Woodcrest looks much better than planned

INTEL HAS (HAD?) a big secret for the Woodcrest - better than expected power. For a long time, Intel has claimed it was an 80W part. Wow, an 80W TDP is great right? Yeah, it is, or it was. The new cores were pulled in to the third week of June because the latest stepping came in better than expected.

What I mean by better is almost bug free, runs faster than expected, and takes less power. The bug-free bit enabled a pull-in of the launch dates, if you don't need another stepping, you don't need another stepping. Faster is a little less obvious, I am told you basically need two steppings, side by side to see the difference and, even then, don't look for big numbers.

The last part, less power, is the big one. I am told Woodcrest will be coming in with a 65W TDP. This is big news, and by no means a minor drop, it is on the order of 20%, and will most likely send AMD scrambling. Whatever magic Intel pulled off, well done. µ