14 DAY TRIAL // PC manufacturer and vendor, Dell Computer will start shipping a new batch of notebook systems powered by Intel's next-generation of processors, built on the 45-nanometer technology. According to some sources, the Penryn-based laptops will arrive within a week or so.
Intel has released its dual-core offerings in the Penryn family in early January, but laptop vendors did not quite rush to make the switch. Until now, the biggest provider of Penryn-based notebooks is PC vendor Hewlett-Packard that has announced its new Pavillion series to come with the T9300 45-nanometer CPUs. The company currently sells its Pavilion dv2700t, Pavilion dv6700t and Pavilion dv9700t notebooks, but some more Intel Penryn models are on their way. The 20-inch model of Pavilion HDX can be optionally rigged with the T9500 CPU, featuring a core speed of 2.60GHz and 6 MB of L2 cache.
Gateway is another manufacturer that rushed to adopt Intel's Penryn. The company currently offers a single model in its P Series that uses the 2.40GHz, 3MB cache T8300 processor. Some more laptops with Penryn flavor can be found in Toshiba's offering. The Japanese vendor currently provides the Satellite X205 model, built on the T8100 CPU (2.1GHz core speed and 3MB cache), the Satellite U305 powered by the T8100, and the Qosmio G45 that integrates the T9300.
The latest notebooks to have adopted Intel's Penryns are the LG E300 and LG R405 systems, that are powered by 45-nanometer Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 processors as part of the Santa Rosa Refresh platform.
Dell did not mention any candidates in its notebook series that are likely to receive the face-lift, but we would put our money on the high-end, high performance XPS models.
Intel's new processors are comprised of around 400 million transistors and come with large cache pools to fuel their dual-cores. The 45-nanometer technology allows processors to better manage the energy requirements and account for impressive boosts in performance. Needless to say: they're more expensive.