In January Intel plans to introduce a few more new Yorkfield-based quad cores and the lowest price of them, powered with 12MB of cache memory, will cost US$319. It is branded as a Core 2 Quad Q9450 processor and it works at 4x2.66GHz and supports FSB 1333MHz.

Naturally, this CPU uses LGA775 and it will work in all the motherboards that can cope with 45 nanometer Penryn-based processors.

The current sweet spot is the Q6600 quad core that works at 2.4GHz and sells for $270 in the U.S. and between €220 and €230 in Euroland. This baby has 8MB of total cache memory, while the new one has SSE4 and more cache.

The new Q9450 comes out in January.