14 DAY TRIAL // INTEL has just released a paper which states that a new revision of Conroes is due to come out. The Core 2 Duo E6300 and E6400 CPUs, all coming with 2MB of L2 cache will receive a new revision (L2) along with the Xeons 3040 and 3050.
If you take into account the actual B2 revision of the same CPU, you will probably end up with the same conclusion: the CPUs should have the B3 revision (or maybe C2). Instead INTEL preferred to name it L2 which stands for Low Power 2. There is no other way to distinguish from the two revisions but to look for the serial on the CPU IHS. SL9TA is the serial of the new L2 CPUs (SL9SA corresponds to B2). You could also look for CPUID marked as 6F2 instead of 6F6 which is the ID for the old revision.
Whether this is a response to AMD's 65nm CPUs or not is hard to tell. As a reminder, 65nm parts coming from AMD only consume 7,5W in idle mode whereas Core 2 Duos eat up 22 Watts while doing nothing and about 65W when under full load. With the new revision, power consumption in idle state (C1E) is reduced to only 12W. Don't let the figures fool you because INTEL and AMD use a different method to express the TDP factor.
All in all, even if you look at the numbers there's not much difference between 7W and 12W so big companies won't mind paying some extra few bucks. However, things change when you compare the old with the new and the L2 Allendales might prove to be a good choice if you run a small business and you have a huge power bill. Good luck in finding these new parts since they are almost out.