Intel has apparently announced its long-awaited mobile Core 2 Extreme gaming processor. It's a dual-core chip clocked at 2.6GHz and with 4MB of shared L2 cache.

Like Intel's regular Core 2 Duo mobile CPUs, the X7800 - as the new model is dubbed - is fabbed at 65nm and operates on an 800MHz frontside bus. Its 2.6GHz clock frequency gives it an eight per cent speed bump over the current top-of-the-line mobile Core 2 Duo, the 2.4GHz T7700, but unlike the mainstream part, the Extreme is unlocked, allowing the more experimentally inclined to try and squeeze some more megacycles out of it.

The X7800 costs laptop makers $851 a pop when they buy it in batches of 1000.

The announcement comes a week ahead of Intel's formal roll-out of the 1333MHz FSB Core 2 Duo desktop processors and faster desktop quad-core Core 2 Extremes too.

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