Farewell, Intel's Pentium D desktop processors, most of which are due to be canned by the end of the year if allegations made by Taiwanese motherboard-maker moles are to be believed. Only three such CPUs will survive the cull and remain alongside the chip giant's Core 2 Duo offerings, apparently.

The claims come courtesy of a DigiTimes report and follow Intel's recent announcement that it is end-of-lifing the Pentium D 830, 840, 930 and 940 CPUs. The report's sources claim Intel will retain only the 90nm 820 and the 65nm 915 and 925 from the current Pentium D line-up.

The Pentium 4 brand will live on in the form of the 90nm 531 and 541. A raft of low-end Celeron Ds are due for the chop too, the moles maintain.

The cull comes as Intel gears up to produce 45nm processors in 2007, but it's undoubtedly a consequence of the company's shift away from the Pentium brand and to the Core microarchitecture. ®