Intel isn't wasting time to push its new Core 2 Duo processor into the market. During the presentation of the chip at Intel's Santa Clara headquarters, chief executive Paul Otellini said that the Core 2 Duo will ramp in production faster than any previous processor and will cross then 1 million mark within seven weeks. He compared the ramp to the original Pentium processor, which needed more than one year to hit the one million mark about 12 years ago.

Core 2 Duo in detail: Past, present and future (22 images) ...

The ramp also appears to be slightly faster than Core Duo: At the processor's announcement at CES in January of this year, Otellini said that the chip would reach one million shipments within three weeks after introduction - this number, however, included units that have been produced well before launch day. Core Duo, however needed more than three months to become available in substantial numbers on the market, so we are careful with predicting how quickly users actually will be able to buy a Core 2 Duo PC or notebook.

Despite the rapid ramp, the high-end Core 2 Extreme is the only processor available for purchase today, according to Otellini. And don't expect to get that processor for the $999 tray price. A reader informed TG Daily that Tiger Direct, for example, was on the lower end of the scale with a price for $1150. On the other end, there are etailers such as Directron, which asks for $1300 and OnSale.com which believes it can get $1420 for the CPU. Besides Tiger Direct, OnSale.com was the only etailer we found that actually had the processor in stock.

A quick check of PriceGrabber.com's market analysis tool reveals that the average pricing of the processor on launch day is $1151 (retail). At the time of this writing, there were no Core 2 Extreme processors available for sale on Ebay.

Otellini said that Core 2 Duo processors are expected to become available sometime early August and Merom processors at the end of August.

Complete Core 2 Duo launch coverage:
Intel is back: Core 2 Duo launches
TG Daily interviews Intel: "Core is changing the game"
Official: Intel releases Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme
Up to $16,000: Core 2 Duo computers flood the Net
The long road to Conroe
Tom's Hardware: Core 2 Duo smokes AMD's Athlon 64 X2
Intel to launch Merom, Conroe on Thursday
Four AMD dual-core prices now at or near Intel price/performance curve
Technology Background: Will Intel's Core Architecture Close the Technology Gap? (Tom's Hardware)