Intel’s Core i7 has been a huge hit with the enthusiast market, it is unquestionably the best range of CPUs out for desktop computing today.

Intel are now hoping to bring some of that success to the laptop market with the mid-range quad-core 1.73GHz i7-820QM.

This quad core CPU is built on the 45nm fabrication process and dual core models using the 32nm fabrication process will follow in 2010.

Unlike previous quad core laptop CPUs the i7-820QM will include Hyper-Threading allowing the CPU to handle up to 8 threads at once (basically mimicking 8 processors)

However this is not the most impressive feature of the i7-820QM. If  two or more cores and the CPU isn’t running too hot or drawing too much current then the CPU uses Turbo Mode to increase the speed of the remaining cores up to a maximum of 3.06GHz.

With Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost the i7-820QM should be able to significantly out perform any previous generation Quad Core CPUs.

One other advantage of Turbo Boost is that the battery life is much more efficient, a review model PC Pro acquired they managed to get three and half hours with a bog-standard 4,800mAh battery while previous Quad Cores would be lucky to last 2 hours.