Intel i5

It seems Intel is ready to pile on the hurt to AMD (and here's people thinking that I'm a AMD fanboi). This looks a compelling mid-range alternative to the i7.

Reviews here:

http://www.anandtech.c​om …/showdoc.aspx?i​=3634&p=20
http://techreport.com/​articles.x/17545/14
http://www.tomshardwar​e.co.uk …e-i5,review-31674-14.html
http://hothardware.com …ocessors-and-P55-Chipset/

This release will likely force AMD to cut prices, slash SKU's and basically try and hold the bargain market. This is not to say the Phenom II X4 is a bad chip, it's still a cheaper system to buy than the i5 overall at present. However with DDR 3 pretty much now reaching price parity with DDR 2 much of AMD advantages are slowly being whittled away.

Well, a $200 i5 is definitely going to be the new standard for mid-level computers, and performance is actually amazing. You'll see a whole bunch of new quad core, up to 3.6gh (after turboboost) systems that will blow away even q9550 rigs, all for under 1k. If the phenom x4 965 drops to $200, then it'll be decent, if not.... AMD is just going down even faster.