The Intel Core 2 Duo Is Finally Out!

The long-awaited Intel® Core 2 Duo has finally arrived here in Malaysia. As you know by now, the Core 2 Duo brand will cover both the desktop and mobile processors. The Intel® Core 2 Duo desktop processor was codenamed Conroe, whereas Merom is the codename for the mobile processor.

The event kicked off with an introduction by Intel Malaysia's PR Manager, Norhizam Kadir. Then Intel's Marketing Manager, Charlotte Lamprecht took over the show, introducing the new processors and showing the advantages of the new Core architecture over the previous Netburst architecture.

Needless to say, lots of numbers were thrown out. Not surprising for a company in an industry obsessed with numbers. But it's evident that Intel wants us to quickly forget about the Gigahertz mindset they started us on, and start thinking in terms of performance per watt.

Intel also roped in Malaysia's 2005 World Cyber Games champion, Albert Lim, to speak at the launch. He was the first to own an Intel Core 2 Duo processor in Malaysia and needless to say, he loved it. Who wouldn't? The system, armed with a $999 Core 2 Duo Extreme X6800 processor, was sponsored by Intel. It had better be good if it costs so much!

To convince us it was not pure marketing talk, Intel gave us a few realtime demonstrations of the new Core architecture versus the old Netburst architecture. They showed how an average Core 2 Duo processor will not only beat the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor, but also do it with a much lower power consumption and at a much lower price point.

For some reason, Intel refrained from comparing the Core 2 Duo against processors from the big green monster, as the WCG champion Albert Lim was wont to describe AMD. They only concentrated on showing just how revolutionary the new Core architecture is, compared against the old Netburst architecture.

The Processor

I don't know about you, but I find it quite hard to even pronounce the name properly, Core - 2 - Duo. I get tongue-tied whenever I attempt to pronounce it.

The name is really quite logical though. Intel branded the new micro-architecture as Core, hence all processors based on this micro-architecture will adopt this name. If the processor has a single core, then it's called the Core Solo. If it has two cores, then it's called the Core Duo.

As this is the second-generation of dual-core processors based on the Core micro-architecture, it makes sense to name it the Core 2 Duo.