Does the Intel i7 offer real improvement over its predecessors? [closed]

Does the Intel i7 offer real improvement over its predecessors? [closed] As the questions title asks, do the new processors from Intel offer real, as in noticeable, improvement over the previous quad core ones? What does the i7 actually offer that is new or is it simply a marketing gimmick?
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Guest [Entry]

"Definitely does. You want to talk about Nehalem first, the quad-core should be discussed after that.

Start from the Wikipedia notes on Nehalem
ArsTechnica articles -- What you need to know about Intel's Nehalem CPU
Intel's Nehalem simply sizzles -- Don't go by the title, but do look at the points
With i7, soon you will say ta-ta to the North Bridge even on your laptops!

A very quick summary from the ArsTechnica article.
Nehalem-derived processors — if it's still appropriate to call them ""processors"" and not ""systems-on-a-chip"" (SoCs) — will mix the following elements in different proportions, depending on the platform and product:

Number of cores
Number of memory channels on the integrated memory controller
Type of memory supported (registered and unregistered DDR3 or FB-DIMM)
Number of links in the QuickPath interface (for scaling QuickPath bandwidth)
L3 cache size
Power management features
Integrated graphics [we are talking on-chip here]

References.

Details: Inside Nehalem: Intel's Future Processor and System
More details: Intel Core i7 (Nehalem): Architecture By AMD?
Some more: The Nehalem Preview: Intel Does It Again
About quad-core: CPU Cores: The more the better?
If you are counting cores -- Intel touts 8-core Xeon monster Nehalem-EX
Nehalem News blog -- been silent for some time now, but has info collection
Some performance comparisons -- Istanbul VS Nehalem VS Harpertown, Jul 9, 2009
InfoWorld -- Nehalem workstations: A new era in performance, Jul 9, 2009"