It appears Intel have a strong playing card up their sleeve around the time AMD kick off their Phenom processor line, with the Dailytech reporting details of a quad-core 45nm "Yorkfield" Core 2 Extreme processor later in the year, this to supposedly sport a 1333MHz FSB and with a most likely clock speed of over 3GHz (*easily* doable from a 45nm chip no doubt).

It's also been mentioned that another entry level processor will enter Intel's Core 2 lineup roughly around the same time as Yorkfield, namely the Core 2 Duo E4600 operating at 2.4GHz with an 800MHz FSB.

Intel's latest roadmap adds two more processors to the upcoming lineup. The roadmap reveals early plans for the Yorkfield-based Core 2 Extreme and another Core 2 Duo E4000-sequence processor. With Yorkfield, Intel differentiates the Core 2 Extreme and Core 2 Duo models by the front-side bus speed.

Intel Core 2 Extreme Yorkfield processors will have a 1333 MHz front-side bus, continuing on where the Kentsfield Core 2 Extreme QX6850 leaves off. The quad-core processor supports Intel VT, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep and Intel 64 and Execute Disable Bit technologies. Intel leaves TXT technology out of the 45nm Core 2 Extreme however.