Intel core 2 quad q6600 vergleich

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Dale in Oregon

4.0 out of 5 starsNice Upgrade to My Dell Dimension E520

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2011

My Dell Dimension came with an Intel® Core2 Duo Processor E6420 with 4M Cache, running at 2.13 GHz with a 1066 MHz FSB (a 65 nm Conroe chip). According to Dell and various chat rooms, I could upgrade this processor on the stock Dell motherboard and current bios up to a Core2 Quad Q6700 processor. What I found that I could easily afford was the Intel® Core2 Quad Processor Q6600 with 8M Cache, running at 2.40 GHz, with a 1066 MHz FSB (a 65 nm Kentsfield chip).These links are to the Intel product pages for each chip.[...]With my Core2 Duo E6420, my overall PassMark rating (score) averaged 922 over three runs. After the swap for the Quad 6600, my rating averaged 1235 over three runs. Very good improvement! However, my CPU test speed more than doubled after the swap, and my sub-scores dramatically improved for RAM, HD access, and 2D and 3D video scores. Only my CD-ROM test scores did not improve.My Windows Experience Index for my processor and RAM were both at 5.4 with the Duo. With the Quad, both scores jumped up to 7.1!Note - I have Win 7 Home Premium on this computer, with 4 GB DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM (Kingston HyperX), and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 video card.

So far, I'm very happy with the Quad 6600, and I expect it to "future proof" my computer for a couple more years.

There’s no doubt that 2006 was one of the most incredible years in technology in recent memory. There were scandals, impressive landscape-shifting mergers, strange new alliances and many new products and technologies unveiled. One launch that stands out in everyone’s mind is Intel’s Conroe last summer. We were teased with leaked benchmark results and other information months before the release and once the launch finally hit, we were all relieved to see that it actually lived up to the hype.

After a launch like this, we didn’t think that a follow-up would arrive for a while. We were wrong. In the early fall, we first learned about Intel’s quad-core CPU, which is essentially two Conroes under the same IHS. I admit, I didn’t expect to actually see it so soon, but come November, it was publicly available for anyone to purchase. Intel’s at the top of their game, and don’t want to step down anytime soon.

When they first launched their QX6700, they held off launching the Q6600 until early January. We don’t know the reason for the delay, but now the possibility of having your own quad-core machine without breaking the bank has finally arrived. Let’s first get the basics out of the way.

Oh My Quad

The Q6600 is a 2.4GHz chip, like its little brother the E6600. Both CPUs are nearly identical and use the same die(s), except that the Q6600 has two of them. Essentially, everything is doubled. Twice the cores, twice the cache and twice the drool. Like the other Core 2 Duos, Core 2 Quads are based on a 65nm process, although the process requires a slightly higher stock voltage. Since both the Quads are so similar to the Duos, it’s no surprise to see that the die size is simply doubled as well, resulting in 2 x 143mm^2.

When compared to the top of the line QX6700 chip, the specs are again identical except for the 2.66GHz clock speed. Other than that, the CPUs are the same, just binned differently. When comparing to the top end Core 2 Duo, the differences are a lot more meaningful. While the QX6700 retails for just under $1,000, so does the X6800. However, when considering the QX6700, you receive a lower clock speed in return for twice the cores. At that point, it’s up to you whether you want or need the sheer clock speed or greater benefits for your multi-thread applications.

To help put everything into perspective, here’s a simple graph showcasing all of Intel’s current Core 2 offerings.

CPU Model	Clock Speed	FSB	L2 Cache	TDP	Cores	Pricing
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700	2.66GHz	1066MHz	4MB x 2	130w	4	$999
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	2.93GHz	1066MHz	4MB	75W	2	$999
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600	2.40GHz	1066MHz	4MB x 2	105W	4	$851
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	2.66GHz	1066MHz	4MB	65W	2	$530
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600	2.40GHz	1066MHz	4MB	65W	2	$316
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400	2.13GHz	1066MHz	2MB	65W	2	$224
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300	1.86GHz	1066MHz	2MB	65W	2	$183
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300	1.80GHz	800MHz	2MB	65W	2	$163

One interesting point to note is that even though the Q6600 is essentially 2 x E6600, the TDP is not doubled, but rather sits at a comfortable 105W. The higher clocked QX6700 is 130W, however, which is why we don’t see a QX6800 instead. A TDP of 130W is high to begin with, but considering the much slower 820 D we reviewed less than a year ago also had a TDP of 130W, power consumption still hasn’t entered uncharted territory, and there are thermal solutions available to deal with that kind of heat.

