With all of the focus on high-end hardware it’s easy to overlook the changes at the low-end of the market, specifically those that will likely power office machines and entry level systems for years to come.

Intel’s DH55TC motherboard supports the company’s recently launched Core i3 and Core i5 “Clarkdale” CPUs which feature an integrated graphics core. Hardware Secrets has a look:

It is important to understand that with socket 1156 CPUs the integrated video is produced by the processor and not by the motherboard chipset, as it occurred until now. There are processors with integrated video and processors without this feature. The board has only the interface and connectors necessary to route the video signal generated by the CPU. You can install CPUs with an integrated video processor or without, but with CPUs without a video processor you won’t have on-board video, needing an add-on video card. Of course with a processor with integrated video you still have the option to install an add-on card and disable its video engine.

A solid, if basic, motherboard for your not-so demanding computing needs.

Intel has been on a bit of a roll when it comes to their processor offerings. While they’ve certainly made the high-end happy with their performance the budget conscious system builders have been looking for something a little friendlier, price wise, to offer customers.

In comes the Intel Core i5 661 which sports a graphics chip nestled closely to the CPU offering basic video processing for the office user set. Here’s a roundup of some review links:

The Clarkdale Review: Intel’s Core i5 661, i3 540 & i3 530 – AnandTech
Intel Westmere 32nm & Clarkdale Core i5-661 Review – HardOCP
Intel Clarkdale Core i5 Desktop Processor Debuts – HotHardware
Intel Core i5-661 Clarkdale Processor Review – Westmere debuts – PC Perspective

Every year Intel likes to gather up lots of interesting bits of technology they’re working on and showcase them at their very own Developer Forum. This year sports the usual dizzying array of nifty technologies from the company and other vendors using their products.

Here’s a collection of links offering in-depth coverage:

World’s First Larrabee Demo, More Clarkdale, Gulftown – AnandTech
Intel Shows off 22nm & 32nm, Sandy Bridge Demoed – AnandTech
Intel Developer Forum Day 1 Coverage, The Continuum – Hot Hardware
IDF 2009: Keynote with Paul Otellini – Legit Reviews
Maloney keynote and first Larrabee demonstration – PC Perspective

The steady, onward, progression of chip improvements allow a company to put out handy roadmaps for all of the technically minded people out there to follow along and drool at the possibilities. AnandTech has gathered up a number of Intel roadmaps and information they’ve gathered in order to break down what the company has planned over the next few years. Here’s a peek:

At the very high end, Core i7 users have
little reason to worry. While Intel is expected to bump i7 up to
3.33GHz in the near future, nothing below i7 looks threatening in 2009.
Moving into 2010, the 6-core 32nm i7 successor should be extremely
powerful. Intel’s strategy with LGA-1366 makes a lot of sense: if you
want more cores, this is the platform you’re going to have to be on.

Now
although I said that nothing will threaten Core i7 this year, you may
be able to get i7-like performance out of Lynnfield in the second half.
A quad-core Lynnfield running near 3GHz, should offer much of the
performance of an i7 with a lower platform cost. Remember back to our
original i7 review; we didn’t find a big performance benefit from three
channels of DDR3 versus two.

There’s some interesting work being done to the Core i7 line which should make it an even more insanely powerful platform.