Intel Launches Core i7 --- in Tokyo

Wau! No, I didn't spell that wrong, that's "wow" in Japanese, and this certainly is "wow" news. While I've been invited to a Monday press conference launching Intel's Core i7 CPU (nee Nehalem), which I've previously written about, Intel effectively pre-empted that event by launching the CPU in stores in Tokyo districts such as Akihabara.

In fact, according to ComputerWorld, shops in Akihabara, Tokyo's main electronics district, stayed open past midnight to put the first Core i7 chips on sale.

Steve Dallman, vice president of sales and marketing and general manager of Intel's worldwide reseller channel organization said:

"This is a major new architecture for Intel and to be able to launch it here first to the user-community that Akihabara supports is a really exciting thing for us to do. One of the features in the new processor I think they are going to be very excited about is Turbo-mode. There's also Turbo-tuning, which allows them to go in for the first time and tune 20 different parameters to optimize the performance of the processor."

The Core i7 CPUs are made with a 45-nm process, but differ from earlier Intel CPUs with the Manufactured using a 45-nanometer process, these chips differ from Intel's existing products in several ways, most notably with the inclusion of an on-chip memory controller, Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) instead of the old Front-Side Bus, integrated Power Control Unit, Turbo mode, and on and on (check my earlier post for more details).

However, Intel is introducing the CPU, which is probably more powerful than most users (except for gamers and other such high-end consumers) need, at an obviously difficult economic time. In fact, Intel recently warned that Q4 will be below initial expectations, saying:

Revenue is being affected by significantly weaker than expected demand in all geographies and market segments. In addition, the PC supply chain is aggressively reducing component inventories.

All of this can be attributed, at least somewhat, to the increasingly difficult economic times. To be honest, if I were looking to upgrade my computer ... I wouldn't. I'd just wait. Things are simply too rough economically and too many companies are preparing, or conducting, layoffs. We'll see how this affects the sales of these CPUs which are priced as follows (lots of 1,000):

• 2.66-GHz Core i7-920, priced at $284;
• 2.93-GHz Core i7-940, priced at $562;
• 3.20-GHz Core i7 Extreme 965, priced at $999.