Qualcomm's current crop of dual-core chips isn't really anything worthwhile performance wise, so they're not really interesting for a flagship device.

Intel's Core i3 processors, particularly the i3-540, are some of the most impressive dual-core chips we've seen for the money.

It beat Intel to market with a line of high-performance dual-core chips as Intel stumbled to recast its product strategy.

The approach gives server customers immediate performance gains, the company said, and the dual-core chip can be easily swapped into existing machines.

Intel's first dual-core chip, on the other hand, is for use in high-end desktop machines, typically the kind used by game enthusiasts and graphic designers.

A.M.D. will announce today that it will have in June a dual-core chip for desktop computers as well, based on its Athlon 64 product.

This cancellation reflected Intel's intention to focus on dual-core chips for the Itanium platform.

The mobile Core i5-2xxxM processors are all dual-core chips like the previous Core i5-5xxM series and share most the features with that product line.

But the company decided to package two dual-core chips in a single package to gain a half-year lead in the new quad-core approach.

A.M.D. is expected to begin shipping its first dual-core chips - the Opteron chip for server computers - on Thursday.