Originally posted by: Denithor
AT: Intel announces i5/i3 branding
AT: Making Nehalem affordable
Intel plans to phase out the i7 920, leaving the i7 950 (~$500US) as the lowest i7 available on socket 1366. They are aiming squarely at the server & extreme performance desktop space with this change.
There will be both i7 and i5 chips available on socket 1156. Socket 1156 will be limited to a single x16 PCIe 2.0 lane (or this can be split into dual x8 lanes - the impact on multiGPU is not known yet) and will only offer dual-channel memory instead of the triple-channel available on socket 1366 (a serious advantage for servers - basically useless for typical desktop use).
With those limitations in mind, i7 on s1156 will be quad core chips with turbo mode and hyperthreading (8 virtual cores for improved work throughput efficiency). i5 will have a maximum of four cores - either quad core chips without hyperthreading or dual core with hyperthreading (four virtual cores) and will also have turbo mode. i3 will be i5 chips minus the turbo mode.
If you look at the second chart on the page in my second link you will see three unnamed chips. The first two will be i7 chips (quads with HT) and the third will be the top end i5 chip (quad without HT). They have a tentative price of $196 on that chip. So i5 will range from that price point on down, probably into the $140-150 range for the dual + HT model.