Intel Sampling Nehalem-successor ''Sandy Bridge''

I have a nice home ready for an 8 Core Sandy Bridge Variant.

Whoa slow down with the sockets already!!!!!!

god, i hope that lga 1155 is a typo

What about us LGA1136 users?

It just seems like Intel is on a mission to dominate. The CPU market is becoming a bit lopsided...hopefully AMD will ramp up their game a bit.

That's what bulldozer is for, to even the game up a bit, I sure hope that works out as they expect it to.

So, we can drool all over what is essentially a die-shrunk Core i7 with a crap IGP on die and a few extra instructions, or, about the same time, we will get AMD Fusion with 480 Evergreen stream processors attached directly to the cores, ushering in a new era of feasibility for mainstream GPGPU applications as well as high performance, low latency graphics. I've got a good idea of who's getting my money next generation.

another socket type. -__-

im stuck on this 939 pin. sigh

Great, I'm going to have to change my mobo again?

You can keep your current CPU/Mobo and never change. Would that make you happy?

Looks like my decision to upgrade my LGA 775 rather than chasing this transitional phase, was a prudent one.

It's getting annoying how there's no upgrade path with Intel. Just about every new processor line is a new socket that has no backwards compatibility of any sort.

Me too. The reason many people get i7 9XX + X58 nowadays is to prepare for the future hexa and octo cores. If the only Hex-core they get is the i7 980X, there will be MANY MANY angry gamers out there.

I'm with all the others irritated about the socket changes, my p6t deluxe cost 250 dollars why can't I keep it for another upgrade? x58 not good enough? I know there is a 6 core lga 1366 but I can't afford the extreme edition price, maybe if the "mainstream" one comes out at a reasonable price I'll upgrade, for now the 920 is doing well and I can't justify another 200 dollar mainboard and 250 dollar cpu the wife would beat me.

According to WikiPedia it isn't
1155 and 1356 for high end.

There's still a bit of hope for us though, since those pin counts are less than the current pin count. If they keep the pin assignments, and if the current chipsets are modular enough to allow versatile power requirements, they can still make it work in the current 1156 and 1366 motherboards, theoretically.

The AM3 sockets have more pins than AM2+, but the AM3 CPUs only use 938 pins, and so they can fit in the 940 pin AM2 sockets. It's not the same situation, but still.

I know I'm crossing my fingers to keep my P55 system usable with those future CPUs.

With LGA 1155 my guess is that intel is replacing DMI link to PCH chip with QPI for bigger bandwidth to accomodate sata 6GB and USB 3.0.

We are keeping on bombarded with Intel news! we definitely need more AMD news.

@backin5:
Why would you worry about the upgrade path? Your LGA1156 CPU is far less than a year old.

Hexacores are useless for gaming, only for bragging rights.

Wow, I though that the x86 instruction set was already bloated!

Sandy Bridge, Cougar Point, there has to be a joke in that.

We all upgrade eventually.

Although I'll admit the considerations for going with LGA1156 were not only financial, as I was also quite concerned with heat (the 30W difference from the LGA1366 Core i7 is significant enough, esp. if you plan to overclock), still replacing an Intel CPU and motherboard isn't cheap (I don't go for the cheapest motherboards).

And at some point, probably before upgrading my Core i5 750, I plan on migrating from my 4850 crossfire to a crossfire of ATI 58xx, when prices go down (hopefully).

It's a good thing that DDR4 isn't expected before 2012. Replacing 8GB of RAM isn't cheap either.

As for socket type, I never upgrade the processor without replacing the motherboard since the chip typically goes with the motherboard to either a family member, friends or craigslist!

Actually, as it turns out, Sandy Bridge was to be named "Gesher" ("bridge" in Hebrew), but since it was also a name of a political party in Israel, they changed it.

There is apparently a bridge named Sandy Bridge in Singapore.

If they were to call the other one Cougar Town, someone would have filed a lawsuit for sure.

haha 1156 AND 1366 are screwed here. wow those sockets died fast... good thing i decided to go with a c2q and not move to the new iX cpus

"Initial Sandy Bridge chips will feature dual and quad core configurations before stepping into more complex chips with hexacore or octacore designs. The new chips will run on the LGA1155 Intel 6-Series platform codenamed Cougar Point."
I'm sure they mean 1156 which is the current i3 i5 i7 midrange socket.
And the complex hexacore and octacore designs will be 1366 Socket.

I just hope they fix the PCI-e problem that P55 MB's had with limited bandwidth, so you know, people could 3-way xfire or sli, because we all know the cpu is going to the backburner when it comes to gaming.

No, Sandy Bridge requires a new socket, the LGA1155 or the LGA 1356.

Too many sockets.

I got stuck on the tail end of a product cycle with my motherboard because of the chipset and really don't have anything useful to upgrade to from my Q6600 with out buying a new board and ram....

I think it is time to go with what ever the main stream socket will be for the new hexcore chips and at least have the option to upgrade to a newer hexcore chip with sandybridge

I was interested until I read:

I understand Workstations and other forms of PC's may not need an add in GPU and will get by absolutely fine with the integrated graphics. But everyone else it just doesn't make financial sense as you are paying for things yo have no intention of using... ever!
I really hope they decide to go the way of the i5 line and included CPU's that do not include the integrated graphics.