Intel appears to have stepped up a notch its plan to ship Pentium chips based on its current desktop Core 2 Duo processor. Originally scheduled to debut as single-core parts, the post-NetBurst Pentiums will now be dualies, according to the chip giant's latest roadmaps.

So out then goes the Pentium E1000 series, planned to ship early next year as the 1.6GHz E1040, followed by the 1.4GHz E1020 and 1.8GHz E1060, in comes an E2000 line-up, Chinese-language site HKEPC claims.

The report states the E2140 and E2160 will ship in Q3 2007. Both run on an 800MHz frontside bus and contain just 1MB of L2 cache. They derive from a revised version of the 'Allendale' Core 2 Duo, a 'Conroe' spin-off with 2MB of cache instead of 4MB. The Pentiums will simply have half of that 2MB cache turned off in manufacturing. The two CPUs will be clocked at 1.4GHz and 1.6GHz, respectively.

Will the E1000 series ship? If it does, it's likely to happen under the Celeron brand.

Q3 2007 will also see the final removal of old-style Pentium 4 and Pentium D processors from Intel's product list, it's said - an outcome made all the more likely by Intel's recent move to EOL all but three Pentium D chips. ®