Intel to refresh Celeron and Pentium lineups

Last November we reported on several unknown at a time AMD and Intel model numbers, spotted in OEM hardware specifications for Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Basic operating systems. The document referred to such models as Celeron G550 and G560, Atom N2550, N2750, N2100, N2600, and a few others. Since then Intel launched Atom D2550, and it seems that Atom N2650 and N2850 will be also eventually released. Yesterday we discovered details on yet another processor from that document. Celeron G550 was sighted in socket 1155 CPU support list on ASRock website, along with not yet released Celeron G540 and Pentium G640 CPUs:

Three new models are dual core CPUs with very basic feature set. All three have slightly higher processor numbers, than currently produced Celeron G530T, G540 and Pentium G630, and they come with 100 MHz higher clock speeds.

Celeron G550 and G540T have 2 MB level 3 cache. The G550 operates at 2.6 GHz, and it has 65 Watt TDP. Intel G540T runs at lower 2.1 GHz speed, but it is almost twice more power efficient.

Pentium G640 model has 50% larger L3 cache size, than Celeron SKUs, and it operates at higher 2.8 GHz clock speed. It's a 65 Watt processor. The G640 is listed incorrectly as "Celeron" in the CPU support list.

We don't know release dates of new processors, however we suspect that the Pentium G640 may launch along with Pentium G870, that should be available in the second quarter 2012.

Please see below for a summary of major features of new Celeron and Pentium microprocessors:

Model	Cores	Threads	Frequency	L3 cache	TDP
Celeron G540T	2	2	2.1 GHz	2 MB	35 Watt
Celeron G550	2	2	2.6 GHz	2 MB	65 Watt
Pentium G640	2	2	2.8 GHz	3 MB	65 Watt