Intel's new Lynnfield Core i5 CPU is a winner. Its performance is near-as-dammit on a par with the more exotic Bloomfield Core i7 processors.

At the same time, it promises to be a whole lot cheaper both as a chip and as an overall platform.

OK, the branding is a bit fubar, what with the confusing use of both the new Core i5 and existing Core i7 monikers. But the idea of quadcore Nehalem with added Turbotastic goodness and all at a lower price than ever before is a bit of a no-brainer.

We want one and we're pretty sure you'll want one, too. Branding aside, however, there is one further significant snag.

You're going to need a new motherboard if you want to jump on board the Lynnfield Express.

It requires both a new chipset and a new CPU. Lynnfield, you see, is a very different processor from the Bloomfield Core i7, the first CPU based on Intel's latest Nehalem processor architecture.

Sure, Lynnfield and Bloomfield share the same execution cores and hence precisely the same raw processing power. But in terms of what industry wags call platform partitioning, Lynnfield is a very different proposition indeed.