Below, you can see a highly detailed illustration of the quad-core’s innards. In case you thought that two dies would be a tight squeeze, think again! Despite having four cores, there’s still a reasonable amount of breathing room in there. For a more realistic view of the chip with the HS off, you can check out the picture provided by Intel here.

As far as the back of the CPU goes, nothing can better explain it than a photograph. The E6600 sits on the left while the Q6600 is on the right. The only difference is in the number of filtering components.

With introductions out of the way, let’s explore the reason Quad-Core exists and take a look at its future.

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Before we jump into the review further, I think we need to take a look at why such a chip exists today. When I first learned of Kentsfield, like so many people, I thought, “Who needs four cores? Most people are still looking for a use for two.” If you have to ask why you need four cores, then you probably don’t need four cores. However, workstations, graphic/video designers, or even computers in the research field could well benefit from a single CPU with four cores under the hood.

That’s not to say normal users couldn’t take advantage of four cores though, because there are a slew of applications out there today that -will- take advantage of every core available to them, and I am not just talking about applications such as 3D Studio Max or AutoCAD. When dual-cores first launched less than two years ago, there were many people who didn’t understand why you would need more than one core, or how it would be possible to utilize both in a realistic scenario.

I think it’s fair to say that today, most people who use Dual Cores love them. Just last week, I was fixing a friends computer who is still stuck with a Single Core processor. I was thankful that I could go back to my Dual Core later that evening. Spreading huge workloads over multiple cores just makes sense… and leads to a smoother and more responsive computer experience.

So two we understand, but what about four? As we will find out from a few specific tests, some everyday applications that we already use are designed to utilize more than one core. Nero Recode for example, is one of these applications. At it’s peak, it will use all cores up to 90%, effectively cutting the time in half off an encoding project when compared to a Dual Core processor at the same speed. This is just one of the many possible examples of how even the average user can benefit from quad-core.

But as it stands today, the users who will really enjoy the benefits of a quad-core chip are those who are into heavy duty multi-media work, whether it be rendering high-resolution models or encoding a home video. I’ve already mentioned 3D Studio Max, a popular 3D graphics application. Big movie studios use it, game designers use it, advanced hobbyists use it, and they all realize what a resource hog 3DS Max can be. Some projects may take hours to render, while others take days. When you can install a CPU of identical physical size to the one you are using now and effectively cut rendering time in half… it’s practically a no-brainer.

When Dual Core CPUs first launched, there was a popular scenario given. “Imagine playing your favorite game while ripping a DVD!” If you are a believer of this outlook, then quad-core takes it a step further. Imagine re-encoding a DVD at twice the speed (or triple the speed if the game is not using two full cores) while playing your favorite game. That’s now possible with multiple core machines.

With the launch of the QX6700 chip in November, Intel became the first out the door with a quad-core CPU for public consumption. Nobody has yet followed up to this launch, unless you count Quad FX, which is not actually a quad-core processor, but rather a quad-core machine. I’ve not played with Quad FX personally, but it will be AMD’s Barcelona that we will all be waiting for. Whether or not it will be able to compete with Kentsfield will be seen later this year.

Quad-Like Technology

As mentioned in the intro, Kentsfield doesn’t have a single die, but rather consists of two dual-core dies. Think of the Q6600 as essentially two E6600s joined at the hip. Some purists may complain that all four cores don’t share a single die, so Intel’s Core 2 quads aren’t true quad-cores, but since both dies share a single LGA775 package, it’s reasonable to regard them as a functional unit. Intel has a couple reasons for doing things this way, the primary one being that having two dies result in better yields and bins. A second reason is the fact that it requires less engineering resources, because they already have the technology… they just needed to simply throw two dies onto the processor. All of these reasons save both Intel and the consumer money in the long run.

Even though the Q6600 denotes 4MB x 2 L2 cache, the entire cache can be shared by any of the cores. If one core, for example, is doing most of the legwork and needs extra cache, it can use what’s available off the other cores. It’s an “8-way” cache system, so store/load sequences should prove faster than the 4-way system that would result if each die was limited to its own onboard cache.

