As I reported earlier, Core 2 Duo processors will be introduced on July 23 of this year and, according to Intel's estimates, and will be accompanied by the new 96x 'Broadwater' chipset. According to Intel's updated roadmap, Core 2 processors will expand to roughly 35% of Intel's shipments in Q1'07. Conroe, as the desktop version of Core 2 Duo is dubbed, will be the first Intel processor with the new letter/number naming schedule, as noted below. Intel's flagship, the Core 2 Extreme processor, is also expected to launch on July 23 with the X6800 name.

Intel has dropped desktop processor prices throughout the year. Many of the Pentium D processors have seen anywhere from $30 cuts to more than 50% price cuts. All entry level Celeron 300-series desktop processors from Intel will be priced well under $80 by the time Q4'06 comes around.

Intel will also be launching VT-disabled Preslers laster on this year with the 945, 925 and 915 series. VT, or Virtualization Technology allows virtual operating systems running on VMs such as VMWare or Parallels Desktop to access processor ops directly. The mainstream Pentium 4 processors with 2MB and 1MB caches will also see significant price drops. For example, a Pentium 4 661 (LGA775) processors running at 3.6GHz with 2MB of L2 cache will be priced at $183 on the 23rd of July. Right now, the same processor sells for $401.