14 DAY TRIAL // Intel has just decided that it is time to clean up its processor line and released product discontinuance notifications (PDN) for no less than 16 of its CPUs, including two Celeron models, four Core i7 SKUs and 10 Xeon MP 7200, 7300 and 7400 series models.
The last order date for the discontinued products is September 30, 2011 and the last shipment date for the OEM processors is March 9, 2012, while boxed parts will be available as long as supplies last.
Next to the Intel Core i7-980X that we announced yesterday, the PDN list also contains the Celeron T3000 and T3100 CPUs, the Core i7-720QM, i7-820QM, i7-920XM mobile processors and the Xeon E7220, E7310, L7345, E7420, E7430, E7440, E7450, L7445, L7455, and X7460 SKUs.
The Tigerton and Dunnington based Xeon MP processors that Intel wants to discontinue will be replaced by Xeon 7500 and 6500 series CPU's that rely on the Boxboro-EX platform.
As far as the mobile quad-core chips are concerned, these will be replaced by Intel's recently released Sandy Bridge processors.
The move was pretty much expected as the second generation Core processors are far superior to their Clarksfield-based counterparts, which were built using the 45nm fabrication process and, as a result, have lower performance and lower battery life.
In addition, Sandy Bridge also packs on-die GPU making it a far better choice for business laptops and other mobile devices that don't require advanced graphics capabilities.
Moving over to the two Celeron processors, these were based on the now-old Penryn-3M architecture and work at 1.8 and 1.9GHz, respectively.
Although Intel has not yet made their successors official, it is expected that the Santa Clara-based company will release new Celeron SKUs built using the Sandy Bridge architecture in late Q2 or early Q3 2011. (via CPU-World)