Topic: Intel announces Core 2 Extreme mobile, five new desktop processors.

[Amker]

Today Intel officially announced its first Core 2 Extreme mobile dual-core processor, the X7800. Also announced were five new desktop processors, with front side bus speeds of up to 1333MHz.

The X7800 is a dual-core processor clocked at 2.6GHz on an 800MHz bus with 4MB of L2 cache and will be available to OEMs for $851 each in quantities of 1,000. Intel expects that its new mobile processor will appear in notebook computers within the next two weeks.

Intel claims that the X7800 processor will offer up to 28 percent more performance than earlier mobile processors and that it has removed the bus ratio locks, which previously prevented overclockers from tweaking their laptop CPU speeds. The 28 percent increase is in comparison with Intel's Core Duo T2600 in 3DMark06. The T2600, which is clocked at 2.16GHz, has a slower 667MHz bus speed with 2MB of L2 cache.

The Core 2 Duo E6750, which was also launched today, has already been covered in some detail in a flurry of "prereviews" from different sites. In June, we noted that although there's an increase in bus speeds from 1066MHz to 1333MHz between the E6750 and its predecessor, there isn't much of a performance boost. Many of the prereviewers noted that aside from performance increases in memory-demanding games and applications like Photoshop, there was roughly a 1.9 percent performance increase. Here's a quick lineup of Intel's latest offering:      

 
                                              Number of cores    Frequency    Front Side Bus (FSB)    L2 cache    Price in 1,000-unit quantities
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850              4    3.0GHz    1333MHz                   8MB    $999
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700(standard/max)    4    2.66GHz    1066MHz                   8MB   $530
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850                        2   3GHz             1333MHz                  4MB   $266
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750                        2    2.66GHz    1333MHz                   4MB    $183
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550                        2    2.33GHz    1333MHz                  4MB    $163
Intel Core 2 Extreme X7800                     2    2.6GHz    800MHz                  4MB    $851


While the performance boost that the CPUs get from the faster FSB isn't incredible, the platform as a whole does offer a taste of what's to come in Intel's 45nm Penryn CPUs. Upgraders can purchase a new P35-based board without having to wait longer for the Penryn, which could be released as early as September to compete with AMD's Barcelona CPU due in August.

The top of the line desktop processor announced today is Intel's Core 2 Extreme QX6850, a quad-core CPU clocked at 3.0GHz and with a 1333MHz FSB with 8MB of L2 cache. The 267 MHz (FSB) and 340MHz (processor) speed increases will cost you, though, as the QX6850 will cost $469 more than the quad-core runner-up, the Q6700. The consensus from the reviews (see below) suggests that the QX6850's increased clock speeds and FSB offered a small performance increase over the QX6800 and that the chip is too expensive considering that the Penryn is expected within a few months. For gamers, one reviewer suggests doubling up on a high-end dual-core processor and a nice video card to get the best bang for your buck.

Intel also said that it expects to launch "battery-friendly" quad-core mobile processors sometime next year.
ars technica