Although Intel is currently the leading manufacturer of consumer processors, the company plans not to give rival AMD a single break in topping it. As most of you already know, AMD is best at providing energy-efficient and low power computers that also offer a good performance/price ratio. This is exactly where Intel intends to extend its market share, by releasing a new family of processors that are meant to go neck-and-neck with AMD's upcoming triple core Phenom central processing units.

Apparently, Intel is planning to release in Q3 of this year a new CPU series aimed at the sub-$100 market segment. Dubbed the E5000 series, these processors will be built on 45nm manufacturing process and will come as a dual-core offering. The company intends to replace its current E2000s that are based on the older 65nm Allendale core.

The E5000 series will come with an FSB level of 800 MHz and an L2 Cache of 2MB, which is one third of the already released Wolfdale dual-core processors. The CPUs are going to feature a TDP level of 65W and a clock speed of 2.5 GHz. The price tag on these CPUs will probably be set around $84.

In addition to the dual core E5000s, the Santa-Clara based chip manufacturer also plans to release a quad-core series, dubbed Q8800. As with the E5000s, these quad-cores aim to counter AMD's triple-core CPUs on the mainstream market. These CPUs are also expected to hit retailers sometime in Q3 of 2008. They will come with support for an FSB level of up to 1333MHz, with L2 cache of 4MB and core frequency of 2.33GHz. Pricing for these quad-cores will be set around US$200 in thousand-unit quantities.

Both of these series are going to lack VT and TXT, which will make them bring a lower performance level as compared to the other Intel offerings.