IDF Intel's first monolithic quad-core processor will ship in H2 2007, a variety of reports from Asia citing Taiwanese motherboard maker sources have claimed. The part, codenamed 'Yorkfield', will have four cores stamped on a single die of silicon, what AMD likes to call a "native quad-core" part.

By that definition, Intel's first quadies - 'Kentsfield' on the desktop and 'Clovertown' in servers - are not 'native' but built from two dual-core dies fitted together in a single chip package. Does it matter? Intel says not, and unsurprisingly, AMD said it does. Since we don't yet have production parts to benchmark, it's all a moot point - and marketing - for now.

Little is known about Yorkfield beyond the number of cores it contains and its frontside bus speed, said to be 1,333MHz. It's also claimed all four cores will share the same pool of L2 cache.

Interestingly, we've heard of Yorkfield before, through the leak of an alleged long-term, 45nm roadmap back in December 2005. Then, Yorkfield was listed as a desktop part targeted for 2008/2009 and sporting 12MB of cache. ®

Read Reg Hardware's complete IDF Fall 06 coverage here