INTEL Corp has launched its Core i7 processor (formerly codenamed “Nehalem”) in Malaysia.

The new processor, ­manufactured using Intel’s 45-nanometre, high-K metal gate manufacturing process, is claimed to have up to a 40% increase in performance over Intel’s previous generation of processors.

The three processors available at launch last week — Core i7-920 (2.66GHz), Core i7-940 (2.93GHz) and Core i7-965 Extreme Edition (3.20GHz) — feature four physical cores with Hyper-Threading technology (last seen in the Pentium 4).

This means that each core will be able to process two threads simultaneously, effectively giving a total of eight processing threads that the new processor is capable of.

Intel’s Core i7-965 Extreme Edition, being the top-of-the-line processor for the launch, will of course feature the highest clock speed and the ability to handle overclocking.

Its design marks the end of the Front Side Bus (FSB) feature and features a new Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) bus, as well as a three-channel memory ­controller supporting 1,066MHz DDR3 memory integrated on-chip.

The net result of moving the memory controller right onto the chip itself is that there’s greatly reduced latency when the CPU communicates with memory, as compared with having the memory controller integrated into the motherboard chipset.

Another new feature of the Core i7 architecture is the support for three-channel ­memory — Core i7 motherboards will have at least three DDR3 SDRAM slots and memory should be installed in sets of three instead of sets of two as with current motherboards.

This new generation of ­processors will not be compatible with older motherboards since it features a new LGA1366 socket and as such, Intel also launched the X58 Express Chipset for motherboards together with the Core i7 processors.

The Core i7 processors and motherboards with the X58 chipset should be available in stores right now.

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www.intel.com