Intel launched their new Nahelam based Core i7 mobile CPUs in Dubai yesterday. The following three CPUs are going to be initially available under the Core i7 umbrella at the moment along with some specifications Core i7-720QM Core i7-820QM Core i7-920XM Frequency 1.60GHz 1.73GHz 2.0GHz Smart Cache 6MB 8MB 8MB Turbo Boost 2.80GHz 3.06GHz.

Although it may be a couple of weeks before we start getting notebooks based on the new Core i7 platform, we managed to borrow an unbranded notebook from Intel for a few quick tests with PCMark Vantage. The notebook we tested is based on the 820QM CPU running at 1.73GHz. It had 2GB of RAM and an nVidia GTX 260M GPU. The following is a result of PCMark Vantage on this notebook compared to the HP HDX (P8400- 2.26GHz CPU) and the ASUS G51 (T9600- 2.8GHz CPU) notebooks.

Quite a noticeable difference with the Core i7 CPU, especially with Gaming. One thing you don't see up there are Hard Disk scores which were a bit lower on the test sample we received meaning there is possibility of scores increasing further with a faster drive. All I can say is that its looking good for the Core i7 in the mobile arena. It would certainly be interesting to see how battery levels compare but for that, we might have to wait for a retail sample.