Intel's fastest Core 2 Duo for this year that runs at 3.33GHz is about to show in retail shortly. The Core 2 Duo E8600 is listed, but it’s not available.

Once it becomes available it will be selling for about €220 or $300 in the US market. This new processor is actually a slight increase in the clock speed compared to 3.16GHz clocked Core 2 Duo E8500.

It doesn’t look that Intel plans to reveal more Core 2 duo, Wolfdale-based 45nm processors, at least not in 2008; as it wants to focus on quad-cores. The eternal question will remain, what will be faster: quad-core Q8200 at 2.33Ghz or Core 2 duo 8400 at 3.0GHz? Both will be very similarly priced.

You can pre-order E8600 here and here if you are in the U.S.