Intel's next-generation Nehalem desktop processors family which is to be released this year will carry the Core i7 moniker.

The Nehalem processor family includes multiple processor cores and an integrated memory controller hub to improve performance. The Intel officials will provide details about the new processor family at the upcoming Intel Developer Forum conference in San Francisco.

The i7 identifier will be applied to the first set of high-end desktop processors, Intel spokesperson George Alfs said. Later, there will be other identifiers that will "complement" the i7, he added. The highest-end offering will be labeled with a separate black logo called the Extreme Edition. Each chip will be differentiated by the model numbers.

"The Core name is and will be our flagship PC processor brand going forward," said Sean Maloney, Intel Corporation executive vice president and general manager. He added that the processor maker is trying to simplify branding.

"It's been Core Duo, Core Solo...Basically, we're going to simplify Nehalem down to just Core," Alfs said.

The Nehalem chips will be produced using Intel's 45-nanometer manufacturing process. Intel’s current processors are called Core 2, a mark which refers to the use of multiple cores on these chips and to the company's current microarchitecture (Core).

Earlier this month, Intel announced a new GPU code-named Larrabee.  The chipmaker promises to deliver in Larrabee improved performance, based on a new technology that will include at least ten x86 CPU cores onto a single chip, instead of the traditional GPUs.

We know that the company is planning an official product launch somewhere in 2009 or 2010, but there are still a lot of details that we still don’t know about Larrabee. However, there is something we can say for sure: Larrabee will put rivals Intel in a direct competition with ATI and NVIDIA on the PC gaming market.

But Larrabee is not all about the future of gaming PC, which will be just one of its major assets. In addition to that, Intel engineers have explained that the multi-core model will be capable of executing a wide variety of tasks, and process almost a trillion instructions per second.

Intel’s upcoming Larrabee architecture relies on visual computing, and compared to mainstream graphics that offer rigid architecture and are inefficient for non-graphics computing, Larrabee comes with programmable architecture, high definition audio and video processing, and combines with model based computing.

With Larrabee, Intel is entering a new era of parallel computing, offering developers means of creating graphics –intensive applications. Furthermore, Intel supports the industry-standard application programming interfaces Direct X and Open CL.