Intel quietly unveiled three new entries in its “Sandy Bridge” line of Core processors, each with a TDP of just 17 Watts. They're the 1.8GHz Core i7-2677M, the 1.7GHz Core i7-2637M, and the 1.7GHz Core i5-2557M, according to the company.

In a pre-Consumer Electronics Show launch back in January, Intel unveiled 15 new "Sandy Bridge" mobile processors and 14 new desktop CPUs; later on, six embedded-specific stablemates came to light too. (For a complete rundown, including detailed product tables, see our earlier coverage.)

These 32nm Sandy Bridge chips gained a new microarchitecture, a 256-bit instruction set known as AVX (advanced vector extensions), enhanced GPUs (graphics processing units), and dedicated silicon for tasks such as transcoding video from one format to another. They require only simple I/O controllers, offered in at least ten models (the Q67, H67, H61, QM67, HM67, P67, HM65, B65, and QS67) collectively code-named Cougar Point.

This week, as was first noticed by CNet, Intel quietly added three more Sandy Bridge devices to its website. Details are provided in the table below.

Model	Cores	Clock speed (base/TurboBoost in GHz)	L2 cache (MB)	TDP (Watts)	Price
Core i7-2677M	2	1.8/2.9	4	17	$317
Core i7-2637M	2	1.7/2.8	4	17	$289
Core i5-2557M	2	1.7/2.7	3	17	$250

Intel's three new Core processors are ultrabook-bound

Because of their low power consumption and probable performance, the three new Core CPUs would seem to be suited to embedded devices, but Intel's website makes a point of saying embedded options aren't available. Designed specifically to work with the HM65, HM67, QM67, QS67, and UM67 chipsets, the new processors support up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, the company adds.

It's a fair bet, then, that the Core i7-2677M, i7-2637M, and 1.7GHz Core i5-2557M are mainly intended for the emerging category of notebook computers Intel has chosen to dub "ultrabooks." The latter strikes us as a rather needless marketing term, but refers to slim portables — of which Apple's MacBook Air is the most well-known example — that, among other things, use SSD (solid state disk) storage instead of hard disk drives.

Asus says its UX21 will be just 2/3rds of an inch thick

One Windows-based poster child for the ultrabook category is the Asus UX21 (above), which was shown off at May's Computex show. The CNet report referenced earlier claims the UX21 will adopt the newly announced Core i5-2557M, and also repeats the rumor that Apple will soon use new Sandy Bridge Cores in a MacBook Air refresh.

Further information

More information on Intel's new processors may be found on the Core i7-2677M product page, Core i7-2637M product page, and Core i5-2557M product page.

Jonathan Angel can be reached at [email protected] and followed at www.twitter.com/gadgetsense.

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