Intel unveils new dual-core processors

Intel has released new processors and chipsets as part of the company's new home and office PC platforms.

At a press briefing in Sydney, Intel's technical manager for Australia and New Zealand, Graham Tucker, demonstrated the multitasking benefits of the dual-core technology by running a large Photoshop batch conversion while simultaneously recording video from an analogue source and playing a DVD.

"[We're] anticipating the initial take-up will be consumer oriented," Tucker said.

He added that high-end business users would also enjoy the benefits of dual-core, particularly with the increasing number of applications that are now multithreaded.

"[The performance increase] varies from application to application, typically 30-75 percent for multithreaded applications," Tucker said.

Intel has previously announced that by 2006 70 percent of its desktop processors would be dual core.

The new 945 Express chipset formed the foundation of the new platforms. The chipset included support for PCI Express, Dual-Channel DDR2-667 and 7.1 surround sound courtesy of Intel's integrated High Definition Audio.

The 945 Express was available in two flavours, the 945P and 945G, the latter equipped with integrated graphics in the form of the new Grahics Media Accelerator 950.

Tucker said the 945G chipset also incorporated RAID 10 and RAID 5, which used three disks to preserve capacity and improve data throughput.

Powering Intel's home platform was the new dual-core Pentium D line of processors. Intel believes dual-core processors to be an integral part of the digital home and highlighted the ability to run multiple tasks on the same machine.

For its business platform Intel released the Pentium 4 670 single-core processor and unveiled its Active Management Technology (AMT). AMT is a hardware level management tool incorporated into an optional network interface controller. AMT allows system administrators to monitor a PC regardless of its status, even if the machine is turned off.
 
The three new Pentium D processors released were the 840, 830 and 820 and are priced at US$530, US$316 and US$241 respectively. The Pentium 4 670 was priced at US$851.

The 945G and 945P Express chipsets were priced at US$42 and US$38, respectively.
All prices were for 1000 unit quantities.

Tucker said the new products have already started shipping, however was unable to comment on volumes.