Time to clear the road(map)! It looks like Intel’s doing its spring cleaning a bit early this year in anticipation of Ivy Bridge’s launch. Reports say the company’s winding down production of 27 different CPUs from several product lines and sockets over the first two quarters of 2012 in order to make room for their fancy new chips. 
Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) arrested four engineers for allegedly selling Intel processors designated as Engineer Samples (ES) on eBay for personal profit. Intel ES chips are the property of Intel and are often sent off to reviewers and OEM manufacturers prior to commercial release in order to test for compatibility. In theory, they're supposed to be returned to Intel.
Few computer-related acts bring the full Maximum PC ethos to bear as much as extreme overclocking. Damn the torpedoes; give ‘er MOAR POWER! and so on. Fridays are always slow news days, and the Friday between Christmas and New Year’s seems to be doubly so, so why not take advantage of the lull and shine on a spotlight on a pair of overclocking feats that showed up on the radar over the past couple of days?
Jonesing for some performance improved, energy-efficient Ivy Bridge action? You’re going to be waiting for a bit. Just how long is up in the air. Intel’s been mum on release date details for the upcoming line of CPUs, but for the most part, sources have been saying that we’ll see the 22nm chips in May. DigiTimes claims that date may a bit off, however; it points to April 8th as the launch date, and even names the names of models we can expect to see on that date.
AMD fans were rooting for the Santa Clara chip maker to yank the performance crown from Intel with team green's desktop Bulldozer-based FX series processors. That didn't happen, and it looks like the next batch of Bulldozer processors will skip the high-end hype and attack the mid-range and entry-level markets where AMD has enjoyed quite a bit of success.
How do you chip away at a giant who keeps getting bigger no matter what the circumstances? AMD would pay good money for an answer, as chip giant Intel yet again increased its share of the microprocessor market, and did so even as the demand for netbooks fell significantly. Netbooks, as you know, are almost entirely powered by Intel's Atom processors, and that served Intel well from 2008 to 2010 when the netbook market enjoyed double-digit growth.
They may not manifest in time for Christmas, but price drops for Intel's Sandy Bridge processors are reportedly on the horizon. Word on the Web is that Intel has already given its hardware partners a heads up on plans to reduce Sandy Bridge CPU prices, and that some Core i3 and i5 processor price cuts will run as deep as 10-15 percent.
AMD didn't want to let the year slip by without making one final hardware announcement, and so the chip designer today announced the addition of new A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) based on Llano. There are more than a dozen new chips in all, split between the desktop and notebook, and all of them sporting mostly minor updates, but updates nonetheless.
It appears Microsoft jumped the gun in 
The Intel Core i5-2500k and i7-2600k processors were revolutionary when they launched. Offering amazing value for both mid-range and high end PC’s, these parts overclocked so easily on air you’d be crazy not to. Recently Sandy Bridge-E has moved in to draw away the attention of the high end enthusiasts, while those on a budget of $300 or less for a CPU have been more or less stuck with the 2500k. Never wanting to miss an opportunity to upsell you to the latest and greatest, Intel is preparing to launch the 
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