Intel Corp. on Monday officially unveiled sixteen of its new dual-core microprocessors made using 45nm process technology and featuring enhanced Intel Core 2 micro-architecture. The new family of central processing units offers a little higher performance compared to predecessors and are claimed to be less expensive to manufacture. Despite of expectations, Intel formally unveiled its new quad-core microprocessors, but delayed their shipments.

Among the 16 new products, 7 are designed for desktop computers 5 are designed for notebooks and 4 are for servers. With the introduction of the new processors, Intel will be offering a total of 32 desktop, laptop and server processors made using 45nm process technology.

The new desktop processors that Intel now lists in its price-list are Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 (2.83GHz, 1333MHz PSB, 12MB L2 cache), Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 (2.66GHz, 1333MHz PSB, 12MB L2 cache), Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 (2.50GHz, 1333MHz PSB, 6MB L2 cache), Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 (3.16GHz, 1333MHz PSB, 6MB L2 cache),  Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3.00GHz, 1333MHz PSB, 6MB L2 cache), Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 (2.66GHz, 1333MHz PSB, 6MB L2 cache) and Intel Core 2 Duo E8190 (2.66GHz, 1333MHz PSB, 6MB L2 cache). All of the chips excluding the model 8190 feature virtualization capabilities as well as so-called trusted execution technology.

The breed of Intel’s mobile chips produced using 45nm process technology includes such chips as Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000 (2.80GHz, 800MHz PSB, 6MB cache), Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 (2.60GHz, 800MHz PSB, 6MB cache), Intel Core 2 duo T9300 (2.50GHz, 800MHz PSB, 6MB cache), Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 (2.40GHz, 800MHz PSB, 3MB cache), Intel Core 2 Duo 8100 (2.10GHz, 800MHz PSB, 3MB cache).

Certain versions of Intel’s new mobile processors are available in smaller packaging, while allows computer makers to create smaller notebooks that feature performance similar to larger devices.

“The new products we’re announcing today provide consumers and businesses with the benefit of sleeker and higher-performing laptops and more powerful and fashionable PCs that deliver for the most hard-core gamer, high-definition enthusiast and just about every other consumer demand,” said Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager of mobile platforms group at Intel.

Each of Intel’s dual-core central processing units made using 45nm process technology have 410 million transistors, up significantly from 291 million of current dual-core Conroe processors, however, thanks to 45nm process technology, the chips have die size of 107 square millimeters, down about 25% from 155 square millimeters of the Conroe, which means significant cost reduction once manufacturing process becomes mature. Intel’s quad-core chips consist of two dual-core dice on a single piece of substrate.

The major micro-architectural improvements for new Intel Core 2 processors, besides SSE4 instruction set, include the so-called Unique Super Shuffle Engine and Radix 16 technique. The Super Shuffle Engine is a full-width, single-pass shuffle unit that is 128-bits wide, which can perform full-width shuffles in a single cycle. This significantly improves performance for SSE2, SSE3 and SSE4 instructions that have shuffle-like operations such as pack, unpack and wider packed shifts. This feature will increase performance for content creation, imaging, video and high-performance computing. Radix 16 technique, according to Intel, roughly doubles the divider speed over previous generations for computations used in nearly all applications. In addition, Intel also improved virtualization technology as well as added some features to dynamic acceleration technology, which is supposed to boost single-threaded applications’ performance on multi-core chips.

Dual-core desktop processor-based PCs using these new processors begin shipping this month; quad core-based systems plan to arrive later this quarter. Four new quad-core Intel Xeon processors for servers and workstations are expected to ship this quarter.

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