Greater memory bandwidth is another of Intel’s design priorities, so all Core CPUs utilize what’s called Smart Memory Access. What it effectively does is allow more than one execution to occur at any given time, instead of one application having to wait on another set of instructions to finish. This results in reduced latency and higher overall bandwidth. This still doesn’t match AMD’s on-die memory controller however, as it has larger bandwidth capabilities. Whether or not this extra bandwidth would make difference in the grand scheme of things is still up for debate. As it stands, receiving bandwidth of “5,000MB/s” might be all anyone needs, depending on what you are doing.

Looking to the future, Intel released their latest roadmap at the last IDF which shows their Core 2 architecture’s next steps: Penryn and Nehalem. These CPUs will have a huge slew of benefits, including a 45nm process, improved transistors, lower power requirements, higher clock speed. For the enthusiasts, lower power and the smaller process usually mean better overclocking. We will not be seeing these released until late 2007 or early 2008.

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Our testing methodology is simple. Two copies of Windows XP Pro are installed, one for benchmarking with our usual roundup and the other strictly for SYSmark. Prior to any testing, Diskeeper 10 is run to defrag the hard drive. Miscellaneous files are removed as well, with the Recycle Bin emptied. The goal is to make sure that the computer is cleaned up so that it runs as smooth as possible. System services are left intact, with the exception of Diskeeper.

From a hardware standpoint, the computer is placed so that there is proper spacing on all sides. Lastly, the inside of the computer is kept tidy to reduce any potential for blocked airflow. Our testing rig configuration is as follows:

We’ve not reviewed many processors in the past, so our comparison charts are somewhat slim. These will grow over time as we intend to begin reviewing more and more CPUs. Graphical results will feature comparisons to Intel’s E6300 and E6600 chips, running at 1.86GHz and 2.4GHz respectively. The E6600’s specs are near identical to the Q6600 except for the reduction of two cores. This will prove interesting in a number of ways, primarily to see whether or not the extra cores will degrade performance in single-threaded applications.

In addition, a few select tests will also compare an AMD 4600+ X2, running at 2.4GHz. For that test rig, a DFI LanParty M2R/G motherboard was used. Both machines shared the same ram and ran at identical settings.

SYSmark 2004 SE

Throughout all of our performance reviews, we try to include as many manual benchmarks as possible since synthetic applications don’t necessarily represent real-world results. SYSmark is a combination of both. It’s a "real-world" benchmark, but fully automated. Essentially, SYSmark installs a variety of ‘everyday’ applications, including Microsoft Word and Photoshop, and creates a complete presentation from start to finish. The entire process takes over an hour and the result are clear scores of where the CPU excelled and where it didn’t.

Since SYSmark is not a true multi-threaded application, the gains seen here are not as impressive as they would be if it were. Even still, the Q6600 did show a clear advantage, while the E6600 falls slightly behind.

Turning our attention to the two main tests split up, we see similar results to the graph above. While there is a substantial difference between the E6300 and E6600, there is only a slight difference between the E6600 and Q6600. We will likely see bigger differences in this regard with the next version of SYSmark, which would presumably include more in-depth multi-thread applications.

For overall system use, SYSmark results prove that stepping up to quad-core can indeed make for a smoother process. Even if you don’t use all four cores to their brim, the extra headroom beyond what two cores can offer becomes evident.

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Normally when multi-core processors are mentioned, multi-media work immediately comes to mind. It’s one aspect of computing that requires a -lot- of CPU power and some mundane processes can take upwards of an hour to complete on a single core. Nero Recode has proven to be one of my favorite DVD encoding programs because of its ease of use. Once a DVD was ripped (using another program), I was left with a 6.0GB image. I then used Recode to re-encode this image to backup quality (~4.3GB).

By default, Recode uses all of the cores you have available, but it will use more of each depending on modes selected. I have found that in normal mode, it will utilize up to 70% of each core, while selecting the High-Quality mode will utilize upwards of 90% of each, but not more. So re-encoding a DVD effectively uses up 90% of a quad-core, which shows that certain everyday applications available -now- will take advantage of a quad-core CPU right out of the box.

