Intel refreshes Celeron and Pentium desktop lineups

With the release of Ivy Bridge quad-core processors in April, and announcement of dual-core Ivy Bridge Core i5 and i7 products earlier this week, Intel does not forget about their budget Celeron and Pentium lineups. Because it will be at least several months before both families are transitioned to the new microarchitecture, Intel keeps them up to date by releasing faster versions of Sandy Bridge CPUs. Just today, the company released six new Celeron and Pentium microprocessors, including three SKUs with standard 65 Watt TDP and three low-power "T" SKUs with 35 Watt TDP. Intel also reduced prices of Celeron G540 and Pentium G860.

New Celeron products are G540T and G550, which replace G530T and G540 models. The Celerons have 2 cores, 2 MB L3 cache, integrated HD graphics, and they do not support any advanced Sandy Bridge features. The G540T and G550 operate at 2.1 GHz and 2.6 GHz, and they are priced at $42 and $52 respectively.

Mainstream Pentium G640 and G870 chips with 65 Watt TDP have two CPU cores and larger, than on Celerons, 3 MB L3 cache. The Pentiums support only basic technologies, like Intel 64 and Execute Disable bit. The G640 is 100 MHz faster than currently produced G630, and it comes with identical $64 official price. The G870 is slightly faster than the G860, and it's priced at $86.

Pentium G640T and G860T boast 35 Watt TDP, however their clock speeds are not as high as on mainstream Pentiums. The G640T, which replaces Pentium G630T, runs at 2.4 GHz, and it costs the same as the G630T. Intel G860T is a new model, that operates at 2.6 GHz, and has $75 price tag:

Model	Cores	Frequency	L3 cache	TDP	Price
Celeron G540T	2	2.1 GHz	2 MB	35 Watt	$42
Celeron G550	2	2.6 GHz	2 MB	65 Watt	$52
Pentium G640	2	2.8 GHz	3 MB	65 Watt	$64
Pentium G640T	2	2.4 GHz	3 MB	35 Watt	$64
Pentium G860T	2	2.6 GHz	3 MB	35 Watt	$75
Pentium G870	2	3.1 GHz	3 MB	65 Watt	$86

Additionally, Intel cut prices of two microprocessors. The price of Celeron G540 was reduced from $52 to $42, or by %19. Pentium G860 price dropped from $86 to $75.