14 DAY TRIAL // The Sandy Bridge central processing units that Intel has in development will succeed the current line of Core chips and will mark a new advancement in terms of processors with integrated graphics circuits. Originally, the Santa Clara, California-based giant intended to release the first batch of units in early 2011. Now, however, reasons enough seem to have appeared for the moving up of the launch date to before the ongoing year is out.
Intel begun to send sample chips to customers during the recently ended quarter. Apparently, said customers were so impressed with the processor's capabilities that their enthusiasm actually made Intel executives reconsider their roadmap. Among the advantages of Sandy Bridge are higher clock speeds, better graphics and enhanced energy efficiency over predecessors. Now, the CPU maker actually plans to invest more money into factory equipment, with the goal being to speed up the rollout of processors.
"I am more excited by Sandy Bridge than I have been in any product that the company has launched in a number of years," said Paul Otellini, Intel's president and CEO, during the company's second quarter conference call. "Due to the very strong reception of Sandy Bridge, we have accelerated our 32-nanometer factory ramp and have raised our capex guidance to enable us to meet the anticipated demand."
The first versions to debut will address the laptop and desktop markets, leaving servers for later. At least, this is what David Perlmutter, head of Intel's chip architecture group, said, as reported by PCWorld. Unfortunately, neither of the company executives said when actual Sandy Bridge computers will hit the market, but Otellini did supposedly state that more information will be made available at IDF (Intel Developer Forum) in San Francisco this September. Either way, the next generation of products will show up sooner that originally expected.