Four-core processors will double capacity, writes David Flynn.
NO ONE knows how many angels can dance on the head of a pin but the boffins at Intel know how many transistors fit into the full stop at the end of this sentence. That magic number is 3 million and it represents a milestone in Intel's four decades of driving the personal computer industry.
Transistors - tiny electronic switches that flick between zero and one as a computer crunches every piece of data - are the DNA of the computer's brain. The smaller they are, the more can be squeezed into a limited space and the more powerful the computer chip becomes.
Intel's new Core i5 processor, which makes its worldwide debut today, packs about 731 million transistors shoulder to shoulder into a chip about half the size of a postage stamp.
Allied to an ambitious overhaul of the processor's design, Intel promises the Core i5 represents a new era for the desktop PC.
The chip-making colossus has always heralded each successive generation of processors with a familiar chorus of being faster, smarter and, in recent years, more power efficient.
But the Core i5 represents ''an order of magnitude, a tremendous leap ahead'', says the general manager of Intel Australia and New Zealand, Philip Cronin.
''We've done nine major changes to chip design in 40 years and this is one of the most significant,'' Cronin says.
''The technology in Core i5 is typically what used to be found in high-end servers. Now it's available on your desk and in your lap.''
The Core i5's capabilities spring from a revised ''microarchitecture'', which is essentially the chip's blueprint - the way each tiny transistor is designed and linked.
Intel's engineers codenamed the architecture Nehalem, after the indigenous tribe that originally inhabited the US state of Oregon, where Intel's major research and manufacturing facility is located.
The Nehalem platform was first developed for the Core i7 processor, a high-end and high-priced big brother to the Core i5 that is used mainly in servers and powerful desktop workstations. The Core i5 takes that muscle mainstream.
Nehalem shrinks the building blocks of the computer's processor down to a minuscule 45 nanometres - about a third smaller than the 65 nanometres of the previous design - to stack more transistors on each chip.
The reduced scale makes for shorter and faster connections between each transistor, which boosts processing power because the chip can crunch through more data per second.
The design of the processor itself has also undergone a radical rethink. Several components that used to exist on separate chips, which then had to be wired to the processor, have now been built into the same slab of silicon as the processor.
This allows for direct connections to the processor, boosting the chip's capability while reducing the overall power drain. It also means the Core i5 chips can be relatively cheaper than their counterparts because there are fewer components.
The first Core i5 systems will have four processing cores - or engines - per chip, immediately doubling the capacity of today's dual-core desktops.
Each core can handle two simultaneous threads, or individual streams of data, so that a quad-core processor is able to keep track of eight separate operations at a time.
The Core i5 is designed for demanding tasks such as editing HD video footage down to smoother video chat over Skype and even adding music to an iTunes library.
New software and operating systems are being re-engineered to take advantage of the multi-core and multi-threading capabilities. Apple's just-released Snow Leopard Mac OS X 10.6 and Microsoft's forthcoming Windows 7 are both optimised for the Core i5 and its siblings.
Also in the Core i5's bag of tricks is a turbo mode that dramatically boosts the chips's overall processing speed for short bursts of heavy-duty activity. The automatic procedure channels one or more of the cores and diverts their processing capability to a single engine. This means a chip rated for an already hefty 2.8GHz can leap to 3.2GHz on demand without stressing the chip or running the risk of overheating.
The first wave of four-cylinder Core i5 systems will be followed early next year by dual-core variants, along with a pared-down Core i3 processor that Cronin describes as being Intel's ''entry level'' chip.
The trio of Core brands will eventually displace the current and often confusing array of Core 2 products and logos.
''We're aiming for a level of simplification in the product branding,'' says Cronin.
''The Atom-based netbooks will continue, along with the Celeron and Pentium as our value products.
''But we'll see the advent of the three Core brands into the market: the entry-level Core i3 if you need power but are on a bit of a tight budget, the mid-level Core i5 when you want solid performance and capability and, if you're a real power-user, you go for the Core i7.''