Paying specific attention to the High-Quality results, the differences are clear. While certain multi-thread applications will usually show a performance gain of ~90% between a Dual or Quad core, we only see a 63% increase here when moving from the E6600 to the Q6600. Results like these will differ on a per app basis. Why Nero doesn’t utilize all cores to 100% is unknown to me, but it may very well be in order to let the user continue using the computer without noticeable slowdown.

Not only did moving from a Dual Core to Quad Core show a significant improvement, but the performance difference between the E6300 and E6600 displays the benefits from a slightly higher frequency as well.

Next up is another popular multi-core scenario… the rendering of a 3D model. For this I used 3D Studio Max 7 and a helicopter model that consists of 406 objects and 106,000 vertices. It’s not one of the most intensive models out there, but it still gives a good idea of general performance gain thanks to adding cores or more frequency.

Seeing as how the E6600 and Q6600 have near identical specs, it’s no surprise that the results between the single core performance are strikingly identical. Simply moving from the dual core to quad core however, saw a 92% increase. Not much of a surprise since this is a true multi-thread application and has been for quite some time. Since larger 3DS projects can take days to render, it’s no surprise that people who are in charge would benefit greatly from a quad-core machine, or even octal-core, since it’s well within the realm of possibility to build such a machine using Intel quad-core Xeons.

While multi-media and 3D rendering covers a lot of the people who would care about extra CPU power, there is a slew of other people who would just as easy benefit from extra cores. Those being programmers. While most hobbyist applications don’t take that long to compile, some more in-depth applications can take hours. When you are making constant changes to the code and need to re-compile often, having extra CPU power is a blessing.

For this testing, I used a Gentoo 32-Bit machine based on the 2.6.18-r6 kernel and GCC 4.1.1. Compiling was done using the i686 optimization set. When the Core specific optimization set is introduced in 4.3, we may see even greater results. The victim application used for compilation was Wine 0.9.30. For single core testing, “time make” was used while dual and quad core compilations used “time make -j 3” and “time make -j 5”, respectively.

Once again, the E6600 and Q6600 had identical single-thread results and another 92% gain was seen when moving from Dual to Quad Core. This solidifies the fact that if you have a true multi-threaded “workstation” application, the 92% gain will be pretty common if you were to make the same jump. I’ve compiled Wine countless times on my single-core AMD 3200+, so it was drool-worthy to see it being done in just over three minutes.

Now let’s move onto some popular synthetic benchmarks to see how beneficial quad-core is in that regard.

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While real-world benchmarks are generally more accurate, synthetic benchmarks provide a useful point of reference to compare one CPU to another directly. Although they are synthetic, the results scale well with additional cores or higher frequencies, as will be evident in the following graphs.

Cinebench has long been one of my favorite benchmarking tools, because it uses a similar process to 3D Studio Max. It simply renders a high resolution image and spits out a final “score” to show you how well the CPU has performed. It also makes it easy to test as a single-thread or multi-thread application and displays the speedup multiplier to show just how much gain is there.

This is one application where massive gains are not immediately seen. Take for example the E6600 results, where moving up to multi-thread only showed an 83% increase, instead of the 92% we have been used to in the previous results. The same applies for the Q6600 testing, where we saw a result that was 322% of the single-thread benchmark. This is likely due to the fact that the cores are not being completely stressed. When this program was written, quad-cores were probably a laughable thought.

While at CES, we dropped by Intel and they showed off their 8-Core Xeon machine, consisting of two quad-cores. If that’s not drool-worthy in thought, seeing Cinebench render the image with all eight cores was truly impressive. I don’t recall the exact final score, but it didn’t matter because I was more concerned with picking my jaw up off the floor.

As far as synthetic benchmarks go, SANDRA is by far my favorite. A large bonus is that it’s truly multi-threaded, so the resulting scores really show the capability a larger CPU has. Interestingly enough, this is one benchmark that actually showed a greater than 100% improvement when going from Dual to Quad. The MFLOPS result showed an impressive 104% increase.

Those results were not a one-off though, as the Multi-Media scores showed off the exact same gains. This further demonstrates why synthetic benchmarks are not perfect representations of real world gains.

While memory controllers on Intel motherboards aren’t as robust as those on AMD CPUs, the question still remains as to how much bandwidth is “too much”. Whether or not there is an appreciable difference between 5000MB/s and 8000MB/s is difficult to determine. The multi-media capabilities of Intel CPUs normally overshadow any potential gains in memory bandwidth, however.

