Headlines - Intel parades Xeon Nehalem boards at COMPUTEX

[HEXUS]

Why wait for someone else to blow your trumpet when you can do it yourself, huh?

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[SiM]

Who would ever use 7 sticks of memory? Surely this is not for home use?

[Kerotan]

@ SiM: Being Xeon, those boards are server-based, so that's why they have the capacity to house so much memory.

[Rosaline]

It's strange to see Intel publicly showing motherboards supporting a processor that's still many months off, but there you go.

Incidentally, the same stand was chock-full of X58 chipset-based boards, too, and they support the desktop version of the Nehalem architecture.

Talk about letting the cat prematurely out of the bag, eh?

As someone who has been eagerly following Intel's developments, I don't think this is the case at all.

As Nehalem features a completely incompatible pinout to the old LGA776 used by P4 and Core 2, it has always been clear that the initial launch success of their new processor would be entirely dependant upon the market being geared up and ready with motherboards that can support it.

By displaying their readiness now, I suspect that Intel is hoping encourage system builders and the channel to hold back on new investment until they can have Nehalem systems. This will also help lower initial launch prices, by having a measure of certainly regarding sales, and hence the price point can be more easily geared towards making Nehalem a success (which will mean phasing our Core 2 as soon as possible).