With the tech release schedule about to enter its final quarter, we thought it would be helpful to provede a brief summary of some of the new processors set to be released in 2012. This year saw the second generation of Intel’s i-series with the new and improved chip micro-architecture called Sandy Bridge, which has really kicked our computers into overdrive.

Intel has made a couple of announcements their Atom core, which, favoured in netbooks, is set to support the Android operating system 2.3 Gingerbread. This processor is to be called Intel Atom EG6xx, and will be available from January.

Those hard workers at Intel have also announced the Xeon E5 server chip to make its debut on the market next January as well. This will be a variant of Sandy Bridge technology and will definitely be the one to watch: it has up to 8 cores and could well blow the i7 out of the water.

Yes, Intel do make outstanding chips, but there’s more than one chip designer out there.

Qualcomm were early to the mobile table with their SnapDragon processor (cool name, right)? They’re making it even better: the revamped quad core Qualcomm processor is going to push 2.5 GHz, and sport Adreno graphics full HD and 3D capabilities.

The AMD Trinity is a 32nm chip that’ll be available January 2012. It was demoed recently and boasts 50% more power than the already impressive Llano chip used in notebooks.

A bit of ‘leaked’ information from NVIDIA perked the interest of techies everywhere. Apparently 3 projects are on the go for chips to come out next year. Code named Kal-El+, this CPU purportedly is to be a quad core for notebooks. They also have Project Wayne and Project Grey on the go. It’s all very hush-hush at the moment, but they have announced that Wayne is for tablets and elite smartphones. Grey is a bit more focused on performance for standard smartphones.