Nehalem
We also got to spend some private time with Intel engineers and what we saw was astonishing to say the least. Behind closed doors, we had the chance to look at the Nehalem family, and can confirm that Intel has a real winner on its hands. Not only was the chip in question fast, it was also extremely efficient at handling a number of processes.
The chip we took a look at was a 4-core Nehalem processor with Hyper Threading enabled, giving a total of 8 logical processes in Windows Vista. We saw several technology demos running including a highly intuitive photo gallery app that cut through high resolution photos with ease. Not only did Intel demonstrate the app, but the Nehalem test system also included a prototype touch screen device mounted on a traditional 30-inch Dell LCD. Touch based navigation was slick and smooth.
Intel also demonstrated video editing with a 1080p video loaded in Sony Vegas. The system handled the large video file (over 1GB) with ease and made video editing look as simple as photo editing. Performance was unquestionable.
The most impressive part however, was Nehalem’s clock speed, which we were told and can confirm was far beyond anything available on the market today. Although we can’t reveal how fast the actual clock speed was at, keep in mind that several months ago, we took a look at a Penrynchip running at 4 GHz. The Nehalem part is definitely within the same ballpark as PenrynOn - and air cooled non the less.
