Intel's Penryn and Montevina CPUs Nearly Ready

The Intel Penryn, a 45 nanometer process quad core CPU at 3 GHz, will ship on November 11th. The mobile derivative, Montevina, will appear in 2008 and form the backbone of Appleis lineup, according to Electronista on Friday.

Unfortunately, at launch, the full quad core Penryn chip will sell for US$999 in batches of 1,000, and that price is available only to system vendors. Initially, this advanced 64-bit CPU with very strong video and numeric processing will be too expensive for all but the high end workstations.


Intel Penryn

In the meantime, Intel is also ready with some Core 2 Duos that range from 2.66 up to 3.16 GHz, and these range in cost from US$163 to $266. These could be candidates for the next round of updates for Apple.

In the long run, however, the Montevina, a mobile derivative of the Penryn, with two processors, is likely to be seen in Apple portable and home computers in 2008. The OEM price has not announced.