Intel will formally announce that it has begun shipping its dual-core Pentium processors on Monday, the company said today.

Intel first revealed that it had begun initial shipments of its Pentium Processor Extreme Edition model 840 to customers this past Monday, in an announcement made by company vice president Abhi Talwalker said at a conference in Taiwan. Running at a clock speed of 3.2 GHz, that processor is a high-end, dual-core CPU intended for use in advanced gaming and multimedia PCs that will retail for total systems prices of $1,500 and up.

Intel's formal disclosure Monday will kick off shipments of PCs to end users. Dell this week announced plans for two models equipped with the Pentium Processor Extreme Edition model 840. Alienware is expected to unveil a PC of its own Monday.

Intel's desktop dual-core roadmap includes three other processors designated Pentium D. They are the models 820, 830, and 840, with clock speeds of 2.8 GHz, 3.0 GHz, and 3.2 GHz, respectively. All have 800 MHz front-side buses and dual L2 caches of 1 MB in capacity. The processors also support Intel's EM64T 64-bit instruction-set extensions.[via informationweek]