Intel Core 2 Duo P9600

The Intel Core 2 Duo P9600 was a upper middle class dual core CPU for laptops, at the time of introduction. It is similar to the Core 2 Duo T9550 except for the lower TDP of 25 versus 35 Watt).

Due to the relatively high clock speed and 6MB Level 2 cache, the P9600 offers enough performance for demanding games (in 2009) and applications. The newer Core i3-330M should deliver a similar performance due to the hyperthreading support.

The P9600 uses a Penryn (Montevina Update) core that features 2 integer units, 1 floating point unit, 1 load unit, and 1 store unit in a 14-stages long pipeline. Due to the Wide Dynamic Execution Technology, the core is able to simultaneously execute up to four instructions.

The integrated Enhanced Speedstep is able to downclock the core dynamically to save power (in idle mode).