Last week at Intel's IDF forum event, CEO Paul Otellini announced the next generation of Intel Penryn processors. Centered around the same underpinning as the current Santa Rosa-based chips found in the current MacBook Pro laptops, the company will shrink the manufacturing size from 65 nanometers to 45, thereby allowing for better processor cooling, higher clock speeds and additional on-chip features.

According to AppleInsider, the new processor line should provide up to a 20% performance boost over the current models as well as use halogen-free packaging, which should yield more energy efficient and environment-friendly chips.

Previous reports that Intel plans to release the first five Penryn-based mobile Core 2 Duo processors in January have been proven true and the scheduled chips have assigned the following model names, speeds and prices:
X9000: 2.8 GHz (US$851)
T9500: 2.6 GHz (US$530)
T9300: 2.5 Ghz (US$316)
T8300: 2.4 GHz (US$241)
T8100: 2.1 GHz (US$209)

The five chips will continue to use an 800 MHZ front-side bus similar to those found in the current MacBook Pro laptop line.

The 2.8 GHz X9000 model is considered a mobile Core 2 Extreme processor and as such, it remains unclear as to whether Apple has any plans to use this in a notebook system, especially considering its price and historically power-hungry energy consumption. The 2.6 GHz T9500 and 2.5 GHz T9300 Penryn chips are set to arrive at the exact same price points (US$530 and US$316) as the current 2.4 GHz T7700 and 2.2 Ghz T7500 Merom-based processors being used in the current Santa Rosa-based MacBook Pro line. The new chips will feature six megabytes of L2 cache as opposed to the three megabytes of L2 cache featured in the current systems.

If you have any feedback as to what you'd like to see in the next generation of the MacBook Pro, let us know in the comments or forums.