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The new Intel CPUs manufactured with 45nm process boast a lot of advantages. They run fast, run cool and squeeze less power off of today's struggling power supplies. Yet, aside from the thermal benefits and great power efficiency, the best benefit is the relief to our wallets - price drops are our friend.

The perfect example of this would be Intel's new kid on the block, Core 2 Duo E8400. But lets go back to what caught my eye to begin with and the possibilities it presents in terms of overclocking - the new 45nm architecture. Let's examine the specs and see why this new CPU should impress us.

Wolfdale's introduction brings forth higher clock speeds, larger L2 cache and a number of other improvements. The obligatory speed bumps are a necessity for those that need that higher GHz number to feel like they're purchasing something that matters (I know I feel better). The E8400 comes in a nice speed of 3.0GHz, which leaves a small inkling that we can push this chip a bit faster.

The new 45nm architecture also brings native support 1333MHz front side bus, a feature many new motherboards now support. But with 45nm, Intel introduced more than just a die shrink, the E8400 supports SSE4 instructions set including 47 new commands that can speed up 3D graphics and video processing - by far one of the biggest features that most people will be interested in. Are you one of those people? If not, surely everyone else is in the face of the youtube, myspace, yahoo era.

Now lets talk about the worst kept secret...Core 2 Duo's have been some of the best overclocking chips for the past year and a half. The fact that we're dealing with Dual core chips, we don't face the same conundrum in heating a quad-core shows-offs (like me) purchase. The cooler the temps, the more headroom we have for overclocking. New production technology uses a new hafnium based material with a property called high-k. This allows increasing processor clock frequencies further without raising their heat dissipation and power consumption. We all like the sound of that. I've heard reports of up to 3.80GHz stable operation with the Core 2 Duo E8400. For those who want to push the envelope and experience raw performance, 4.23GHz is not out of the question - we're talking air cooled, folks. However, we've all tempted fate and fell flat on our pale, sunless faces, so you didn't hear that from me ;-) As more motherboards with higher FSBs hit the market, the casual overclocker will have plenty of fun with the Core 2 Duo E8400.

For those who don't require the flexibility of a Quad-Core, Dual-Cores still prove to be a great choice. They run fast, run cool and suck less power. If you are in the market for a computer upgrade or want to make the move to 45nm, the E8400 is a superb choice and will no doubt become the most popular 45nm Dual-Core model. We happen to have many in stock, so click the following link and act fast.

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Henry L
Staff Technology Writer