Core i5 processor: what you need to know

Remember the Pentium III? We loved the Pentium III, It didn't need fancy motherboards and you could overclock it reliably, since, unlike its successor, it couldn't double as a patio heater.

First reports on Lynnfield from those who have had early examples and given them a rough time (think motherboard people) are that it is similarly responsive to being pushed along, as is Bloomfield.

The guys on PC Format magazine have hit 4.2GHz without resource to liquids (mmmmm) which is a 1.6GHz boost over the stock figures - sweet.

How demanding you can get with the finished article remains to be seen, but it looks like we have a contender for a (quite) cheap chip that can be flogged. Although if you want to go truly GHz mental then Bloomfield is still favourite.

Another little thing worth keeping an eye on is the turbo frequency, a sort of nitrous oxide button. Bloomfield has a conservative turbo mode, but Lynnfield hasn't.

It can step up to four or five notches of the base internal clock, a 133MHz clock equals 667MHz extra.

So, what have we learnt? You can get Intel's latest microarchitecture in full quad-core, full cache grandeur without all the expensive bits and bobs and it'll still be slippery fast. So that's good then.

Oh yes, and Intel's brand names are finally just slightly less confusing.