Nehalem is a scary word that promises a huge step forward in the CPU business, but in reality it is something that we've already seen, years ago.

The four cores inside are modified Core 2 45nm Penryn cores, the integrated memory controller is something that we saw with the K10 / Barcelona and Agena CPUs a while ago, and the shared L3 cache for all four cores is definitely something that we’ve seen from the Barcelona / K10.

Yesterday's conference call with Intel reminded us of a conversation that we had with some Intel engineers in the Summer of 2007 when they said that the K10 is a great concept, but it is tough (impossible) to make at 65nm. They used these words: we (Intel) cannot make the K10 in 65nm and Intel is known to have the best transistors in the word.

This now makes perfect sense, as Nehalem at its 45nm really looks like an advanced version of the K10 with integrated memory controller and L3 cache, but to be fair to Intel, Nehalem can cope with two threads per core and AMD's K10 and K10.5 cannot.

So, Nehelem is actually a new glimmer of  hope for the K10.5, the new 45nm generation from AMD, as if Nehalem can work well at 45nm, there is a big chance that the K10.5 might be a success.