Intel today released public details of its first home processors specifically built for its recent 3-series ("Bearlake") platform. Like the Xeon 5300 released last fall, the 2.66GHz E6750 and 3GHz E6850 each sport a faster 1,333MHz bus (versus 1,066MHz) that helps shuttle data from the two cores to the main system. Each carries the 4MB of level 2 cache used on Intel's faster dual-core chips and supports all the features, including 64-bit code as well as virtualization.

The new chips also represent a significant price cut for dual-core chips in advance of extra quad-core versions arriving later this year: the E6750 and E6850 will arrive at the same time as the Core 2 Duo drops in price, selling for $183 and $266 in bulk to CPU builders with higher prices expected for their boxed retail equivalents.