/5xx tier names after that to decipher within and overall. When so many part exist due to binning/Skews, the naming scheme must follow. Otherwise, to lower the naming scheme means for them to squish higher binned chips lower in the naming scheme because we don't "get it"

It WILL be nice to have an i5 with hyperthreading; although the price for it may be close to i7 920's; so I'm skeptical for a while. But still I lust in nail-downs: an i5 661 in a s1156 p55 board should not be confused with an i7 920 in a s1366 x58 board. A p55 user already dictated that they may never get a 6x2(HT) triple channel build...and may never need it.

Not arguing at all, as I sum up the classes (i7/i5) to the Hummer versus Jeep. Some will overbuy an i7 for glory and never use it, while an i5 is a wonderfully capable foundation and only getting better with Westmere. In the end, I guess the wallet talks for us. Doh!

I do not think there are plans to scale the gma chip to 32 nm. Intel always releases a new architecture on their new process a year after releasing the die shrink of the old chips. The new architecture will have the CPU and GMA/GPU on the same die. In a sense it is scaling the gma, but being on the same die makes it a different beast entirely

Clarkdale isn't really using Nehalem architecture - its just a modded conroe with the northbridge in the same package. There are some performance gains but the memory access is half that of a core 9x, 8x and 7x series. From a corporate PC standpoint that makes a lot of sense but technology wise it's a rehash of an existing product.

"If hyperthreading isn't desired, then i5/i3."

except that this very article is about i3 and i5 and says hyperthreading is supported.

Intel's and AMD's naming nomenclature IS confusing to anyone who pays no daily attention. But a less confusing scheme would only make it obvious there is not much progre overall.

@ aNewbie: NO! TurboBoost has no limitations other than "max clock speed". TurboBoost actively overclocks the processor, on-the-fly, on-demand, as-needed. And the new 32nm chips will "smart" TurboBoost, by powering down 1 core, in real-time, to boost another one, if you're only using single-threaded apps.

If the SSD nowadays has no limited read/write cycles anymore? As I always heard that they can only be read/write for a certain of times...

If it still has, then these Tubo Boost CPU can only be useful within certain time limited, as the Tubo Boost will fail after reaching that limit?

So after I spend that much money to get a i7, and it will fail after a couple of years?

1) No i7 is dual core
2) All i7 offer hyperthreading
3) All CPU in 1156/p55 are dual-channel

From there, it's nailing down options: If triple channel isn't your thing, then you shop 1156/p55. If hyperthreading isn't desired, then i5/i3. If two cores are enough, then i3.

It can really be simple depending on how we look at it. Just ask yourself what you want in a CPU, the rest just falls into place.

Intel made all the processor numbers and names (i3, I5 , i7) all confusing. How does and average man or women going to understand which processor to get. You can get Core I7 in quad core or dual core on LGA 1336 , LGA 1156 or BGA and god know which is the best. Then you can get Core I5 which is faster than Core I7 (in some cases).

"Probably means a good lot of solitaire and minesweeper.
"Moderate" probably means doing both at once."

Probably means playing WoW at average laptop resolutions (say 1440x900ish) with decent FPS.

Probably means a good lot of solitaire and minesweeper.
"Moderate" probably means doing both at once.