Here they come: Intel unveils Core 2 Duo processors

The reign of Core Duo has dominated 2006, but now is the time for a line of desktop processors to take the stand for justice. Or something like that. Announced in June, Intel's Core 2 Duo is officially "out" today -- though you can't buy 'em just yet -- and bit-tech.net has given the Conroe and Allendale lines (4MB vs. 2MB L2 cache) an incredibly thorough rundown. We're not total chip nuts, so some of the architecture notes went a bit over our heads, but it's clear that the Intel's Core architecture has the makings of a champ. While sharing a misleadingly similar name, Intel's Core Duo mobile line isn't actually built on Intel's "Core" chip design, notably lacking 64 bit compatibility. However, the breakthroughs made in the "Yonah" Core Duo chips really shine through in the Core Duo 2, and the chip thoroughly trounced AMD's offerings in bit-tech.net's benchmark tests. Of course, at $999 in the high end (the 2.93GHz Core 2 Extreme X6800), and with AMD timing price cuts for Intel's July 24th release party, you might not be quite getting the performance-per-dollar for your desktop that the Athlon has been boasting of lately. Luckily, even faster chips are on the way, and AMD and Intel are charging into a price war that should give us some of the best valued chips we've seen in a while.

[Jamie @ Jul 14th 2006 12:57PM]

broken link....

[quahogian @ Jul 14th 2006 1:01PM]

Anand has a very detailed review of the whole ordeal on his site.

[x @ Jul 14th 2006 1:25PM]

Aren't the laptop versions coming out soon too?

[jim @ Jul 14th 2006 1:31PM]

Anyone have a good (recent) link for their processor roadmap for the rest of the year?

[spil @ Jul 14th 2006 1:34PM]

can't wait to see these in the mac pros!!!

[kyle @ Jul 14th 2006 1:41PM]

Will these work on the G1975?

[Heath @ Jul 14th 2006 1:44PM]

"Of course, at $999 in the high end (the 2.93GHz Core 2 Extreme X6800), and with AMD timing price cuts for Intel's July 24th release party, you might not be quite getting the performance-per-dollar for your desktop that the Athlon has been boasting of lately."

That is completely false. Look at the benchmarks and the pricing for the entire chipline. The ~$320 E6600 nearly matches or even surpasses the FX-62 in most tests and destroys the lesser AMD chips for not much more or the same price. The 4600+ is the closest to the E6600 in price but the E600 blows its doors off in tests. AnandTech also found the E6600 to be VERY overclockable. They had it stable at 4Ghz. And of course the E6700 and X6800 are more money but even more performance.

[blackfeather @ Jul 14th 2006 2:00PM]

Why isn't it Core Quatro? Will the next one be iCore Double 2 Duo?

[ZildjianKX @ Jul 14th 2006 2:22PM]

Heath's post is 100% accurate. The engadet's post should really be updated since it is VERY misleading. They missed the point of why this is news.

[bazald @ Jul 14th 2006 2:26PM]

I second x's query about the timeline on Merom. I've heard conflicting reports recently.

And blackfeather, stop stealing jokes from Slashdot! The 'i' in "iCore" doesn't even make sense.

[J @ Jul 14th 2006 2:26PM]

Alright, I don't get it. I read Anand's and then I read HardOCP's review: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTEwOCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

They don't show the same results...why?

And this is the second version of the core duo, so that's why its core 2 duo. When they come out with the quad core chip it may be core quadro or something. Yes, the naming is lame :-).

My system is plenty fast now. Flame on!

[blackfeather @ Jul 14th 2006 2:50PM]

sorry bazald. I should have read Slashdot first to see if anyone else had the same stupid idea I had.

I recant my lame comment.

[marsel @ Jul 14th 2006 3:21PM]

whatever as long as by the time vista is out i can cop one of these bad boys for like $300, ill be fine. that gives em like 6 months to slash prices by over 50%. oh yeah. and hopefully ati and nvdia will have their new crap out by then as well, or a 2nd gen of new crap.

[eM @ Jul 14th 2006 3:45PM]

"They don't show the same results...why?"

HardOCP decided to run GPU tests instead of CPU tests. It's also interesting to note that they disabled Intel's power-saving features on the power-saving test. Seems to me that [H] has an agenda.

