Intel announced on March 28, 2007 the next processor line to be launched. Codenamed 'Penryn', this 45 nm processor will be the successor to the Conroe (Xeon 3000 series), Woodcrest (Xeon 5000 / 5100 series), and Merom (Core 2 Duo series) of processors which use 65 nm technology.The Penryn processors according to Intel will offer several advantages, including:

• 2x performance improvement on division operations vs. Core 2 Duo.
• 4x SQRT operation speed compared to Core 2 Duo.
• Support for the SSE4 extensions.
• A new "Super Shuffle Engine".
• Performance improvement of upto 40% for video codes vs. Core 2 Duo.
• Performance improvement of upto 20% for games vs. Core 2 Duo.
• FSB speeds of upto 1600 MHz.
• 6MB / 12MB L2 cache memories for dual core / quad core respectively.
• "Deep Power Down" power saving states for Mobile processors.