We start you off with the importance of being rosy, that is, everything you needed to know about Santa Rosa. If you did your homework, you know that the Mobile 965 chipset has an 800MHz frontside bus with better power management, graphics jacked to 500MHz that can handle the Vista Aero experience and score a 95 on the really tough Silicon Optix HQV display test. You also know that the chipset supports Intel Turbo memory—optional NAND flash that boosts performance when DDR2 RAM is in short supply—and that it's got the Draft-N wireless, for disturbingly high-quality streaming video.

We showed you our favorite notebooks, and singled a few out:

•The Sony Vaio FZ, which looks suspiciously like it was once touched by Jonathan Ive (only it burns Blu-ray discs)

•The Lenovo T61, which almost but didn't quite end up in the ring with Lady Deathstrike (we still don't know who would win)

•The hunka hunka HD DVD burnin' Toshiba love known as the Qosmio G40 with its elephantine HD antenna

•And the dragon lady herself, the belle of the ball (if you're a gamer):
HP's 20-inch HDX 20-inch statement of power, performance and largess (or maybe that's largeness).

When Louis and I stopped by the Intel launch event in NYC, we got our mitts on some pretty sweet laptops, and talked shop with some Intel wizards—no, there won't be a Viiv-branded notebook, but there might be some new Viiv compatibility around the corner, and what's that we heard about a certain Korean manufacturer making a dual-disc Blu-ray HD-DVD drive for laptops?

We even stumbled on a few pretenders, desktop systems that run on the new Santa Rosa chipset. Small, cute and aimed to be servers for apartment dwellers, they might even have N wireless, but don't call them Centrinos!

In the world of Santa Rosa, we covered it all, even something we couldn't quite pin down: Where is that Santa Rosa MacBook? I guess you'll have to keep reading Giz to find out. – Wilson Rothman

Full Intel Santa Rosa Coverage [Gizmodo]

And though we saw and liked plenty of new laptops today, it's the HP HDX which bowled us over with its massive, but not overwhelming, design. Check out the gallery and the review below. – Louis Ramirez

HP HDX Review [Computer Shopper]

First up is AOpen's new Mini PC Duo (MP965), which uses the 965 GM chipset and houses one of Intel's new Core 2 Duo processors. It's not a Centrino system (because it uses the Viiv platform and doesn't pack any battery-saving features), but it does have the option for built-in wireless. It'll come out this summer ranging from $999 to $1499. Likewise there's this Viiv-based system from the folks at Niveus which is set to launch Q3. There was no pricing on the latter, but looks-wise, Niveus' system looks right at home in any living room, especially since it's packing an HD DVD drive. – Louis Ramirez

First things first, what's the deal with Santa Rosa. In an nutshell, Santa Rosa is a new platform (the consumer version is dubbed next-gen Centrino Duo while the business version is Centrino Pro) for your notebook that ushers in new Core 2 Duo CPUs, a new Mobile 965 Express chipset, Draft-N wireless and Intel Turbo memory. Collectively, these features equal 1) better performance 2) better battery life. Here's how they pull it off.

The CPUs. The new Core 2 Duo CPUs behind Santa Rosa are packing a faster front side bus that now maxes out at 800MHz (instead of 667MHz). Basically that means your CPU, mobo and RAM will get along splendidly. But there isn't a greater power demand, since the FSB now uses a technology similar to SpeedStep to manage its power efficiency.

The 965 chips aim to please gamers and media junkies alike by bringing DirectX 10 compatibility and HD-friendly features to the table. The chipset's graphics engine now goes up to 500MHz, so that even the lowest performing chip, the GL960, is promised to deliver the Windows Vista Premium experience.

Next up we have Intel Turbo memory, which is essentially flash memory on your motherboard that will make it easier to cache frequently accessed data. Again, another feature aimed squarely at improving system performance. And finally, Santa Rosa brings Draft-N wireless, which as we all know gives you greater speeds and range than 802.11g. Intel stresses the fact that, while they are delivering a "draft" spec on the wireless, it is sure to be ratified by the IEEE in the near future.

Will you be able to live without Santa Rosa? Of course. But if all these new features sound appetizing, stay tuned for some of our favorite new Santa Rosa hardware. – Louis Ramirez

Product Page

All the members of the gang include 802.11n wireless capabilities built-in except for the E500, which only has 802.11a/b/g. An extra photo of one of the usual suspects and full description after the jump.

R500-UP75K

15,4 WSXGA LCD (130-degree vision)
Intel T7500 2.2 GHz, 4MB cache, FSB800
2GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS 256MBC
160GB Hard Drive
Super-Multi DVD recorded
802.11n

R500-UP73K

15,4 WXGA LCD (130-degree vision)
Intel T7300 2.0 GHz, 4MB cache, FSB800
2GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS 128MB
160GB Hard Drive
Super-Multi DVD recorded
802.11n

R405-SP71K

14,4 WXGA LCD (130-degree vision)
Intel T7100 1.8 GHz, 2MB cache, FSB800
1GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS 256MBC
160GB Hard Drive
Super-Multi DVD recorded
802.11n

E500-SP71K

15,4 WXGA LCD (130-degree vision)
Intel T7100 1.8 GHz, 2MB cache, FSB800
1GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS 256MBC
120GB Hard Drive
Super-Multi DVD recorded
802.11n

R200-SP73K

12,4 WXGA LCD (130-degree vision)
Intel T7300 2.0 GHz, 4MB cache, FSB800
1GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS 128MB
120GB Hard Drive
Super-Multi DVD recorded
802.11n

R500-UP75K

15" XGA LCD (130-degree vision)
Intel T7500 2.2 GHz, 4MB cache, FSB800
2GB RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon X2300 HD 128MB
160GB Hard Drive
Combo recorder
802.11n

Press release (Korean) [LG Korea]

Intel Santa Rosa/Centrino Pro Launching May 8th? [Computer Shopper]