X-bit labs

Yorkfield Processors to Start Selling Next Week.

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 03/07/2008 | 10:50 AM ]

As you know, the shipments of 45nm quad-core Core 2 Quad processors were delayed due to issues with processor system bus discovered in them. These Yorkfield processors on the new C1 stepping that would be free from this problem were expected to arrive in early March. According to sources, the new processor went into mass production exactly as planned and next week we should see 45nm Core 2 Quad Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550 in retail stores already. The mass production processors will be based solely on C1 stepping, which doesn’t have any changes to its thermal, electrical or mechanical specifications compared with the previous C0 processor stepping that is used widely in dual-core Wolfdale processors these days.

Quad-core Core 2 Quad Q9550 and Core 2 Quad Q9450 processors will be designed to work at 2.83GHz and 2.66GHz respectively. For the first time for Core 2 Quad family they will work with 1333MHz bus and thanks to 45nm process they will feature total 12MB of L2 cache memory. Core 2 Quad Q9300 works at 2.5GHz frequency and also supports 1333MHz bus, however its L2 cache is only 6MB big. All new quad-core processors feature 95W TDP. The official prices of Q9550, Q9450 and Q9300 models are set at $530, $316 and $266 respectively. Nevertheless, they will be priced a bit higher in stores, because of high customer demand, which Intel cannot satisfy so far.

Intel chief executive Paul Otellini said to analysts during the recent meeting that the company was working hard to eliminate the shortages of their 45nm processors. Intel is currently manufacturing about 100 thousand 45nm processors a day offering 72 different models in desktop, server and mobile segments. The company has already made 3.5 million 45nm CPUs by now and is not going to stop just yet. According to their revealed plans, each fourth Intel processors will be manufactured with 45nm process by the end of Q1 2008, and by second half of Q3, they will be producing equal amounts of 65nm and 45nm solutions.