Previous reports revealed that Intel plans to launch three new Celeron "Sandy Bridge" processors sometime during Q3 2011. Based on a leaked roadmap slide, the processors were branded as the Celeron G440, the G530 and the G540 but yielded little else in regards to core info, clock speeds and whatnot. Now unnamed sources have released additional detals to offer a better insight into what will hit the market later this year.
Out of the three processors, the Celeron G530 and G540 will have two cores and the ability to execute two threads at once. Both will feature integrated graphics with a base frequency of 850 MHz and a turbo frequency of 1 GHz when necessary. They'll also have 2 MB of L3 cache and a TDP of 64 watts. The only difference between the two is that the G530 will clock at 2.4 GHz and the G540 will clock at 2.5 GHz.
As for the third processor, the low-power Celeron G440 will feature a single-threaded, single core clocked at 1.6 GHz. The integrated graphics will still have the same 1 GHz turbo as its dual-core brothers, but feature a lower base clock of 650 MHz. It will also have the same 2 MB of L3 cache but a much lower TDP of 35 watts.
Earlier today VIA introduced the VIA QuadCore, its new quad-core processor with a TDP of only 27.5 watts. Initially it will be available clocked at 1.2+ GHz and come packed with 4 MB of L2 cache, Adaptive Overclocking and a 1333 MHz V4 Bus. It will also feature native support for 64-bit operating systems.
That said, the new Celeron chips will also feature 64-bit instructions and VT-x virtualization thanks to utilizing the Sandy Bridge core architecture. They'll even arrive in LGA1155 packages. But what's unknown at this point is when these chips will actually launch and for how much. It's possible we'll know more about the Celerons at Computex later this month, so stay tuned.
