Intel is planning to launch its first quad-core CPU for notebooks, the Core 2 Extreme QX9300, in the third quarter this year. The gaming-oriented chip is built on the 45nm Penryn process and will fit into the same motherboard socket as dual-core offerings.

More importantly it will come clocked at 2.53GHz on a 1066MHz front side bus, boast a huge 12MB of L2 cache (6MB per pair of cores), and have a maximum TDP of 45W. It won't come cheap though, as it is expected to cost around $1,000 in 1,000-unit trays. While quad-core notebooks should be available soon after this launch, Intel isn’t expecting mainstream adoption of mobile quad-core CPUs until mid-2009.