Sandy Bridge is Intel's first monolithic core that will integrate CPU, graphics and memory controller and will bring all these independent processors in the same socket and chip. This will be done in 32nm.

The introduction of this new 32nm processor also means that Intel can reduce the TDP (Thermal Design Power) at least a little bit.

Intel plans to introduce regular, non-low voltage dual-cores with a 65W TDP and the quad cores will fit the 65W to 95W TDP. Current Core i5 and Core i3 dual-cores in the desktop market are at rated at 73W TDP, while the Core i5 and Core i7 Lynfield quad-core based CPUs are between 82 and 130W TDP.

With this in mind, 95W quad-core with integrated graphics doesn’t sounds so bad and 65W with graphics definitely sounds attractive, as it can offer a lot of performance with a reasonable TDP.

All this is scheduled to start in Q1 2011.