TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

The Core 2 range has been highly successful for Intel, delivering unbeatable performance at a price many have been unable to refuse. However, not to be outdone with such a successful product Intel has quietly unleashed a few new - even more affordable - dual-core processors based on the Allendale core.

Intel is relaunching the ever so popular “Pentium” brand name. So what are these new Pentium dual-core processors? Well, in essence they are stripped down Conroe processors featuring a tiny 1MB L2 cache with an 800MHz FSB.

There are two versions currently available, the Pentium E2140 and the E2160. Clocked at 1.8GHz the E2160 matches the E4300 in terms of clock speed while featuring half as much L2 cache. The E2140 on the other hand is now the slowest desktop “Core 2” processor, clocked at just 1.6GHz. With both CPUs priced below the $100 mark ($84 and $99, respectively), this should make for an interesting race against its more expensive siblings.