Intel® in July released the new version of their CPU, the Core™2 Duo. This CPU replaces the well-known Pentium™ CPU. The Pentium™ name began in 1993, and has survived many iterations. The name change from Pentium™ to Core™2 Duo Processors, abandoning 13 years of name branding recognition for Pentium™, indicates the enormous increase in performance Intel® has accomplished with this new CPU.

Last year dual core processors came out from both AMD® and Intel®. AMD® had the performance advantage with their Athlon64™ line, and Intel® had an adequate performing Pentium™D. The problem Intel® faced was heat, they just couldn't get more speed (at the time) out of the Pentium™D CPU without overheating the processor. Meanwhile, design teams had brought forward a new design, the Pentium™M. Without going into architectural details, we'll just say that it was faster and cooler. This general design was used to create the new Core™2 Duo processor, a single die solutions with two processing cores and 2mb or 4 mb of shared cache.

Just how fast is it? The entry level model Core™2 Duo E6400 at 2.0Ghz is about comparable to the Intel® model D965™ Extreme Edition at 3.73Ghz, with the new CPU priced at about 20% of the model D965™.

There is an excellent review at Anandtech with benchmarks showing relative speeds compared to other AMD® and Intel® CPUs.

Our strong recommendation at present, if performance is most important to you, is to go with a system using the new Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU. It is enough of an improvement to justify replacing older equipment, something we have not been able to say in a long time.

Our Systems and Bundles (including those based on the Intel® Core™2 Duo) may be found here.