Intel's new Sandy Bridge CPU lands, others receives price cut

Added to the database and reading for extreme overclocking!

Remember all those new Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs we've been writing about over the past couple of months that were supposed to launch in September, well they've arrived. Now please don't panic, as none of the models are likely to cause much of a stir as we're looking at minor updates at the most, although one or two of them as we've already mentioned, might be worth a closer look.

Let's start with the desktop models where we have a new, slightly faster mid-range Core i5 model, a new top of the range Core i3 model, a new Core i3 model with HD3000 graphics and a new slightly faster power efficient Core i3 model, all as per the table below. We also have two new, faster Pentium models alongside a new slightly faster low power Pentium model. Possibly the most important new chips though are the first Sandy Bridge Celerons which means you can get dual core Sandy Bridge action for sub US$50, although with quite a few features snipped off.

Desktop CPUs	Price US$
Core i5-2320 6M cache, 4 Cores, 4 Threads, 3.00GHz, 95W TDP	$177
Core i3-2130 3M cache, 2 Cores, 4 Threads, 3.40GHz, 65W TDP	$138
Core i3-2125 3M cache, 2 Cores, 4 Threads, 3.30GHz, 65W TDP	$134
Core i3-2120T 3M cache, 2 Cores, 4 Threads, 2.60GHz, 35W TDP	$127
Pentium G860 3M cache, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 3.00GHz, 65W TDP	$86
Pentium G630 3M cache, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 2.70GHz, 65W TDP	$75
Pentium G630T 3M cache, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 2.30GHz, 35W TDP	$70
Celeron G540 2M cache, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 2.50GHz, 65W TDP	$52
Celeron G530 2M cache, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 2.40GHz, 65W TDP	$42
Celeron G440 1M cache, 1 Cores, 1 Thread, 1.60GHz, 35W TDP	$37
Celeron G530T 2M cache, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 2.0GHz, 35W TDP	$47

On the mobile side we have three new quad cores, of which one is an Extreme Edition part which is 200MHz faster than its predecessor with a 200MHz higher Turbo clock. The other two quad cores also receive a 200MHz speed increase over their predecessors, with the rest of the features seemingly remaining the same. There's also a new dual core Core i7 model, but here we're looking at a more modest 100MHz speed increase. Finally we have a 300MHz faster Celeron model.

Mobile CPUs	Price US$
Core i7-2960XM (8M cache, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 2.70 GHz 32nm	$1,096
Core i7-2860QM (8M cache, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 2.50 GHz 32nm	$568
Core i7-2760QM (6M cache, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 2.40 GHz 32nm	$378
Core i7-2640M (4M cache, 2 Cores, 4 Threads, 2.80 GHz 32nm	$346
Celeron B840 (2M cache, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 1.90 GHz 32nm	$86

As for price drops, well they only apply to Intel's Core i5 and Core i7 65W TDP S models and 45/35W TDP T models on the desktop side and the price drops are very minor at between two to six percent. Considering that these CPUs are still not that widely available to consumers, this is not likely to affect consumers that buy their own CPUs to any larger degree.