14 DAY TRIAL // INTEL has finally announced its quad core line, putting an end to months of speculations concerning the specifications and price of its quad core CPUs. It's a simultaneous launch of two families, one based on the desktop quad core (Kentsfield family) and the other concerning server quad cores (Cloverton family).
Four Xeon 5300 CPUs based upon the Cloverton core are launching today: E 5355 @ 2.66GHz, E 5340 @ 2.33GHz, E 5320 @ 1.86GHz and E 5310 @ 1.6GHz. TDP varies from 80W to 120W with the first two CPUs using 1333 FSB while the last 2 go as fast as 1066 FSB. All CPUs have 8MB level 2 cache and use LGA 771 compatible motherboards. A future Xeon 3200 will be build using LGA 775 socket in order to be mounted on desktop motherboards. Pricing for the 4 CPUs ranges from $455 to $1172 in 1,000-unit quantities.
As for Kentsfield, since you probably know everything about it from its price to its specifications, I will only say that although it is officially out, the availability remains pretty low, especially due to the high demand. And remember it retails at $1020 if you can find it. With that being said, I can't help but wonder how a Mac Pro equipped with 2 Cloverton CPUs will actually work. Can you say 8 cores?