Core 2 Duo is here, and it's fast

Matt Elliott Senior Editor

Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.

Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms

See full bio

Matt Elliott

July 13, 2006 9:01 p.m. PT

Intel released its Core 2 Duo desktop processors tonight. We threw our full suite of benchmarks at two of the five new chips. Read our reviews of the Core 2 Extreme X6800 and the Core 2 Duo E6700 for all the details. The takeaway? The chips are fast, and they're efficient--they don't run nearly as hot as previous Pentium chips. With Core 2 Duo, Intel finally wrestles the desktop performance crown away from rival AMD, a feat it was unable to pull off with either of its previous two dual-core desktop processor lines.

This is no paper launch; Core 2 Duo processors will be available immediately in shipping systems. Given that prices range from $183 (for the Core 2 Duo E6300) to $999 (for the X6800), we expect to see the chips show up in a wide range of PCs. The first two Core 2 Duo systems we've tested are high-end gaming machines, the Dell XPS 700 and the Falcon Northwest Mach V--we've got a full review of each.

Mobile Guides

Phones

Foldable Phones

Headphones

Mobile Accessories

Smartwatches

Wireless Plans

Mobile coupons