Chip giant Intel refreshed its processor price-list yesterday and there were just a couple of additions. Of the two, the launch of the Core i5 680 is easily the most significant. The Core i5-680 is Intel's fastest Clarkdale CPU yet. It's a 32nm Clarkdale part with two cores, four threads and 4 MB L3 cache. It also clocks at 3.60 GHz, which should make it Intel's fasted dual-core processor yet. Price-wise, at $294 (within a batch of a thousand) it costs ten dollars more than the CPU it replaces at the top of the Core i5 pile - the 3.46 GHz 670. Just to remind you, there is a higher numbered Core i5 - the 750 - but this is an anomalous 45nm, 4-core, 4-thread 2.66 GHz part costing $196.

The only other addition was a new Pentium - the E5500. The Pentium E5500 is intended for low-end PCs. The E5500 is clocked at 2.8GHz with 2 cores/2 threads, 800MHz FSB and 2MB of L2 cache. Price is $75.