Intel notebooks with faster wireless coming this month

Consumers are going to see Intel-based notebooks with 802.11(n) chips faster than expected.

Originally, The first notebooks with Intel processors and these faster WiFi chips (a standard referred to a MIMO) were going to be based around the so-called "Santa Rosa" platform, due in the first half.

Some manufacturers, however, will move early and come out with MIMO-Intel notebooks in January, said Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager of Intel's mobile platforms group, during an interview at the bar at Behihana's in Las Vegas during the Computer Electronics Show.

Eden also said that the performance delta between Intel's top notebook chips and those from its leading competitor (AMD) would increase. Last year, Eden made headlines when he predicted that the company's Merom chips would be at least 20 percent higher than AMD's chips. The chips lived up to the claim, benchmark testers said.