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Explore Intel® Core™2 Duo processors in-depth

Experience state-of-the-art dual-core technology with performance gains that are out of this world. Discover digital home entertainment without borders.

Seriously advanced processing power
In a world of 5-8 percent performance gains, the Intel® Core™2 Duo desktop processors are up to 40 percent faster and over 40 percent¹ more energy efficient than previous generation desktop processors. It's simply in a world of its own and outperforms the competition by leaps. Based on the revolutionary Intel® Core™ microarchitecture, the Intel® Core™2 Duo processor family was developed for a multimedia, high-definition world, and was designed to do more of the compute-intensive things you love, faster and all at once.

The future of computing delivered now
64-bit capable Intel Core 2 Duo processor operates at lower frequencies while producing revolutionary performance compared to today's higher frequency processors, enabling quieter and smaller desktop and laptop PCs. When combined with the Intel® 965 Express Chipset family with optimized memory engine for improved system performance, you're enabled an unparalleled level of performance even in the smallest of PC packages.

Feature

Benefit

Latest 3rd generation Intel® dual-core processing

Unrivaled performance.

Two independent processor cores in one physical package, up to 4 MB of shared L2 cache and up to a 1066 MHz Front Side Bus for desktop PCs and up to 667 MHz Front Side Bus for laptop PCs.

Intel® Intelligent Power Capability

Excellent energy optimization delivering more energy-efficient performance.

A set of capabilities designed to reduce power consumption. Manages the runtime power consumption of all the processor's execution cores.

Intel® Wide Dynamic Execution

Do more at once.

Improving execution speed and efficiency while delivering more instructions per clock cycle. Each core can complete up to four full instructions simultaneously.

Intel® Smart Memory Access

A PC that won't slow you down.

Newly designed, optimized functions for reducing wait time, keep the pipeline full improving instruction throughput and performance.

Intel® Advanced Smart Cache

Access the programs and files you need faster.

The shared L2 cache is allocated to each processor core based on workload up to the full amount of total cache. This is more efficient than today's dual-core processor. Sharing the cache significantly reduces the time needed to retrieve frequently used data improving performance.

Intel® Advanced Digital Media Boost

Entertainment that rocks.

128-bit Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) instructions are issued one per clock cycle doubling their speed of execution over previous generation processors. This benefits a broad range of applications including video, audio, and more with improved performance.

Intel® 64

Serious access to system resources.

Enables the processor to access larger amounts of virtual and physical memory.

Execute Disable Bit²

Hackers, viruses, and malware-rejected.

Provides enhanced virus protection when deployed with a supported operating system preventing certain viruses from infecting the system.

Get more on Intel Core microarchitecture

Get the details: PC technologies built with the future in mind

Buy Intel® Core™2 Duo processor-based technology

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What the experts are saying...

"If you’re after the best performing desktop processor on the planet, you’re going to be shopping for an Intel Core 2 processor."

The Register

Read more quotes

Take your game to the extreme

Unrivaled. Revolutionary. Unbeatable. Take them all on, and win with the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor.

Game on

¹ As measured by SPEC* CPU2000* (SPECfp*_rate_base2000 and SPECint*_rate_base2000) comparing Intel® Pentium® M Processor 780 and 750 with Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7600 and T5600. Actual performance may vary. See http://www.intel.com/performance/mobile/benchmarks.htm for important additional information. SPEC, SPECint, SPECfp, SPECrate, SPECweb, SPECjbb are trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. See http://www.spec.org for more information on the benchmarks.
² Enabling Execute Disable Bit functionality requires a PC with a processor with Execute Disable Bit capability and a supporting operating system. Check with your PC manufacturer on whether your system delivers Execute Disable Bit functionality.
For more information on Intel® Core™2 Duo processors please visit http://www.intel.co.uk/core2duo/index.htm.
64-bit computing on Intel architecture requires a computer system with a processor, chipset, BIOS, operating system, device drivers and applications enabled for Intel® 64 architecture. Processors will not operate (including 32-bit operation) without an Intel® 64 architecture-enabled BIOS. Performance will vary depending on your hardware and software configurations. Consult with your system vendor for more information.