April 27 2011 news by anandtech

At the bottom of the SNB-E lineup is the quad-core 3.6GHz chip, which will take over from the i7-960 as well as providing a competitor to the i7-2600 in the sub-$300 market.

While the X79 chipset will include native support for SATA 6Gbps (up to 10 ports, with four additional SATA 3Gbps ports), USB 3.0 support is still missing, similar to the current 5- and 6-series chipsets. X79 natively supports dual x16 PCIe graphics, or quad x8 graphics, but this time the PCIe lanes come directly from the CPU instead of from the chipset, providing lower latency GPU access.

The new chips will all use the LGA2011 socket with Intel's X79 chipset, scheduled for simultaneous release with the CPUs. The platform replaces the current LGA1366 with X58 chipset, providing an upgrade path for high-end enthusiasts and workstation users.

April 21 2011 news by xfastest.com

The new Sandy Bridge E series processors for the Premimum Performance line are a six-core CPU, clocked @ 3200MHz with 12MB shared Level 3 Cache, this six core will probably have a K extension an is fully unlocked. The second model is a limited unlocked quad-core version, which is clocked @ 3600MHz with 10MB of L3 cache. Unfortunately Turbo Frequencies are not shown in this roadmap.

The Core i7-2500k and i5-2600k CPUs wil be replaced in Q3 2011 by 22nm Ivy Bridge processors.

The new LGA 2011 socket and Intel X79 chipset will replace the X58 LGA 1366 platform. The X79 chipset will support quad-channel memory instead of triple channel. The lithography of the Sandy Bridge E line will still be basesd on 32nm.