Today at CES, Intel is unveiling 16 additional 45nm processors. All of the processors feature “Intel HD Media Boost” (otherwise known as SSE4), “Deep Power Down” technology for improved low power modes, and are lead free.

There are four new dual core and three new quad core 45nm desktop processors:

This slide tells us that the chips have the "Enhanced Intel Core Microarchitecture on 45nm", and that they have "Intel HD Boost", better energy efficiency, and are going "to be Halogen Free late in '08"... huh? Not sure about that last one -- we will keep you posted.

Frankly, I'd have preferred less marketing banter myself. Just saying that the processors are Penryn based and have SSE4 would have been enough to get people excited.

I like the Core 2 Quad's... especially the Penryn based ones (see my QX9650 and QX9770 reviews) - however having four cores do not in and of themselves bring "stunning realism to immersive multi-threaded games with advanced AI, particle systems,dynamic physics, and texture engines".  That is the job of the software, and while indeed having four fast cores allows for more such goodness, heavily multi-threaded code has to be written to do that! Even Crysis, the most demanding PC game out, doesn't support quad-cores -- though this support has been promised in a future patch.

The new desktop processors are all for 1333MHz FSB with one thread per core.

Here are the upcoming quad cores:

• Q9300 2.5GHz, 6MB L2, $266, January
• Q9450 2.66GHz, 12MB L2, $316, Q1 '08
• Q9550 2.83GHz, 12MB L2, $530, Q1 '08

And the new dual cores:

• E8190, 2.66GHz, 6MB L2, $163, January no VT or TXT
• E8200, 2.66GHz, 6MB L2, $163, January
• E8400, 3.00GHz, 6MB L2, $183, January
• E8500, 3.16GHz, 6MB L2, $266, January

Let's see what else they've announced.