Intel to ship mobile gaming 'extreme' processor

 

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By David Fearon in Beijing

Posted on 16 Apr 2007 at 17:47

Intel has shown that it's by no means bored of courting the gaming community by giving details of a gaming-focused mobile CPU to be delivered in the second half of this year.

The new processor, announced ahead of the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, is based on the existing Merom (Core 2 Duo) part, but it will be 'unlocked' to allow for overclocking. More interestingly, it will also sport Enhanced Dynamic Acceleration technology. This means the part will be given a nominal clock speed rating for dual-core operation, but will increase its speed beyond that rating for single-threaded operation.

The advantage for gamers is that many titles still aren't properly written for dual-core operation; in this situation a single brute-force, high-frequency core gives better performance. So when the second core is idle, the dynamic acceleration feature can increase clock speed.

Higher frequencies mean higher power consumption - something that it's vital for a laptop to keep under control so that heat build-up doesn't become a problem. But since the second core is idle it can shut down, which keeps the total power consumption of the CPU within its specified power envelope.

'Is it simple overclocking? The answer is not,' said Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager of the mobile platforms group. 'It's within the same spec as the two cores.'

Eden admitted the part will be for a niche market, while also announcing that 'later on' the company plans to produce quad-core mobile CPUs, again for the gaming and also mobile workstation community. 'I don't believe we'll drag it very fast into the mainstream,"' he said, 'but we are definitely going to do it.'