Intel's Core 2 Duo processors

[Chris]

It's finally the day of reckoning...

Today, Intel has officially unveiled the eagerly-anticipated Core 2 Duo product line up, based on the Conroe processor. Earlier in the year, we had the chance to have a look at an engineering sample Core 2 Duo E6700 in a system built by Intel. While today is not the day when Intel's new Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors will be available to buy, it is the day that we are finally allowed to publish our own independent benchmarks on systems built and configured by ourselves.

Intel is releasing a total of five different processors today, the first in a breed of new desktop processors based on the Core architecture - we will talk about what makes Core tick in due course. Rather than raw speed, Intel has changed its stance on processor design with clear roots shining through from the excellent Pentium M architecture, and the even more impressive Yonah architecture that we looked at in May.

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Game Over? Core 2 Duo Knocks Out Athlon 64

Two weeks from now, Intel will release its all-new Core 2 Duo processor. The technical details were made available to the public in March 2006, and first benchmarks made clear that Intel is not joking: Core 2 Duo shall become the undisputed leader in performance and performance per Watt. It's time to separate facts from rumours.

The fastest of Intel's new processors - the Core 2 Extreme X6800 - comes clocked at a mere 2.93GHz with 4MB of L2 cache. That is around 800MHz slower than Intel's previous flagship Presler core, which came under the guise of the Pentium Extreme Edition 965. There are another two chips that come with a 4MB L2 cache; these are the Core 2 Duo E6700 and the Core 2 Duo E6600 - they come clocked at 2.67GHz and 2.40GHz respectively.

Interestingly, Intel has kept some details of its 2MB Core 2 Duo chips under wraps, because all of the talk has been about Conroe. However, as I'm sure you know, Conroe has a 4MB L2 cache. We're not quite sure what the situation is here, and whether Intel has used a separate core revision with only 2MB of L2 cache or just disabled half of the L2 cache on a Conroe core. However, according to CPU-Z readouts (which can be found later in the review), the 2MB L2 cache chips are codenamed as Allendale. The Core 2 Duo E6400 and E6300 are clocked at a lowly 2.13GHz and 1.86GHz accordingly.

More | Here

[Craig]

I've been looking forward to this release after reading many magazine articles about the chip.

I've been loyal to AMD since my very first computer build back in 1998. Whenever it was time to upgrade and build another computer, I never ever considered Intel (more expensive than AMD, and the performance wasn’t as good).

But I plan on building a new system at the end of the year, and after reading the reviews about the AMD AM2 chips not being all that great, and Intel Core Duo whipping the ass off anything currently on the market, I know which chip I will be using!

So unless AMD brings out a Duo fighter by the end of the year... Core Duo here I come!