And the rumors begin about Intel's next move. After the interesting replacement of the Core i7 940 with the i7 950, many have begun to think that Intel might be slimming down its i7 Line.

According to a post from Bit-Tech this could be in preparation for a Six-Core Nehalem for the 1366 socket. But I have to wonder if this makes sense for Intel.

If you think about it six cores puts them at the same level as AMD's Istanbul at the top end. Why would Intel want to move in that direction?
It seems more reasonable that a six-core CPU would be in the i5 line and an eight-core CPU will grace the i7.

Granted only time will tell here but I do not see Intel playing the game of core matching with AMD.

I have been informed that Intel announced the Gulftown 6-core Nehalem some time ago as a 32nm CPU due out in 2010. I was incorrect in my assumption that Nehalem would skip over 6 cores and head right to eight.
Read more here.

According to sources close to Intel, the company is planning to release a six-core Nehalem processor in roughly the same timeframe as the big Lynnfield/P55 release scheduled for later this year.

Our sources said that the new chip will drop into existing X58/LGA1366 motherboards with a BIOS update. We're told that most board manufacturers have already added support, so unless you're running an outdated BIOS release, there's no need to worry about whether your board will work with the new chip or not.