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Test System Specs: Hardware
- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (3.00GHz) LGA775
- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (3.00GHz) LGA775
- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (2.66GHz) LGA775
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.40GHz) LGA775
- Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz) LGA775
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66GHz) LGA775
- x2 1024MB Corsair XMS PC3-10600 CAS7 Module(s)
- x2 1024MB Corsair XMS PC2-6400 CAS4 Module(s)
- ASUS P5E3 Deluxe (Intel X38)
- ASUS P5K Deluxe (Intel P35)
- OCZ GameXStream (700 watt)
- Seagate 500GB 7200RPM (Serial ATA II)
- ASUS GeForce 8800 GTX (768MB)
Software
- Microsoft Windows XP Pro 32bit (SP2)
- Nvidia Forceware (169.04)
- Intel System Drivers (8.4.0)

In terms of memory performance the QX9650 should be no better than the QX6850, however because we were unable to re-test the QX6850 using the Intel X38 chipset, what you see here is the QX9650 taking the lead thanks to the use of faster DDR3-1333 memory. As you can see, in SiSoft the memory bandwidth reached an impressive 7.5GB/s whereas the QX6850 was limited to 6.2GB/s by the DDR2-800 memory. Similar performance margins were also witnessed in PCmark2005 and MemTach.