Intel Sandy Bridge continues to be a good choice for notebooks, and Intel has launched four new processors. They will not sold in stores, but are intended for OEMs to put in computers they will sell. They are simply slightly faster versions of existing models.
Intel today launches four new models on the mobile front, where two will replace the popular models already on the market. The dual-core Core i5-2410M is a common sight in notebooks, the same goes for the quad-core Core i7-2630QM. Intel has launched two marginally faster models today.
| Model | Core i5-2430M | Core i7-2670QM | Pentium B960 | Pentium 967 |
| Cores/Threads | 2/4 | 4/8 | 2/2 | 2/2 |
| Frequency | 2.4 GHz | 2.2 GHz | 2.2 GHz | 1.3 GHz |
| Turbo frequency | 3.0 GHz | 3.1 GHz | – | – |
| L3 cache | 3 MB | 6 MB | 2 MB | 2 MB |
| Graphics | HD 3000 650/1200 MHz |
HD 3000 650/1100 MHz |
HD 3000 650/1100 MHz |
HD 3000 350/1000 MHz |
| TDP | 35W | 45W | 35W | 17W |
| Socket | Socket G2 | Socket G2 | Socket G2 | BGA1023 |
Intel Core i5-2430M is identical to Core i5-2410M except the clock frequency that has been bumped 100 MHz, same for the turbo frequency. The same goes for Pentium B960 that gets a bump of 100 MHz, over Pentium B950. Core i7-2670QM will most likely replace Core i7-2630QM with a bump of 200 MHz in base and turbo frequency.
Intel’s BGA processos are soldered to the motherboards to save space
A model we found rather interesting is Pentium 967 with 17W TDP. It has both 100 MHz higher clock frequency on the CPU, and a turbo mode on the HD 3000 graphics that is 200 MHz higher.
The two cores are relatively low clocked at 1.3 GHz, but should bring noticeably better performance than for example Intel Atom and AMD E-450. Considering OEMs have been complaining about the high prices for Intel’s 17W models we may seem some pick up on Pentium 967 and make a cheaper Ultrabook? This feels unlikely, but still an idea worth toying with.
