Intel Corp. has quietly started to sell its Pentium D processor, an anticipated update for the Pentium D family that brings higher performance for the performance-mainstream desktops powered by Intel’s chips. It is interesting to note that Intel had not formally announced the Pentium D 960 processor, nor another high-performance chip – the Pentium 965 Extreme Edition.

Intel Pentium D 960 processor operates at 3.60GHz clock-speed, features 4MB of cache (2MB per core), utilizes 800MHz processor system bus and is drop-in compatible with Intel dual-core infrastructure – computers running Intel 945-, 955- or 975-series chipsets and featuring 05B platform compatibility guide (PCG 05B). Meanwhile the Pentium 965 Extreme Edition functions at 3.73GHz, uses 1066MHz quad pumped bus and supports Hyper-Threading technology that allows up to 4 threads to be executed at once.

Intel Pentium D 900-series processors code-named Presler employ two separate processing cores on a single piece of substrate. The chips are produced using 65nm process technology.

Tokyo, Japan stores sell the new Pentium D 960 chip for up to about $620, however, Intel’s online price-list does not currently include the Pentium D 960 processor, even though the company’s roadmap indicated that the chip should emerge in late April at the price of $637, which means that Intel will be aggressive in terms of pricing on the new processor.

Clock-speed increase and price drops will help Intel to increase the pressure on its rival Advanced Micro Devices in the dual-core space, where chips from AMD became more popular among performance enthusiasts.