Intel will formally launch its already announced four-core Core 2 Quad processor at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in less than two week's time, it has been claimed.

The allegation - made by industry sources cited by IDG - comes as no surprise. Intel announced the quad-core Q6600 chip for mainstream desktops at its Developer Conference last September and pointed to a Q1 2007 introduction. It hinted at an earlier rather than later appearance.

CES is a clear choice for the Q6600's debut, having become a launch platform not only for the year's major consumer electronics releases but also many of the key IT offerings too.

Intel has kept quiet on the part's specifications, but since the Q6600 is essentially a lower-clocked version of the four-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700, we can say it will have 8MB of L2 cache split into two banks of 4MB each shared by two cores. The Core 2 Quad is two Core 2 Duos bonded together in a single package, and it's expected to be clocked at 2.4GHz.

The part is expected to be priced at $851, well above the $530 Core 2 Duo E6700 and some way below the $999 Core 2 Extreme QX6700. That positions the part as a high-end product, though claims that Intel will cut its price to $530 in Q2 2007 points to a rapid push into mainstream Core 2 Duo territory. That said, the company's own projections apparently have quad-core accounting for only a small percentage of its desktop CPU shipments throughout 2007. ®