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In an effort to regain market share that its smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices has aggressively taken in the past year, Intel Corp.'s chief technology officer said Friday that the chip giant will start shipping microprocessors with four cores inside late this year.

To show the product is well on its way, Intel CTO Justin Rattner demonstrated a working server computer with a pair of the new microprocessors, code-named Clovertown.

The new chip will join Intel's line of server chips called Xeon, which has generated billions of dollars' worth of revenue for the Santa Clara company. That business, though, has been under pressure since Sunnyvale's AMD entered the segment with its microprocessor called the Opteron.

Chips with two cores have been the latest rage, with both Intel and AMD selling those microprocessors as their high-end offering. Apple Computer Inc.'s new iMac, which started selling last month, uses the dual-core chip.

Having multiple cores inside a chip is like having more than one engine under the hood of a car. The design allows chipmakers to keep improving performance of the microprocessor while holding in check the amount of electricity required to power it.

Not to be outdone, Randy Allen, AMD's corporate vice president of server and workstation division, said Friday that his firm is working its own quad-core processor for release next year.

Rattner said Intel's new chip will be faster than the Xeon server chips but use less electricity. He didn't elaborate on the new chip, saying those specifics will be made available at the chipmaker's developer forum in San Francisco next month.

Intel still commands the lion's share of the lower-end server computer market. AMD, it only major competitor, has been making strides with its Opteron microprocessors since they came out in April 2003.

According to data from Mercury Research, AMD's Opteron had 16.4 percent of the market in the most recent quarter. Intel's Xeon product line still leads by a wide margin.

AMD's gains are significant, considering its market share was virtually none only a year ago, said Martin Reynolds, an analyst at Gartner, a market research firm.

"Intel doesn't normally talk about this stuff, much less show it, this early," Reynolds said. "But with AMD's (rise) in the market, they want to make sure they don't leave any gaps for AMD to exploit. It's important from a credibility standpoint."

Apjit Walia, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, agreed, noting that AMD is enjoying at least the perception that its products are better than Intel's chips.

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in mind the advent of desktop based quad-core processors in the mainstream, it was just a matter of time before they showed up in a mobile version too. This was confirmed by Digitimes, which goes onto say that Intel will be planning to launch its first quad-core CPU for notebooks, the Core 2 Extreme QX9300, in the third quarter this year. This new processor will be manufactured at 45nm and have a core frequency of 2.53GHz. The CPU will support FSB speeds up to 1066MHz, include 12MB L2 cache and have a maximum TDP of 45W.

While this announcement is good in terms of consumer choice, it raises a number of interesting questions. Despite the low heat dissipation of these processors, they will be a lot more power hungry as compared to standard dual-core processors and this will directly affect battery life. Secondly with such powerful chips, the GPU market will also need to keep pace enabling more realistic gaming on laptops, which is abysmal to say the least at its very best.

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Intel has formally announced that it has chosen the name 'Atom' for its new family of low-power processors (previously codenamed Silverthorne and Diamondville) designed specifically for mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and a new class of Internet-centric computers arriving later this year.

The Intel Atom processor is based on a new microarchitecture designed specifically for small devices and low power, while maintaining the Intel Core 2 Duo instruction set compatibility consumers are accustomed to when using a standard PC and the Internet. The design also includes support for multiple threads for better performance and increased system responsiveness. The chip measures less than 25 mm, making it Intel's smallest and lowest power processor yet.

"This is our smallest processor built with the world's smallest transistors," said Intel Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Sean Maloney. "This small wonder is a fundamental new shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience on these new devices. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the industry."

In addition to the MID opportunity, Intel believes the demand for a new category of low-cost, Internet-centric mobile computing devices dubbed "netbooks" and basic Internet-centric desktop PCs dubbed "nettops," will grow substantially over the next several years. Intel said the Intel Atom processor also has potential for future revenue opportunities in consumer electronic devices, embedded applications and thin clients

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Intel® desktop processors deliver superb computing power, performance, and reliability at home and at work. Our notebook processors let you work and play in places you never thought possible. Our server and workstation processors provide enhanced scalability, power, and performance for robust multi-processing environments. And our embedded and communications processors combine outstanding performance with scalable, power-efficient processing for a wide range of embedded applications.

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The 13-inch laptop market has seen steady movement over the past year with the release of a quite a few products from manufacturers like HP, Dell, Toshiba and Sony. The one laptop that's been dominant in this space has been Dell’s XPS M1330, which has won much acclaim for its sleek design and great performance.

HP recently introduced the DV3005, which due to its positioning is a direct competitor to Dell’s offering. Let’s find out how it fares.

One thing I have always enjoyed about HP has been the consistency of their designs, over the last few years, with regard to their DV series. All of these laptops have the same “HP imprint” lid and body finish: a glossy tough plastic finish with a limited variety of colors. The DV3005 follows this design philosophy strictly and offers only a basic though fairly attractive black finish.This is prevalent for both the lid and the underside of the laptop.

In build quality, the DV3005 fares well as the construction material used is very sturdy. There was no audible squeak anywhere from the body or the hinges. The only downside is that its glossy surface will attract fingerprints. Weight-wise the laptop is around 2.35 kg, which is a bit on the heavy side but nothing that one can’t live with.

The keyboard area of the DV3005, however, startled me a bit. In a major departure from the past, HP has chosen to equip this model with a very shiny metallic finish, similar to a slab of iron. This is astonishing, as this finish is very reflective and can easily double as a mirror. If this is HP’s attempt at giving the laptop some bling, it fails miserably.

The finish has another drawback in that, apart from being a fingerprint magnet, it can get scratched easily. This was apparent on our test piece, which had a number of tiny but visible scratches. While these do occur on other laptops to, on this particular finish they stand out like pimples on the face of a beauty queen. Not pretty.

The metallic finish is not restricted to the area around the keyboard. It has been used on the keys too. However, this has not affected the typing experience, as the keys are well-textured and offer good feedback. Furthermore the keys are a little elevated, as compared to standard sets, and this allows for rapid typing without fatigue.

Sadly, the touchpad of the DV3005 is a disappointment. Its texture is a little too smooth, leading to imprecise mouse control, and the mouse buttons sometimes don’t register clicks.

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For all you mobile maniacs out there, here’s the scoop, the 3G Apple iPhone or the iPhone 3G as it’s being called, has now been officially launched and the reports I have, all seem to state that the attendees at Steve Jobs’ Keynote speech were somewhat thrilled amidst sighs of relief that the speculation and rumor mongering of what the new iPhone would look like and would incorporate have now been put to rest.

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