Nehalem’s Official Branding: Intel Core i7

The news was first leaked this weekend, but will today be confirmed by Intel: the first Nehalem products launched will carry the ‘i7’ identifier, officially becoming the ‘Intel Core i7’ processor. As is the norm, each individual model will carry a separate model code (eg: Intel Core i7 E1xxx), although Intel hasn’t mentioned what the new scheme will be.

How this and future identifiers will be used is another question up in the air. The first launch processors will carry the i7 moniker, with “several new identifiers to come as different products launch over the next year“. Note that it mentions over the “next year”, not years, so i7 seems to be exclusive to a certain set of processors, most likely the higher-end of the bunch. The mid-range and lower-end processors, on release, will likely carry a different identifier, while Westmere, Nehalem’s 32-nm counterpart, will also carry another.

For those unaware what Nehalem is (and how that’s possible, I’m unsure), you might want to read through our look that took place a few months ago. Most notable will be a more refined micro-architecture that adds in an integrated memory controller and is very modular and scalable in design. Though Intel hasn’t confirmed products to be launched yet, the road map seems to list three differing models due out sometime this year.

The ‘Extreme Edition’ (which I’ve seen in person and can verify for it’s sheer speed and overclocking-ability) will debut at 3.2GHz and carry a price of $999 per 1,000. The high-end of the mid-range will be clocked at 2.93GHz and carry a price of $562 per 1,000, while the mid-range offering will come in at $284 per 1,000 and offer a clock speed of 2.66GHz. All launch processors will offer 256Kb of L2 cache along with 8MB of L3 cache, and of course will offer support for triple-channel DDR3.

It’s still unknown when the first products will be launched, but Intel’s stance is still that production will occur in Q4 of this year.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 11, 2008 – Intel Corporation announced today that desktop processors based on the company’s upcoming new micro-architecture (codenamed “Nehalem”) will be formally branded “Intel Core processor.” The first products in this new family of processors, including an “Extreme Edition” version, will carry an “i7” identifier and will be formally branded as “Intel Core i7 processor.” This is the first of several new identifiers to come as different products launch over the next year.