Intel Core 2 Duo

Intel Core is Intel brand name for various mid-range to high-end home and business microprocessors. These processors displaced the existing mid-to-high end Pentium processors of the time, moving the Pentium to the entry level, and bumping the Celeron series of processors to low end. Identical or more capable versions of Core processors are also sold as Xeon processors for the server and workstation markets.

As of 2016^[update] the current lineup of Core processors included the Intel Core i7, Intel Core i5, Intel Core i3, Intel Core m7, Intel Core m5 and Intel Core m3.

Although Intel Core is a brand that promises no internal consistency or continuity, the processors within this family have been, for the most part, broadly similar.

The first products receiving this designation were the Core Solo and Core Duo Yonah processors for mobile from the Pentium M design tree, fabricated at 65 nm and brought to market in January 2006. These are substantially different in design than the rest of the Intel Core product group, having derived from the Pentium Pro lineage that predated Pentium 4.

The first Intel Core desktop processor—and typical family member—came from the Conroe iteration, a 65 nm dual-core design fabricated brought to market in July 2006, based on the all-new Intel Core microarchitecture with substantial enhancements in micro-architectural efficiency and performance, outperforming Pentium 4 across the board (or near to it), while operating at drastically lower clock rates. Maintaining high instructions per cycle (IPC) on a deeply pipelined and resourced out-of-order execution engine has remained a constant fixture of the Intel Core product group ever since.

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