Intel's Sandy Bridge plans?

[Arachnotronic]

Hey all,

What's going on with Intel's Sandy Bridge plans? They haven't talked at all about a high end part with > 4 cores and no integrated GPU. Does this mean that Westmere/Nehalem are going to stay the "top end" CPUs for a while?

 

[Martimus]

The rumored roadmap seems to push that chip until 3Q 2011 or later.

It makes sense, because they are likely to get the best yields out of the smaller chips, which allows them more time to work out the process issues before the larger ones are released.

This also seems to coincide with the rumor that 32nm yields have not been very good thus far, although I don't remember where I read that, and it wouldn't surprise me if it were just speculation based on prices and availability of 32nm chips.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Hey all,

What's going on with Intel's Sandy Bridge plans? They haven't talked at all about a high end part with > 4 cores and no integrated GPU. Does this mean that Westmere/Nehalem are going to stay the "top end" CPUs for a while?

Actually they haven't revealed anything about the mainstream 2 and 4 core versions either.

The infos out there are not too far from speculation and educated guesses + leaks from 3 years ago.

This also seems to coincide with the rumor that 32nm yields have not been very good thus far, although I don't remember where I read that, and it wouldn't surprise me if it were just speculation based on prices and availability of 32nm chips.

They could be capacity constrained. The 4 32nm fabs aren't all producing chips yet. I think that won't happen until early next year.