Intel Phases Out Remaining Nehalem Processors
Intel notified its partners that it will soon discontinue the i7-740QM and i7-840QM processors.
Both quad-core CPUs use the 45 nm Clarksfield core of the Nehalem micro architecture, and were originally launched in June of 2010.
According to a product change notification, the processors have a last order date of November 9, 2012 and will ship until supplies are depleted. Both mobile CPUs use the Socket G1, are rated at 45 watts TDP and support DDR3-1333 memory. The 740QM runs at 1.73 GHz and the 840QM at 1.87 GHz.
To make room for Ivy Bridge, Intel had removed both processors some time ago from the official pricing sheet, which does not list any 45 nm notebook desktop and notebook processors anymore, aside from Atom chips and the Celeron T3500.

It is only hot if you overclock it. Ivy Bridge is good. It might not be as great as SB one year ago. Ivy Bridge is great for laptops and tablets. Next year Haswell chip will be great for desktop since it is a tock.
I'm not upgrading to Ivy Bridge. There's no reason to.
Intel needs to acknowledge that some people don't want to upgrade their CPU or MOBOs every year.
I'm on a 4-year cycle myself. I went from an Athlon X2 64 4400 to a Core i7 two years ago. BF3 runs perfectly on it and I'm not upgrading until maybe Unreal 4 games start coming out.
It is only hot if you overclock it. Ivy Bridge is good. It might not be as great as SB one year ago. Ivy Bridge is great for laptops and tablets. Next year Haswell chip will be great for desktop since it is a tock.
/agree with SB being so good and having no competition. But IB seems that it might be a lot better off in the mobile market.
I don't buy a new CPU every year, not even close. Yet I have nothing wrong with them improving year after year so I get the most bang for my buck when I do upgrade.
Also, Ivy Bridge doesn't require a motherboard update.
I came from a Core i7-920 to a Core i7-3770K just last week. Had been running the 920 since the day it came out. Definitely a beast of a CPU and I don't plan on getting rid of it any time soon. It'll serve me well in a backup machine.
My pappy is plenty satisfied chugging along on his ole' Q8200...
Just bought a brand new A8 based Laptop...
Its all about the SSDs...
As a consumer (i.e. someone who does not use their system for content creation) once Quad Core processors and SSDs both became affordable, and once Windows 7 came out, the average consumer has switched from a 'IT' upgrade model of 'replacing all systems every 18 to 36 months', to an 'Automotive' cycle of 'replace it when it breaks'.
Games are designed to work for the lowest common denominator to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible, and online content is still quite usable so long as you have 4 cores. When you have 4 cores and an SSD, you don't worry about having antivirus software running and killing performance in the background.
As a side note: The 1st generation Intel i-series chips were very underwhelming to me. Not until Sandy Bridge did I see palpable performance gains on content consumption, and further, only the balance afforded by both the new Ivy Bridge and AMD's Llano make any sense for the average consumer, with the former being more than twice as expensive...
I can't see myself recommending anything but APUs for the average content consumer for the foreseeable future...
...and just how would you have Intel acknowledge this? Also, many enthusiasts do upgrade annually (if not more often). I'd imagine those enthusiasts are glad that Intel keeps vectoring new CPUs towards us.
I don't see what the fuss is about with Ivy Bridge being too hot. With a Corsair H100, my 3770K idles at 18c and maxes out at full load in the mid 30s. That's a lot better than any other modern, high-end Intel CPU I have used with liquid cooling.
Agreeing with jacobdrj up above that if you already have a quad core CPU and a SSD then it will not make sense to upgrade until there is something which actually uses that kind of computing power in the avg consumer market though everything which i see coming out are console ports which is a few generations behind any desktop aimed games for video games.
To disagree with jocobdrj there is a major reason to upgrade from a Q6600 to a more morden CPU if you are doing video/audio editing, content creation, playing lag sensetive video games, data manipulation, compileing of programs, and/or any other computing heavy task.
People actually do do programming on laptops so the point for the disagree is valid but the compileing is most likely sent to a stand alone sever and/or a clustered sever/sever farm with the compiled version sent back to the cleint on the laptop so the laptop only has to be able to run the program not render and/or compile massive amounts of data unless the user is stupid and didn't realize that a laptop isn't built for rendering and/or compiling programs and tried to do that as those are applications for desktops, workstations and severs.
My personal opinion is why did Intel take so long to stop making these parts as 45nm is a kinda old manufacturing process even though the static ram for L1 and L2 cache is still in 90nm manufacturing basicly becuase cross talk and modifing L1 and L2 cache die size doesnt make as big of head lines as modifing core die size even though making the static ram size smaller will speed up both the physical and the virtual core speeds on the Intel CPUs.
Thus i will like to see Intel work not on the core die size for now but on the L1 and L2 manufacturing processes so they can put more of the other parts into the CPU thus having a faster CPU then before if they just shink the L1 and L2 manufacturing process if prosiable which i hope it is but it probably will require moveing around where it is and also using that 3D design to prevent cross talk with the L1 and L2 cache so they could shink it it would also take up less power if they did shink it
Switching to it?
In my experience - gamers aisde, who end up upgrading components on a faster cycle, typically - consumers (not businesses) upgrade "when it breaks" (or "when things finally won't run") now. I run into single-core, sub-1 Gb RAM machines running (or trying to ) XP all the time. Why are they still using it even though you can get a $300-400 desktop that'd blow it away? "It still works" for web browsing/email/etc.
For most consumers, they treat PCs not like business components but like appliances. They bought their toaster or microwave 10 years ago and it works, when it breaks, they'll throw it out. Same with their PC.