Intel to intro Core 2 Quad at CES?
By Tony Smith
28th December 2006
Intel will formally launch its already announced four-core Core 2
Quad processor at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in
less than two week's time, it has been claimed.
The allegation - made by industry sources cited by IDG - comes as
no surprise. Intel announced the quad-core Q6600 chip for
mainstream desktops at its Developer Conference last September and
pointed to a Q1 2007 introduction. It hinted at an earlier rather
than later appearance.
CES is a clear choice for the Q6600's debut, having become a launch
platform not only for the year's major consumer electronics
releases but also many of the key IT offerings too.
Intel has kept quiet on the part's specifications, but since the
Q6600 is essentially a lower-clocked version of the four-core Core
2 Extreme QX6700, we can say it will have 8MB of L2 cache split
into two banks of 4MB each shared by two cores. The Core 2 Quad is
two Core 2 Duos bonded together in a single package, and it's
expected to be clocked at 2.4GHz.
The part is expected to be priced at $851, well above the
$530 Core 2 Duo E6700 and some way below the $999 Core 2 Extreme
QX6700. That positions the part as a high-end product, though
claims that Intel will cut its price to $530 in Q2 2007 points to a
rapid push into mainstream Core 2 Duo territory. That said, the
company's own projections apparently have quad-core accounting for
only a small percentage of its desktop CPU shipments throughout
2007.
