Intel Tuesday introduced the Q9000, a 2.53 GHz quad-core chip designed to offer a cheaper alternative for notebook manufacturers. Acer becomes the first to use the $350 chip to power a product, its $1,800 Aspire 8930G-7665 for gamers.
Unlike its bigger brothers, the Q9000 sports 6MB of cache memory – half that of Intel’s Q9100 and QX9300. Intel also offers the 2.53 GHZ P8700, 2.66 GHZ P9600 and T9550, as well as the 2.93 GHz T9800.
Apple is among a number of computer makers that will use new Intel Core 2 Quad chips created for mobile PCs. Cupertino reportedly will use the new chips for an expected refresh of its line of iMac desktops, reports suggested Monday.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
