Intel to Launch First Mobile Quad-Core in Q3?

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

According to DigiTimes, mobile Quad-Cores are on their way, finally, but the initial batch are not going to be cheap. The new Quad-Core will come courtesy of Intel and debut as an Extreme part, similar to how new desktop models are debuted. If these rumors are fulfilled, the 2.53GHz part will cost $1,038 to system builders.

The chip will undoubtedly be targeted towards the serious enthusiast and also to those who need a mobile workstation. Besides carrying similar benefits of the 45nm desktop parts, the QX9300 will include 12MB of cache, have a TDP of 45W and a FSB of 1066MHz.

Despite this first offering being very expensive, it's good to finally see them en route. According to Intel, mainstream mobile Quad-Core adoption will not occur until the latter-half of 2009, so we may not see more affordable parts until sometime until Q1/Q2 2009. I am most curious about the cooling-solution, since Quad-Cores on the desktop side can get very hot... which is bad news for a notebook.

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With the market demand for top-level notebooks still below average, Intel expects the quad-core notebook CPUs will not become standard in the performance/mainstream notebook market until the second half of 2009, and therefore should not impact the desktop PC market, noted the sources.

Source: DigiTimes
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[gml_josea]

Dang, those laptops are gonna get very hot, it will be interesting to see how they handle cooling.

 

[Rob Williams]

I have a feeling these will first be found in notebooks with larger chassis', like gaming notebooks. There is going to be so much air to push at full load... it's going to be a sticky situation.

The lower overall TDP might help things though, but still... Dual-Cores get HOT as it is now.

 

[Kougar]

If they can cram a pair of hot 8800's in SLI into a "laptop" these days, I don't see how a much cooler running Intel Quad will make a difference... Still seems just as pointless to me though... there just comes a point where a desktop is a better idea regardless of portability!

 

[Rob Williams]

GPUs will undoubtedly get much hotter than a Quad-Core, but they are designed to run with high heat. Plus, even with SLI, the two cores are not right inside each other like they are in a Quad-Core.

I guess we'll find out what will happen later this year when they are finally released. I can agree with you that there is not a serious need, but there might be for those who need a portable workstation. For the regular Joe, not likely.