We can see below that the E6600 has slightly better overall bandwidth, but not by much. The extra gain could be due to the more constrained interconnects between the two cores, instead of four of it’s bigger brother.

How could any CPU evaluation be complete without including one of the most popular synthetic benchmarks on the planet? 3D Mark 06’s CPU test is geared more toward showing the differences between processors in gaming. The higher the overall score, the more information your CPU can toss around. Here we see similar results to Cinebench… not 90% but closer to 75%.

PC Mark 05 is already outdated despite being only two years old. Its CPU tests only have two true multi-threaded benchmarks, so the differences are not that clear. No doubt the next version will include far more multi-thread specific benchmarks than single-threaded ones.

Gaming is another concern when moving up to a quad-core. Questions abound as to whether a quad-core CPU will provide a meaningful boost to gaming, and that’s just what we are about to find out.

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As mentioned on the previous page, there are many questions that arise when considering a quad-core system. One of the main ones is whether it will hurt or help your gaming performance. Another question revolves around what games out there will support more than one core. We’ll delve into these questions, but will only consider a few games. At this point in time, there is not a big need to run extensive benchmarking throughout six different games simply because there aren’t any games available to us that would be largely affected by extra cores. When multi-threaded games are more commonplace, then you can expect in-depth gaming performance analysis to become the norm.

That said, I will be testing out Half-Life 2 and Oblivion between all of the CPUs. I chose Half-Life 2 because it is far more CPU dependant than GPU dependant. Oblivion is used because it’s a system hog all around, CPU and GPU. Whether a multi-core CPU will make a difference here will be evident.

First we have Half-Life 2: Episode 1, where I played through one of my favorite levels in the game, ep1_c17_02a. This is a great level for a variety of reasons. There is heavy use of HDR and you get to shoot down an airship to seek revenge for it killing a friendly before your eyes. The minimum and average FPS were recorded using FRAPS 2.8.2. This was a complete manual run through, so differences are going to be apparent since each trial can bring on different circumstances. This makes it a real world test.

The results further prove that this game is largely CPU bound. The E6600 had an 8 FPS advantage over the E6300, although the Q6600 fell a few frames behind. Whether or not this was due to different circumstances in the game is not known, since I only ran this run once. The answer is clear though. No, quad-core will not harm performance.

While the last test was purely manual, I wanted to test out a timedemo to see if the results would become even closer. To do this, I created a 3 minute timedemo in Half-Life 2, using the d1_canals_07 level. Timedemos are strictly for benchmarking to see how well your GPU and CPU can stack up. As you can see, the difference between the top two CPUs are a half of a frame per second. The lower clocked E6300 still had a superb average FPS, but fell 10FPS behind the others. This is a benefit of extra clock speed, not extra cores.

Oblivion, like Half-Life, needs no introduction. It is regarded by many as by far one of the best games of all time (certainly my favorite) and can put a true strain on current machines. Not only is the GPU stressed to the limit, so is the CPU. Once again here, we can see that there is virtually no difference between any of the CPUs for this game. While the minimum FPS is better on the Q6600, the overall averages are very close to one another. It goes to show that this game is far more GPU dependant than CPU.

Although current games don’t offer true multi-threading, ones right around the corner will. We will talk about that next.

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Dual Core CPUs have been in consumers’ hands for a couple years now, but it was a slow process before we started seeing applications exploit them. Today, things are different. Most of our everyday applications are multi-threaded, including a few that we benchmarked earlier. Nero is one of the ones that stands out in my mind, because I use it regularly. It’s not always the multi-threaded applications that people care about though, it’s the fact that they have spare cores to play with.

There’s been one major gripe ever since we first received Dual Core CPUs, namely that there are no games out there that support them. The benefits would be obvious. Some newer games are not just taxing on your graphics card, but CPU as well. Using a Dual Core, you’d essentially be doubling the amount of information that can be passed along. It sounds good in thought, but the problem is that few developers are taking an initiative.

The most common complaint from game studios is that making a multi-thread game is not an easy task. In fact, it requires additional training and understanding in order to execute properly. This results in a more costly title in the end. Time is another factor, for obvious reasons. Planning out a multi-core capable game takes a lot of planning to make sure it flows as it should.

