Bi-Tech clicky

seems pretty good according to the review, shame none of the shops have updated yet so i can start planning my upgrade

*EDIT* the i5-2500k looks to be far and away the best, according to Google $216 is about £140, x1.2 (for VAT) and we get about £170. a little on the steep side, but im sure itll come down eventually

either that or someone will find a way to change the multiplier on the lower-spec models

Looks really rather good. Moderate speed increase at the same time as a rather nice nice drop in TDP.

Would be interesting to see what Sas makes of it.

I would guess anybody in his position is gonna stick with 1366 until 2011 comes out in Q4. Although SandyBridge bests 1366, it's not by a huge enough margin to warrant an expensive upgrade. Unless you've got bottomless pockets of course.

indeed, the power usage has dropped hugely, its a shame they didnt post temperatures too. but seeing as they hit 4.9GHz or their first try, i cant imagine that will be a problem for the current generation of coolers

and looking at it again, the prices arent that unreasonable. all the i5-2500k pulls out similar performance to last-gen i7's in unthreaded tests, but should cost about 40quid less than the i7 930. even the i5-2400 outperforms the i5 760, but should also cost about £140, albeit with lack of unlocked overclocking. lets just hope the decent motherboards arent too expensive, they should be with all the important stuff hiding on the CPU die

Still reading that, and it's no good to me personally (I barely go beyond the confines of a netbook these days!), but it's definitely awesome

Found the EFI bit interesting too...

Oopsies. Forgot to add in the factor of the incredible price.

That in combination with the other factors is what makes this a big wow.

Intel Core chips to secure movie streaming

Hardware security layer prevents film copying

Agam Shah

Intel is building a hardware security layer in its next-generation Core chips to prevent streaming movies from being copied.

The chip feature, called Insider, includes an end-to-end protection layer and management feature to unlock high-definition movies from online streaming services, said Karen Regis, consumer Consumer Client Marketing Manager at Intel.

Insider is a part of Intel's enhanced graphics offerings in its next-generation Core processors, which will be officially released on Jan. 5, ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

With Insider, users will get access to more 1080p high-definition streaming content, which is not yet mainstream on the internet, Regis said. Movies with the 1080p high-definition - in which images are shown in a 1920 by 1080 pixel resolution - can also be found on Blu-ray discs.

Studios are also worried about pirating, which discourages them from making premium 1080p content available via streaming, Regis said. Insider provides a security blanket that could encourage more studios to make high-definition movies available, Regis said.

Intel has partnered with Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, which will make 300 high-definition titles available from its WB Shop or Best Buy's CinemaNow service. The movies can be played only on systems with the next-generation Core processors, Regis said.

The feature in time will trickle down to Intel's other consumer chip offerings, Regis said. Intel is also partnering with more studios and announcements will be made in the upcoming months.

Beyond Insider, the company is also building many new graphics technologies into the Core chips to speed up creation and rendering of video. Intel for the first time is building a graphics processor and CPU inside the same chip, which will improve application and graphics performance while consuming less power. The Core chips are based on a new microarchitecture code-named Sandy Bridge.

Intel is adding specialised hardware accelerators to quickly encode and decode video. The feature, called Quick Sync, allows users to transfer high-definition video into a format suitable for smartphones in a matter of seconds. The hardware accelerators are faster than software, which could take minutes to transfer video.

Intel is also upgrading its existing Wi-Di technology, which enables users to wirelessly transmit images and video from a PC to a high-definition TV. Users will now be able to stream 1080p content, an improvement from the previous 720p resolution. Users will also be able to stream protected movies from the Intel Insider feature, Regis said.

But the Core processors won't support DirectX 11, which makes graphics more realistic on PCs running Microsoft's Windows 7 OS. Intel is a step behind AMD, whose upcoming Fusion chips include graphics processors that support DirectX 11.

"We have tested applications - we don't see a huge number of applications that use features in DirectX 11 today. We will have that capability built into our processor graphics before it's in the mainstream," Regis said.

In the consumer segment, DirectX 11 is more relevant to high-end gaming, where discrete graphics cards are heavily used, Regis said.

Intel will initially ship quad-core Core chips in January, followed by dual-core chips in February.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.c ... ID=3254881

I'd imagine Intel did/will do very nicely out of that streaming arrangement...

good for them. these chips have decent IGPs, low power consumption, and we presume good thermals too. they are perfect for HTPC's anyway. but i wonder how having the technology built into the GPU will affect discrete GFX card users?

Why would it affect them?

the article pcernie quoted mentions that there are security functions built into the IGP. would it allow a different GPU (ie a discrete one) to decode the video stream?

The impression I got was that the CPU would decode the media regardless of what output you were using.

The article is bollocks. Been exposed over at BT. There's been lots of scary talk in the run up to this launch. DRM and remote killswitches. Fact is, a lot of it is either out there already and you just don't know, or it won't be implemented in the way it's been mentioned.

I think I'll wait for Ivy Bridge before I replace my Athlon 64. It's got a bit of life left in it yet.

Scan have their prices up

i5 2500k is £183, only a tenner more than my prediction in the OP H67 boards P67 boards

im not sure what the difference between the two mobo varieties is, but according to wikipedia the P67 supports multi-GPU, while the H67 doesnt. there may be other differences though.

H67 utilises the IGPU, P67 doesn't. P67 overclocks, H67 doesn't.