Intel will launch a new Core 2 Duo series, E7xxx, in the second half of 2008. Just like the E8xxx series this new series is codenamed “Wolfdale” and will be manufactured under 45 nm process using the Penryn core. We had the opportunity of reviewing the E7200 model, which runs at 2.53 GHz with 1,066 MHz front side bus and 3 MB of L2 memory cache – half the cache compared to the E8xxx models. Let’s take a look on the performance from this forthcoming CPU.

click to enlarge
Figure 1: Core 2 Duo E7200.

Core 2 Duo E7200 will be the first Core 2 Duo running at 2.53 GHz, a clock frequency between the 2.40 GHz used by Core 2 Duo E6600 and Core 2 Duo E4600 and the 2.66 GHz used by Core 2 Duo E6700, Core 2 Duo E6750, Core 2 Duo E8190 and Core 2 Duo E8200. All these CPUs have, however, a different front side bus and memory cache configuration. So in order to help you to see the differences between them, we compiled the table below.

Since currently there is no Core 2 Duo CPU running at the same clock rate as E7200, we will compare it to the Core 2 Duo CPUs with the closest clocks and specs, E6600 (2.40 GHz) and E6700 (2.66 GHz), to see the impact of the smaller L2 cache and the new clock rate.

This new CPU does not support virtualization technology but supports SSE4.1 and comes with a TDP of 65 W. TDP, Thermal Design Power, is how much power the CPU dissipates, meaning that you must match the CPU with a cooler capable of dissipating that amount of power.

click to enlarge
Figure 2: Core 2 Duo E7200 specs.