Maybe this is not a reaction to Asus's C90S, or maybe it is, who knows? In any case, on September 2nd, Intel plans on reducing the price of their mobile Core 2 processors by a significant amount. Here's the table as extracted from xtreview:

The Core 2 Extreme x7900 (2.8 GHz) that you see here will be presented at that same time (along six more models) and will allow to increase the processor frequency trough a multiplier increase (similar to the T7600G already found on the Dell XPS M1710). The x7800 (2.6 GHz) will be released in July 8th.

"Reduction in mobile core 2 Duo prices will stimulate higher demand for santa rosa platform, which was presented during May this year. To the end of the fourth quarter 2007 Intel plan to bring the portion of processors core 2 Duo (Merom) with 800 MHz system bus to 80% of entire mobile production. The processors merom with 667 MHz system bus will be removed from production during March 2008."

If the price of the x7800 comes down and BIOS permits to change voltages and FSB, we could have something interesting here. Otherwise I fell inclined towards the desktop-processor-in-a-laptop aproach Asus is endorsing.
 

    *      Dual Core Processor at 1.6 GHz Clock Speed  
    *      "Conroe" Core Architecture
    *      65nm Manufaturing Technology  
    *      64k L1 Cache (Per Core), 128 kB L1 Total
    *      1 MB (Shared) L2 Cache (Full Speed)
    *      800 MHz Front Side Bus Speed  
    *      Socket-775 Form Factor Design
    *      1.35V Default Core Voltage
    *      Supports Intel 64-bit Technology
    *      Supports SSE/SSE2/SSE3/Execute Disable
    *      Supports Intel Speedstep / C1E
    *      Includes Aluminum Alloy Heatsink/Fan

Hothardware has a full review of the Pentium E2140. Yes, you heard that right, the Pentium name isn't dead. Instead, Intel will be pushing it to the value sector where the Celeron resided. For the moment, it looks like the Celeron (which has a weak following) has some future as a single-core processor, but it may be replaced soon with an older (but better known) brand.

Starting at only $90, it holds up nicely against a Core 2 Duo E6420. To achieve that, you will have to perform some overclocking, but with such a low FSB, the chip is actually crying out loud for you to do so. And taking 3D gaming out of the picture will raise it's preformance to the level of a Core 2 Duo E6600 and beyond. If you aren't into overclocking, you can still benefit from lower temperatures and near silent operation.

The only real competition this CPU has comes from AMD, with some Athlon 64 X2 processors being as cheap as $55.

Q6600 at 266$!

Despite the Athlon X2, it wasn't until last year that prices got to reasonable levels and you could actually buy a dual core CPU. Lack of competition from Intel allowed AMD to maintain ridiculously high prices for a long time. Shortly after the introduction of the Core 2, prices on competing products began to moderate and reached very good price points. Eventually, Intel also adjusted initial pricing (a little).

2005 saw the advent of the dual core, but it took a year for them to be cheap. 2006 gave birth to quad cores, but they're still quite expensive. No longer. With competition from AMD coming to this market segment before year's end, Intel is prepared to launch a preemptive attack: a severe price cut.

Dailytech has a list of prices to be made effective on July 22. If you are thinking of upgrading to Core 2 or Quad Core, maybe you fancy a souped up PC in time for Crysis, we think it would pay to wait a couple of months and take advantage of the new price points.

It wasn't clear until now if Intel could hold true to their roadmap. The Conroe die shrink (Penryn) was supposed to be launched this year, but that timeframe seemed difficult to meet. From past declarations they slated it for late Q3 or early 2008.

In a post that's a complement to a recent one, Tgdaily confirms that all is going well. 45nm technology is ready and we should see the first CPUs no later than 2007. If you don't remember what Penryn'll bring to the table (apart from lower power consumption and higher clock speeds) here's a recap:

- More cache: 6Mb per two cores.

- Fast Radix-16 Divider and Super Shuffle Engine, what this nice names mean is: higher IPC.

- Intel SSE4 instructions.

- Higher bus speeds: 1333Mhz for the desktop version, actually.

What all this'll buy you is a 10% performance increase compared to current Core 2 running at the same clock speed. Factor the SSE4 optimizations that still are on the way and we could be talking about even better improvements in several tasks (video encoding comes to mind).

What is "tick-tock"? As Intel describes it:

"The principle of cadence is based on what Intel calls the tick-tock model of silicon and microarchitecture. This model delivers a common processor architecture across all volume market segments. Each tick represents the silicon compaction beat rate, and each tick has a corresponding tock representing the design of a new microarchitecture, delivered in approximately two-year cycles."

Didn't get any of this? Tgdaily has worded it a little bit better:  

"Intel has begun describing its product introduction strategy as “tick-tock”, which promises to bring a new micro-architecture in even years and a refresh (shrink) in odd years"

This is only a new pace if you compare it to the five-year cycle of late (Pentium 4, Core 2, Athlon, Athlon64). On the other hand, there were times when minor differences qualified as new processors (K6 III or Pentium III). It all depends on what you call a "new microarchitecture" or a "refresh".

A more conservative approach that doesn't go after a big step but gets satisfied with small leaps ahead. Understandable after a failure like Netburst, isn't it?

When AMD changed the moniker for their processors, some eight years ago, they wanted to get rid of the K6 legacy. After the disaster the Pentium 4 meant for Intel, they also had to give up a lineage established a long time ago.

The introduction of Core 2, last summer, signaled the end for the current AMD generation of CPUs. After bringing prices as low as they could, it's time now for a new breed. And a change of names too (again).

DailyTech has all the details on "Phenom", as well as expected launch dates for every model.

With no figures at our disposal about performance (that is, independent data), at least it seems that the Celeron - Sempron wars will heat up nicely with the introduction of two "Spica" based parts.

The Intel blue men have been busy. At a recent press event in Beijing, Intel executives (those little blue men you see on the Intel adverts) announced over 20 new products. We've managed to secure some footage from the event - although we're are not quite sure what Gabe Newell is doing there?

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Under the backdrop of Intel's leadership in 45nm Hi-k metal gate silicon technology and how it will ignite new innovation and growth opportunities, Intel executives at the Intel Developer Forum disclosed new performance details for its next-generation "Penryn" processor family. The company also unveiled two product roadmaps for Intel architecture (IA)-based System on Chip (SOC) consumer electronic (CE) devices and business uses.

"Welcome to the era of multicore, an era in which all of our computing capabilities will multiply our own personal capabilities," said Justin R. Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer. "This Beijing developer forum will show how our multiple innovations go hand in hand with evolutions in social networking, PC and TV entertainment, online commerce and other growing demands on the Internet. Today, Intel is delivering a breadth of multicore processors worldwide and a product roadmap providing the incredible performance boost and energy efficiency needed to put the consumer more in control of the information age."

When Intel released it's Core 2 architecture last summer, there was a product missing from the list: single core solutions.

As they moved on, there was a change of plans, and the Core 2 Solo mutated into the Pentium E1000 and Celeron families. Finally, only the latter remains single core, while the Pentium E2000 will be dual core (with even less cache than Allendale).

If you don't care about multithreaded performance, the Celeron 420 at 1.6 Ghz (with 512 Kb of L2 and a FSB of 800 Mhz) could be what you were waiting for. They don't overclock as well as their big brothers, but at such low prices (down to 40€) you get a much better CPU than what the blue boys have been offering under the Celeron name for the last six or seven years.