New Pentium Chips Punch Ticket on the Sandy Bridge Express

Posted 05/18/2011 at 8:30am | by Paul Lilly

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You didn't really think Intel would retire the Pentium brand, did you? Apparently that's just crazy talk, man! Nope, Intel isn't doing away with its aging Pentium nomenclature, and in fact is getting ready to launch a trio of new Pentium chips with Sandy Bridge DNA later this month, and perhaps as early as next week.

All three upcoming chips support dual-channel memory and will fit into existing socket 1155 boards, news and rumor site Fudzilla reports. The least powerful of the bunch is the Pentium G620, a dual-core processor clocked at 2.6GHz and containing 3MB of cache. Look for this one to sell for $65.

Sitting higher up on the performance chart is the G840, a $75 dual-core chip that runs at 2.8Ghz and also contains 3MB of cache. If you can spare an extra $11, you can step up to the Pentium G850 with a slightly faster clockspeed (2.9GHz). None of these new parts support Turbo Boost.

According to Fudzilla, the official launch date is still set for the second quarter of 2011, but an un-named source says they could show up next week.