" When they come out with the quad core chip it may be core quadro or something. "

If it's a 4-core Core 2, it would be Core 2 Quadro (or somesuch). First we had Core 1 (Yonah) and now we have Core 2 (Conroe/Merom). The Core 1 came in Solo and Duo versions. The Core 2 comes in Duo and Extreme versions.

[Bruce @ Jul 14th 2006 3:51PM]

Heath,

While it is true the Core 2 Duo is faster than AMD's offerrings, they Intel chips are not for sale yet.

AMD has promised that the price/performance crown will stay with them and have confirmed massive price cuts.

The important points are:

1) Don't buy a PC until after the price cuts.

2) AMD might still be the best choice because Intels will be in short supply.

3) Don't buy an Intel 9xx or 8xx because they are overpriced. slow, energy hogs.

[Jordan @ Jul 14th 2006 3:57PM]

Well written summary. I can't wait to see these chips, hopefully in the Mac Pro!

[Kevin @ Jul 14th 2006 4:04PM]

Guess who's back?

Intel really did this time around. I have been buying AMD's for a few years now. I think I may be moving to Intel.

I won't forget that Intel has been giving us the finger for the last few years though.

[Heath @ Jul 14th 2006 4:41PM]

AnandTech posted what they believe the reduced prices of AMD chips will be (but they admit they may be wrong by listing them too high). They put the 4600+ at $301 which makes it $25 less then the Intel E6600. But the E6600's performance is far beyond the AMD chip and even matching/passing the $1k FX-62. In light of the performance reports coming out I would think AMD is going to have to sell their chips for much less then the numbers leaked at Computex (which is what AnandTech is reporting) to stay competitive. Anybody know how much it actually costs AMD to make a chip? I wonder how low they can afford to go and make a profit.

[marcin @ Jul 14th 2006 4:55PM]

anyone know when these will be available in laptops cause i'm looking to buy a new pc for school?

[Austin @ Jul 14th 2006 5:51PM]

The laptop version, Merom, is planned to be released sometime next month. I haven't seen any specific date. I'm planning on buying an iMac shortly, but I'm waiting until at least WWDC to see if anything is going to be announced about these chips going into Macs shortly. Also, there are solo versions of the Core 2s planned, laptop and desktop.

[Andy @ Jul 14th 2006 7:07PM]

Heath is pretty much right. The Core 2 duo E6600 right now is priced at less than half of the FX 62. I don't think the FX-62 will come down in price that much.

To J: Core duo and Core 2 duo are completely different technologies. Put simply, Core duo (and solo) is an evolution of Pentium M, which was an evolution of Pentium III. Core 2 duo is based on the new Core microarchitecture (which replaces the Pentium 4/D's NetBurst microarchitecture from scratch). The Pentium M's microarchitecture ran parallel to Netburst, and was for mobile. The new Core microarchitecture with Core 2 duo (Conroe for desktop, Merom for mobile) merges again the same microarchitecture for both uses.

The misleading part is that the chip "Core duo" does not have to do anything with the new Core microarchitecture. It would have been more precise to call it Pentium M duo or something like that. But I guess for marketing (and confusion) reasons they called the chip Core duo.

[Andy @ Jul 14th 2006 7:14PM]

Oh, and did you see the overclocking numbers on Anandtech? It's crazy! For OC people, the E6600 and even E6400 could be the best value for money in probably all PC history.

[Tim @ Jul 14th 2006 7:51PM]

WooHoo! I can finally start to build a new computer! I hope my patience will pay off...

[NudelZ @ Jul 14th 2006 8:58PM]

been reading this site for years, and this is the first time I felt compelled to write, and I'm glad to see Heath has already remarked on the subject of the pricing.

While there is an extreme edition, this is comparable to today's P4 EE, which is just an overpriced 'gamer' version of the P4 (albeit with "double" the cores--at least virtually. Though this does not translate to anywhere near double the performance and in some cases actually detracts from it.) every time Intel announced a new EE chip, it debuted at $999. This is going to be no different. will I be buying it? you bet your life I won't.
for a third of the price and far more than a third of the performance, the E6600 is probably the best bang-for-the-buck ever, period.
AMD's price cuts are as defensive a tactic as anyone could ever muster. the K8L architecture is promising, and will probably be a better linear scaler, but I don't see it making that big of a dent on Intel's offerings.

