Nehalem as 'Core i7' Processor

Intel has announced that the upcoming Nehalem processor will be officially known as the Core i7.

Nehalem has been the code name for Intel's upcoming processors first due in Q4 2008. Nehalem represents a major overhaul of Intel's processor technology and introduces a number of improvements over existing process bottlenecks.

Intel's choice of name seems to be arbitrary but will reportedly fit into the naming scheme for the full line of chips, as explained by TGDaily.com:

Intel told us that “i7” was simply chosen because it is “short and sweet”. The company showed some understanding for our confusion over this name choice and promised that i7 would make sense down the road when additional new identifiers are introduced.

Intel is expected to reveal more information about the Core i7 at the Intel Developer Forum on August 19th. At the conference, Intel will also detail a new energy saving technique in the i7:

Intel would not reveal the nature of the new energy efficiency feature in the Core i7 chips. A company spokesman said it is not a direct evolution of the Intel's SpeedStep technology that automates frequency scaling based on workloads.

While the first of the Core i7 processors will be introduced in Q4 2008, mainstream desktop and mobile versions of the processor will be delayed until well into 2009.