Dual-core is coming to a store near you! Well, some time soon, anyway. Intel has confirmed today that they have completed initial production runs of dual-core processors. The chips will be introduced during the second quarter of this year. The company has also announced the 955X chipset for the dual-core Pentium Extreme Edition and the 945 chipset for the mainstream dual-core processor "Smithfield".
The company said that the launch of the technology would not only include the desktop dual-cores "Smithfield" which are likely to carry a 8xx sequence number, but also an "Extreme Edition" of the processor.
This high-end version will be combined with the 955X chipset, formerly code-named Glenwood. As the 945G and 945P chipsets (Lakeport) for Smithfield, the 955X will support High Definition Audio, PCI-Express and faster dual-channel DDR-2 memory.
Intel has also pledged to continue their work on Hyperthreading technology. There had been some indication that Hyperthreading would be dropped from future Intel chips, but apparently this has now been refuted. Intel has said that said that Hyperthreading will allow applications to run four threads simultaneously with a dual-core processor. Intel is also working on an assortment of multi-core products.