An excerpt from Intel's most recent processor foil
Believe it or not, there's still more "Conroe" madness
The official embargo for most things Conroe came and went,
but it appears there is still one more card Intel hasn't played yet. The
newest Intel roadmap has added a bin-5 Conroe processor, the Core 2 Duo
E4300.
E4300 is clocked at 1.8GHz and has two megabytes of L2 cache.
Unfortunately, the processor lacks VT and vPro extensions, and also runs at an
800MHz front-side bus. Intel has not revealed pricing for the new
processor yet since it is not to be announced until Q1'07, but considering the
fact that the 1.86GHz E6300 is slated for $183, the E4300 may be one of the
greatest bargains yet.
Intel's addition of a bin-5 processor is not totally surprising, as virtually
every Intel processor architecture before has had at least five bins. However,
with the news of a
2x256KB L2 Athlon 64 X2 3600+, a low-bin Conroe makes even more sense than ever
before. The Athlon 64 X2 3600+ is slated to become an OEM component only,
but the E4300 appears to be a retail-ready processor, meaning we should see it
in store shelves come Q1'07.
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