Confirmation has come in that Intel plans to unveil its (Arrandale) Core i3 and mobile Core i5 processors on January 7 next year. Unlike the desktop Core i5 family of processors which are quad core, these are dual but also include an integrated GPU core Intel simply brands as "Intel HD Graphics".

Intel says the new GPU is quite a capable one, suited to 'high-end' HTPC use; but should you still want to go discrete, the ability to switch over to another GPU is there.

Both the Core i3 and mobile Core i5 processors include Hyperthreading, but only the mobile Core i5 also has Turbo Boost which can redirect power to a single core for superior performance as needed.

The folks at Engadget were able to get a bunch of snapshots of some Core i3 and Core i5 based laptops at a pre-CES briefing held by Intel yesterday, but of course no tests were allowed to be performed at this stage. However, they report that they saw the Core i5 systems handing Call of Duty 4 without any hiccups, whilst the Core i3 units were happily playing back Blu-rays and World of Warcraft.