That being said, the future for gaming is still bright. It will be a while before multi-threaded gaming becomes commonplace, but later this year we should be seeing a few titles that will effectively use additional cores. Will these extra cores wipe out the need for a physics card? Probably not right from the get-go, if at all. Like GPUs, PPUs are highly optimized for the specific type of calculations they perform. But in the end, we will likely see extra cores used as common practice far before we see a physics card becoming mainstream, simply because -every- gamer out there will have a CPU, while PPU add-on cards are another expense.

While visiting Intel at CES, they showed off two demos, both of which I examined in-depth over the past week of testing. The first was their Ice Storm Fighters, which was developed by Futuremark exclusively for them. There is one reason this demo was developed and one reason only, to show the immediate benefits that a multi-core processor can have on gaming. Reminiscent to the Tie Fighter scene in Star Wars episode IV, Ice Fighters consists of a large snow covered level that has many vehicles and Mechs right in the heat of battle.

There are two options at the main screen, Low and High. High is for quad-core CPUs while Low is for dual-core. This demo stresses ALL cores like no other game, so if you choose High while using a dual-core, it will lag significantly. You have the ability to add or remove bots if you want, but the more you add will simply slow down the demo even further. Even with just 20 units on the screen, it put all four cores to good use.

The cores are essentially being used for physics engines, where all of the AI and particle effects are being placed on each core. Not only is the actual AI stressing the CPU, but everything else in the scene, including left over bullet marks in the snow, which you can see an example of in the picture below.

While this demo can be manually played, it’s not designed to become a full blown retail release, it’s strictly a tech demo. What it proves though, is that multi-core processors can be used to their full potential in gaming and have obvious benefits. Instead of bullet-hole decals fading away after a few seconds, the extra CPU power can be used to keep them there, resulting in a more realistic experience. Lets face it, in this day in age it is weird to play a game and see your bullet-holes disappear right after you put them there.

This is just one example though, but it goes to show that extra cores can be put to good use -if- the developers want to go that route. One thing I will mention is that installing the Ice Fighters demo will also install the AGEIA PhysX engine. So while you may not need a PhysX card up front, AGEIA seems to have a good thing going with their API. To give the demo a try for yourself, you can grab it here. You do need an Intel dual-core or quad-core to use the demo; it will error on an AMD.

Valve Particle Benchmark

In addition to their Ice Fighters demo, Intel showed us even more benefits of multi-core processors using Valve’s Particle Benchmark. Essentially, this is another physics type demo that throws all of the particle computations onto the CPU. Particles could be a number of things.. smoke from a gun, rain, a waterfall, et cetera. The difference here though, is instead of these being pre-rendered objects, they are all computed in real time, which is why it’s so taxing on the CPU. The processor is computing the scene as it happens to give a more realistic experience.

That said, unlike the Ice Fighters demo, this is an actual benchmark. It consists of you walking up to a terminal and pushing a button, which will then automatically deliver four “simple” scenes that stress the CPU with particles. As simple as the tests seem, it spits out an even simpler score.

As you can see, as the cores are increased, the results scale accordingly. The E6300 for example had a 100% increase when moving from single to dual core. While this “benchmark” doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things, it again shows that multi-core CPUs can be used to their full potential in gaming.

The good news is that multi-core games, despite being hard to code for, will become more commonplace as time goes on. It’s a matter of consumer demand, and bragging rights in pushing the performance envelope. Some engines currently available already offer good multi-core capabilities out of the box, like Unreal Engine 3 which powers such games as UT3, Gears of War and Rainbow Six: Vegas. Game companies that license the engine will likely have an easier time creating their game around a multi-core CPU.

One example benefit of multi-core gaming is in regards to a quote from an interview with a UT3 developer. I haven’t been able to track down the exact article, but what was mentioned was that UT3 (the artist formally known as Unreal Tournament 2007) -could- use up to five cores out of the box, one for each class of gameplay, whether it be particles, AI, physics, etc. Whether or not that was a quote of “what is” or “what could be”, it shows that a few developers are interested in getting the ball rolling on working with multi-core possibilities. It’s just a matter of waiting it out for now…

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In the past year, there have been many products released that had a lot of potential, but were not worth the money for most people. Although AGEIA’s PhysX card is gaining momentum, it’s still been out for a year and there is still little content, so it’s essentially there for those who really don’t care about their $250. Then there’s the Killer NIC… but I won’t get into that here. When I first heard about Kentsfield, I, like so many people, was a tad skeptical. The fact is though, after thorough testing, I no longer find quad-core to be as needless as I originally pictured it to be.

