INTEL FIRST UNCORKED its Core 2 processors last July, and believe it or not, relatively little has changed since then. Oh, sure, they've introduced quad-core variants of those processors that are essentially two chips in one package and a few low-end parts, but that's about it. The top-speed-grade Core 2 processor last July was the Core 2 Extreme X6800 at 2.93GHz, and it remains the top speed grade today. That's a remarkable amount of stability in a year's time, but then the Core 2 hasn't needed much help—AMD hasn't yet caught up to it in performance.

Few things sit still in these parts for long, though, and things are about to change once again, as Intel's recent introduction of the P35 Express chipset signaled. The new P35 and upcoming X38 chipsets from Intel are capable of supporting front-side bus speeds of 1333MHz, and Intel plans to introduce a slew of Core 2 processors primed for the faster bus. Although those CPUs won't officially debut until later this summer, we have a preview today of one of those chips, the Core 2 Duo E6750. We have, of course, run the E6750 through our gamut of CPU performance tests, and we've also checked out its overclocking potential—which turns out to be rather considerable.