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Intel's Core i3 family looks a little thin at the moment, but come Q2, the No. 1 chip maker will add a third member, the Core i3 550, news and rumor site Fudzilla reports.
As it currently stands, the Core i3 530 cruises along at 2.93GHz, while the 540 breaks the 3GHz barrier with a 3.06GHz clockspeed. The Core i3 550 will kick things up a notch to 3.2GHz, leaving everything else the same. That means 4MB of cache, DDR3 1333 memory support, a 73W TDP, two cores with four threads, and no Turbo overclocking. In other words, it will be the same chip as the Core i5 650, just without Turbo.
Fudzilla says the Wolfdale-based Core i3 550 might end up pushing the E7600 from the marketplace, though the majority of the Wolfdale Core 2 Duo product line will remain available as lower end options throughout most of 2010.
No word yet on price, though we suspect it will check in somewhere around the $170 mark.
Image Credit: Intel
Comments are closed on this article
M-ManLA
February 16, 2010 at 3:32pm
I don't think that clock speed is the biggest factor anymore. While it would be nice to get a factory 3GHz clock (well know some of these chips can even go on air for 4GHz), I think I'll rather have more cores with Hyperthreading, Turbo Boost, and QPI for a more effcient workflow. Even me, a huge multitasker, music producer,engineer, and dabbling now with pro video apps, I really don't have a huge need for a 3GHz clock. I would rather upgrade my Core 2 Quad 6700 to a spanking new Core i7 or a Nehalem dual quad core CPU Xeon setup, and have my boot drive and music sample drive on SSD's.
Electronically charged
emperor3d
February 16, 2010 at 11:18am
This is most likely a silly question but I've always wanted to know this; Why can't chip manufacturers break the 3.0GHz threshold?
Ntldr
February 16, 2010 at 11:49am
The 3GHz thresh hold was broke in 2002 by Intel they don't have a problem breaking it anymore. As to the reasons why they don't put out chips that are 3+ who knows. Could be heat issues or maybe there is more being put off to the GPU and the CPU doesn't necessarily have to be up that high.
