Intel debuts Core 2 Duo chips

BANGALORE

JULY 27, 2006

In the wake of cut-throat price wars and the recent buy-out of ATI by AMD,
semiconductor maker, Intel Corporation, today announced the world-wide launch of
Core 2 Duo processors.

The ten new Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors are targeted at
the consumer and business desktop segment. The company is touting this new
series as the next best Pentium. "In the Core 2 Duo processors, we have
managed to balance microarchitecture for better performance and power
management.

Ramamurthy Sivakumar, MD, sales and marketing (South Asia), Intel, said,
"The processors will be priced for the mainstream computer user," said
Sivakumar.

The new Core 2 Duo processor for desktops, codenamed Conroe, contains 291
million transistors and can boost power by 40 percent while using 40 percent
less energy. This means that users can manage multiple tasks and applications
simultaneously.

The Intel processors are built using 65-nanometre silicon technology. Intel
will start shipping the new chips in early August and for laptops at the end of
August. Around 550 customer system designs are underway for the Conroe
processors. In India, OEM companies Xenitis, HP, IBM, Connoiseur and Zenith
would be shipping PCs powered by Core 2 Duo.

Charlotte Lamprecht, director, digital home brand management, Intel, said
that Core 2 Duo's arrival would not make Pentiums outdated. "The Pentium
brand will remain. It has a lot of recognition in markets like India."

Some of the features of the new chips include 64 bit technology, advanced
digital media boost, a shared L2 cache or memory reservoir to reduce power by
minimizing memory traffic and smart memory access that optimizes the computer
data bandwidth.