Core 2 Duo chips

Features: In the wake of cut-throat price wars and the recent buy-out

of ATI by AMD, semiconductor maker, Intel Corporation, has announced the

world-wide launch of Core 2 Duo processors. The ten new Intel Core 2 Duo and

Core 2 Extreme processors are targeted at the consumer and business desktop

segment. The company is touting this new series as the next best Pentium. “In

the Core 2 Duo processors, we have managed to balance microarchitecture for

better performance and power management."






Ramamurthy Sivakumar, MD, sales and marketing (South Asia), Intel, said, “The
processors will be priced for the mainstream computer user,” said Sivakumar.








The new Core 2 Duo processor for desktops, codenamed Conroe, contains 291
million transistors and can boost power by 40 per cent while using 40 per cent

less energy. This means that users can manage multiple tasks and applications

simultaneously.






The Intel processors are built using 65-nanometre silicon technology. Intel will
start shipping the new chips in early August and for laptops at the end of

August. Around 550 customer system designs are underway for the Conroe

processors. In India, OEM companies Xenitis, HP, IBM, Connoiseur and Zenith

would be shipping PCs powered by Core 2 Duo.






Charlotte Lamprecht, director, digital home brand management, Intel, said that
Core 2 Duo's arrival would not make Pentiums outdated. “The Pentium brand

will remain. It has a lot of recognition in markets like India.”






Some of the features of the new chips include 64 bit technology, advanced
digital media boost, a shared L2 cache or memory reservoir to reduce power by

minimizing memory traffic and smart memory access that optimizes the computer

data bandwidth.