Intel Refreshes Core 2 Duo Range

In a quiet but very important product release, Intel has announced the latest refresh of its Core 2 Duo range of processors. This new lineup gets a speed boost as the FSB has been bumped up to 1333 MHz from 1066 MHz. The number of processors that are being introduced include 3 dual-core processors and one quad-core.

The opening processor in this lineup, is the newly introduced E6550, which is clocked at 2.33 GHz and is aimed at filling the gap between the earlier E6400 and E6600 processor range. This new processor will retail at US$ 163. The next processor being introduced is the E6750, which is clocked 330 MHz faster than the E6750 i.e. 2.66 GHz. It will be retailing at US$ 183. The final dual-core processor is the E6850 which is 330 MHz faster than the E6750 i.e. 3 GHz and will retail at $266. On the quad-core front the new processor being debuted is the Core 2 Quad Q6850, which is clocked at 3 GHz and will carry the “Extreme” tag. This is reflected in the pricing of the C2D Q6850 which is US$ 999.

Though these new processors offer a tangible bump in speed and performance, the good thing that comes out of the release of the new range is that the older range of C2D processors will no doubt see a slash in prices. These will make the current generation products far more competitive and cut into AMD's budget processor market. For further details please check out this link.