Woodcrest (the server version of Core2) is already demolishing the highest-end Opterons, and the roadmap up until Keifer (a 32-core platform marked for 2010) is so aggressive that the server crown will probably be Intel's for a while.
In the mobile world Yonah is better than any Turion out there in pretty much every respect, and Merom will only build on the trend.

bottom line, intel's back stronger than ever.
Just not internally where they're suffering like never before.

[cycomachead @ Jul 14th 2006 10:15PM]

would someone mind pointing me in a way of the differences between conroe and merom- besides the mobility thing

[Keaton @ Jul 14th 2006 10:16PM]

Wow... Finally a Intel processor that kicks AMD's butt. And I think its quite amazing that they are cheaper than AMD's offerings. Hmmmm... I think AMD has gotta do something crazy to get the processor market back. I should be interesting to see. What ever it is it should benefit us all :-)

http://thesoggycow.phpnet.us

[Bruce @ Jul 14th 2006 10:28PM]

"Woodcrest (the server version of Core2) is already demolishing the highest-end Opterons,"

Woodcrest is only a 2 socket solution. 4 cores.

Opteron scales up to 8 sockets / 16 cores and totally demolishes Intels offerings in that area.

If you could buy Woodcrests. I believe first delivery is still weeks away.

[Bruce @ Jul 14th 2006 10:47PM]

Anyone who buys a chip from Intel that isn't based on the Core architecture is an idiot.

And Intel will only be at 20% of its production for Core chips by the end of the year.

That means 80% of its chips are destined for morons ... or the dumpster.

[Andy @ Jul 15th 2006 3:46AM]

To Bruce...

While your reasoning is valid for people buying the EE Pentium D, or some other high end ones (that will still cost more than the Core 2 duo E6300), you still could get some pentium D so-so performers for dirt cheap. Medium-clocked Pentium Ds are still fast enough, if the price is right. And dirt cheap is almost always right.

There's also the thing that to upgrade, you're probably gonna have to switch motherboards, memory, if you got an AGP card, probably that too. And the Core 2 compatible chipsets don't support PATA natively, as far as I know. So maybe one or two new HDDs. PCI support is also limited. I'm saying this because this is basically what I'm gonna have to do myself. It sucks, but the end does justify the means here.

[Karl Viklund @ Jul 15th 2006 10:23AM]

This must be the most stupid name for a CPU for intel up to date. It's hard to say and it's confusing. Is it for cores or? I guess the next version will be named "Core 3 Duo" LOL ^^

A tip for Intel, keep your code names for the CPUs, they are way much better!

[Michael Sedillo @ Jul 18th 2006 3:27AM]

why cant they just make windows mce supported by boot camp, on a macbook pro, running core 2 duo extreme? everyone would buy it immediately and they would make bajillions of dollars!

[Kyle Shaffer @ Jul 28th 2006 10:45AM]

Actually at least in my opinion and the opinion of most my colleges, All Mac products are nothing but an overprice dumb down version of what a PC could offer if set up correctly. Yes the Mac OS have fewer viruses to worry about but their entire market is based on a cult following who listen more to the hype and less of the fact. Personally I rather have a choice in what pieces I put into my computer, who fixes it, how it runs, and the look of it. With Macs you get the same crappy pieces of equipment for which you pay way to much money for, and a cheap plastic looking case that looks more like something made for an unimaginative toddler then any one who would really want to customize the way the computer looks. So to your post No I don’t think everyone would buy the MacPro even if it has this and Boot Camp. In fact the only people who would buy it are the thousands of Mac groupies who have no real Idea why they bought a Mac other then that it "was the cool thing to do" or "it looked cool".

And no, it does not work better for the music industry – this was true 10 years ago, but any more that just a common misnomer that is propagated by the sadly uninformed consumers who bases their knowledge on what every other Mac user tells them.

For those who use Macs and have spent a few years in the IT field working with both Macs and PCs and still enjoy the Macs over the PC I respect your decision as at least you are more Informed then 98% of the Mac following.

As for me, as much as I hate the flaws in Windows I do enjoy the choices I have when buying each and every piece of equipment for my pc for which I buy at 65-75% of the cost of Mac “equivalents”. And as a Gamer, I personally wouldn’t be caught dead with a Mac in my hands unless I was at work and I was in the process of troubleshooting a Mac.

Flame On!

[lemon @ Aug 8th 2006 10:55AM]

does anyone know where you can actual find one for $999 i have only seen $1150 as the lowest price so far