Intel has spent millions making their "Core" brand synonymous with high performance processing. In these days of the Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, and Core 2 Extreme, it’s pretty easy to find a Core microarchitecture-based processor to match nearly any possible price point. The performance levels of the Core 2 product lineup have been so dominating that Intel really didn’t have to spend a penny if they didn’t want to, although big time marketing campaigns are good for converting those who just want the latest and greatest and don’t necessarily read enthusiast sites like ours here.
Despite the Core 2 being a successful lineup from top to bottom, Intel’s Pentium product name is still a valuable asset. Intel’s last Pentium-branded product launches happened mid last year, with the “Presler” core based Pentium-D processors hitting the market at speeds in excess of 3.0 GHz. Soon afterwards, the first generation Core 2 processors hit the streets and (more or less) dominated the Pentium-D in terms of performance, all the while consuming far less power and creating much less heat. From that point forward, many had figured the Pentium name would be essentially dead, simply living out its final days as inventory in warehouses until the Core 2 made it obsolete.
Apparently, this is not what Intel had in mind. A while back, we started to hear rumblings of a “new” Pentium processor. While the Pentium had always targeted the performance crowd, it appeared that Intel would be taking the name in a new direction, pushing it to the value sector where their Celeron brand typically resided. As the Celeron name does not have a strong following, replacing it with an aging (but still well known) brand like Pentium does make quite a lot of sense. The question is, what really is this “new” Pentium processor? Is this a new architecture, or simply a new chip based on something we’ve already seen?
The answers to those questions are finally here, as the first “new” Pentium processor has arrived and is running in our lab. This new processor is shipping at two speeds, 1.6 GHz (E2140) and 1.8 GHz (E2160), is based on a dual-core architecture, and ships in the same powder-blue box we’ve come to associate with the Core 2 Duo.
Despite the Core 2 being a successful lineup from top to bottom, Intel’s Pentium product name is still a valuable asset. Intel’s last Pentium-branded product launches happened mid last year, with the “Presler” core based Pentium-D processors hitting the market at speeds in excess of 3.0 GHz. Soon afterwards, the first generation Core 2 processors hit the streets and (more or less) dominated the Pentium-D in terms of performance, all the while consuming far less power and creating much less heat. From that point forward, many had figured the Pentium name would be essentially dead, simply living out its final days as inventory in warehouses until the Core 2 made it obsolete.
Apparently, this is not what Intel had in mind. A while back, we started to hear rumblings of a “new” Pentium processor. While the Pentium had always targeted the performance crowd, it appeared that Intel would be taking the name in a new direction, pushing it to the value sector where their Celeron brand typically resided. As the Celeron name does not have a strong following, replacing it with an aging (but still well known) brand like Pentium does make quite a lot of sense. The question is, what really is this “new” Pentium processor? Is this a new architecture, or simply a new chip based on something we’ve already seen?
The answers to those questions are finally here, as the first “new” Pentium processor has arrived and is running in our lab. This new processor is shipping at two speeds, 1.6 GHz (E2140) and 1.8 GHz (E2160), is based on a dual-core architecture, and ships in the same powder-blue box we’ve come to associate with the Core 2 Duo.
