Intel has officially released first products based on the new "Nehalem" architecture under Core i7 brand name. These quad-core CPUs are now available in three flavors - 2.66GHz Core i7 920, 2.93GHz Core i7 940 and 3.2GHz Core i7 965. The three processors have been priced between $284 to $999 range.

The most significant improvement surrounding the new Core i7 processors is the integrated memory controller which eliminates the traditional FSB (front side bus). Each of the three new variants have four processing cores and share 8MB of L3 cache between them. They will require a new motherboard based on X58 chipset for its operation.

The Core i7 processors significantly improve multi-threaded performance in multimedia applications and games in particular when compared to previous-generation Core 2 Quad & Core 2 Extreme counterparts.

As you'd expect with a release of this nature, system manufacturers like Dell, Gateway and likes have already revealed products based on the Core i7 platform. One such system, the Dell Studio XPS is now available starting as low as $949 and is geared towards demanding home users.