Intel to launch budget Core 2 Quad soon?

Intel is prepping a surprise launch of a new budget line of quad-core processors in a matter of weeks, say component makers in Taiwan. A variant of the Core 2 Quad to be called the Q8000 series will slot below full-featured Q9000 chips and offer both a lower clock speed as well as drop a pair of features to upsell certain customers to better parts. VT technology that helps accelerate virtual machines will be absent, as will TXT (Trusted Execution Technology) used to help lock down PCs at some businesses. The goal is to undermine AMD's three-core Phenom X3 processors.

The first processor under the new chip family will reportedly be the Q8200, a 2.33GHz part that shares the same 1,333MHz system bus but which drops the amount of Level 2 cache to 4MB (down from 8MB or more). The new Core 2 Quad should be ready during the summer and is said to be priced at $203 per chip in the 1000-unit batches ordered by many PC makers.

Customers are unknown for the Q8200, though the price puts the four-core design into lower mid-range desktops that have often resorted to higher-clocked dual-core processors in the past.

Filed under: computers
Other story tags: Intel, AMD, Core 2, Phenom