“Intel Corp. unveiled its new Core 2 Duo processor lineup today, increasing the pressure on rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The 10 new dual-core chips promise markedly better performance and greater energy efficiency than Intel’s existing products,” Sumner Lemon and Ben Ames report for IDG News Service.
Lemon and Ames report, “The Core 2 Duo launch has been billed as Intel’s most significant since the introduction of the original Pentium processor in 1993. The introduction comes at a crucial moment. Intel executives have watched AMD expand its share of the processor market in recent quarters, and they want to reclaim the lost ground. ‘We’re really bullish on Core 2 Duo, and we believe that it’s going to enable us to grow a significant amount of [market] share over the second half of the year. That’s our goal,’ said Tim Bailey, director of platform marketing at Intel Asia-Pacific.”
Lemon and Ames report, “Among the chips announced by Intel are five processors designed for laptops and five desktop chips, including the high-end Core 2 Extreme processor for gamers. Pricing for the desktop chips ranges from $183 for the 1.86-GHz Core 2 Duo E6300 to $999 for the 2.93-GHz Core 2 Extreme X6800. Pricing for the mobile chips was not available.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “BrooklynNYC” for the heads up.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Merom notebooks to ship late August – July 27, 2006
Report: Merom to replace Yonah in Apple MacBook Pro in late August – July 24, 2006
Apple Mac Mini brain replaced with 2.16GHz Intel ‘Merom’ Core 2 Duo and benchmarked – June 09, 2006
Intel gets aggressive on next-gen rollout schedules: Merom MacBook Pros, Conroe Power Macs, more – May 03, 2006
Do the new Core 2 Duo chips have the 64bit extensions? I thought they were supposed to, but I can’t find it mentioned anywhere in any of the latest press releases/stories.
The Core 2 Duos are “64 bit capable”
whatever that means
iWant my Mac Pro. Please.
“64-Bit capable…”
With appropriate 64-bit supporting hardware and software, platforms based on the Intel EM64T provides flexibility for 32-bit now and future software that supports 64-bit computing.
Note: EM64T requires a computer system with a processor, chipset, BIOS, operating system, device drivers and applications enabled for Intel EM64T. Processor will not operate (including 32-bit operation) without an Intel EM64T-enabled BIOS.
The Core 2 Duo also has SSE4, which is a 128bit vector processor a la Velocity Engine. That should speed up things like audio and video encoding/decoding quite a bit.
When can I put it in my MacBook?
In fact, this is the first “true” 64 bit proccesor from Intel (not counting the Itanium because is RISC, no x86), the old Pentium IV and Pentium D has a intruction set called EMT64 (I am not sure about that name) that allow the system to address 8 gig of ram, but does not execute 64 bits instructions. Core Duo is only 32 bits, Core 2 Duo is a “true” 64 bit proccessor with 64 bit registers and capable of procesing 32 bit instructions. And with Mac OS X based on UNIX, will be the best 64 Bits, Multicore computer on the planet.
“When can I put it in my MacBook?”
As soon as you get one, the Socket is compatible.
You can buy one from DELL, saying that it is an upgrade of a optiplex system, bucause this processor is only avalible from OEM vendors.
From what I have read on the PC side, not all motherboards will accept Core2Duo even if they have the 775 socket. Apparently the C2D is more efficient and runs at a lower voltage, although I’m not sure what the settings are. This could affect your ability to upgrade a Mac.
The MacBook has its CPU attached directly to the motherboard – there is no socket. Ditto with the MacBook pro and iMac.
Only the Mac mini has a socket, and people have stuck Meroms in them months ago (engineering samples) and verified that they work great.
My error. I should have researched the facts. Thanks Nick.
Explain to me again in idiot’s terms: What is this “BIOS” thing that every PC person and their Mama keeps talking about! What is the Mac equivolent, if we actually have one?
Lemon and Ames sounds like a vaudeville act.
Nucleon9: Basic Input/Output System
Go here to learn about the Open Firmware Mac equivalent:
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/arch_boot.html
Nucleon9 and Ampar:
Actually, Open Firmware was the Macintosh analogue to BIOS for PPC-based Macs. The Intel Macs use EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface).