Intel.com - Information Architecture and Navigation Design
One of my favorite site is Intel.com. Reason? They still use the same trusted pattern (Left side navigation, Top tabs, right side related-links). It takes not more than 20 to 40 seconds to reach any deep destination from the home page.
And the IA is very decent, with easy access to any piece of information from any where (mostly) and no bloating. All the text contents are slim.. and fat contents can be downloaded as PDFs.
The navigation occupies most are at the top of the pages, but it still helps me to reach the information. In most of the complex sites you may be required to use the “Search” to find an information. But this is one of the few sites where I have used “Search” occasionally.
Personally I would rate 4.5/5 stars for accessibility and IA. 3/5 for visual design (Simple and not-distracting).