This is not to say that I recommend a quad-core CPU to everyone, simply because most people will not even touch the sheer power that is available. Heck, most who own a dual-core may not even benefit from it. Without question, hobbyist programmers, graphic designers and also multi-media developers would benefit incredibly from a quad core.

As we found out during our testing though, it’s not only multimedia and simulation designers who would benefit from the processor, but everyday multi-taskers as well. Nero for example is multi-threaded, so all of your DVD and video encoding projects will complete far quicker on a quad-core compared to a dual-core at the same speed. Aside from single multi-threaded applications, there are further advantages to a quad-core. Multi-tasking will prove a smoother ride than on a dual-core, especially if you run multiple large apps at once. I mentioned in the intro about a common scenario, to play a game while encoding a DVD. Well the quad-core takes it one step further, simply because it will perform that task even quicker while playing that game.

One thing I wanted to consider was whether or not using a quad-core would decrease performance for any current apps, simply because of the larger interconnects. Those concerns were rid quickly. There is no significant decrease in any of the applications or games we tested with. Where there were slight differences between the E6600 and Q6600, they were incredibly minute.

Do you need this CPU? Only you will be able to answer that question. If you do a lot of multi-tasking, then the benefits are there, no question. I am not talking about juggling Solitaire, Notepad and Calculator, but heavier multi-tasks such as recoding a DVD while working on a spreadsheet while watching a video while surfing the web while writing a review about a quad-core CPU. The fact of the matter is, while having four cores at your disposal won’t matter to most people, if you have the money to spend and enjoy the extra freedom, you’re not likely to go wrong with a quad-core system.

So, what’s the cost of going quad-core? Currently, the Q6600 retails for around $900, while an E6600 retails for closer to $325. Essentially, you would be doubling the CPU capabilities for almost triple the price. One added benefit on top of the obvious is the fact that you can have quad-core without a dual socket processor. Another plus is that the power consumption is lower with a quad-core CPU over a multi-socket motherboard solution like QuadFX, with two dual-core processors. The quad-core performance of the Q6600 does come at a premium. It shouldn’t be too long before we see prices drop though, if you don’t mind the wait.

While the Q6600 is a great processor, I don’t recommend upgrading from another Core chip you already have, unless you specifically want the added multitasking and multithreading benefits. Some people are willing to slap down over $900 for a CPU… some aren’t. Either way, it’s a great addition to any rig.

You may have noticed that I didn’t touch on a few points in this review, namely power consumption and overclocking. I have a Kill-A-Watt en route, but of course as is my luck, I did not receive it in time for this review. As far as overclocking goes, I am still in the process of finding the maximum stable overclock. For the record though, I did manage to hit a 100% stable overclock of 2.8GHz on air. Both power consumption and overclocking will be covered in an overclocking-focused article in the near future, so stay tuned for that.

After reading through this review, you probably have a far clearer idea of whether quad-core is for you. Although pricey, it has some huge benefits for those whose application software can make use of the extra cores. For some, the extra performance will greatly overshadow the higher cost. As it stands, this is one fantastic CPU and performs as well as we had hoped. Because of that, as well as its significance in pushing the envelope of performance, it’s earned itself our Editors Choice award.

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Page 9

Oh My Quad

To help put everything into perspective, here’s a simple graph showcasing all of Intel’s current Core 2 offerings.

CPU Model	Clock Speed	FSB	L2 Cache	TDP	Cores	Pricing
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700	2.66GHz	1066MHz	4MB x 2	130w	4	$999
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	2.93GHz	1066MHz	4MB	75W	2	$999
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600	2.40GHz	1066MHz	4MB x 2	105W	4	$851
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	2.66GHz	1066MHz	4MB	65W	2	$530
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600	2.40GHz	1066MHz	4MB	65W	2	$316
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400	2.13GHz	1066MHz	2MB	65W	2	$224
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300	1.86GHz	1066MHz	2MB	65W	2	$183
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300	1.80GHz	800MHz	2MB	65W	2	$163