TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

Since the release of Intel’s Conroe micro-architecture, the company has been making waves, massive waves. In terms of performance, Intel washed away main competitor AMD, and they have continued to do so during the past three months with the success of their Core 2 Duo and Extreme processor series.

Step aside dual-core, it is now the time of the quad-core and you better believe it. The new quad-core series consists of the Core 2 Quad Q6600 and the Core 2 Extreme QX6700. Both feature a dual 4MB L2 cache, operate on a 1066MHz FSB, and have a thermal output of 130 watts. However, the Core 2 Quad Q6600 is not scheduled for release until early next year, and so today we will be looking at the more powerful Core 2 Extreme QX6700 version, which Intel had promised to make available this month, humming along to the tune of just 2.66GHz using a cool 1.34 volts of power.

The very same technologies that made the Conroe so powerful are all included in the new Kentsfield architecture. In fact, there are no new additions, so it is merely a quad-core version of the Conroe, but of course this is hardly a bad thing. So how does the Quad Core QX6700 performs? Read on and find out.

http://www.techspot.com/review/27-in...e-qx6700-quad/

Please leave your feedback here. Thanks!

While I'm ecstatic that Techspot got to review such a piece of technology, I really think due to the CPU's Quad-Core nature, more application benchmarking should have been done. More specifically, I would have liked to have seen 3D rendering benchmarks, from 3DS Max and Cinema4D…

Please understand that time was a factor here, we had just one day to test this quad-core processor. However, there was some 3DS Max performance included.

Oh I had no idea you received a time factor, not to mention only 1 day. Great Job!

Great piece of technology. I am glad that ts got to review such a nice CPU.


Who gets to keep that bad boy?

Although, it's a huge stride for Intel, it doesn't seem that many programs now are ready for the technology, so they will no utilize the full potential of the cpu. Intel probably should have waited until programmers were ready for the technology (at least that's what I think).

I agree with you and at the same time I don't :P .

Its seems they don't develop for it because the majority of the consumers don't utilized it . So theres no point taking the extra time to develop it .
same thing with the 64bit OS's , but now theres a good shared of 64bit cpu so we're ready for it.

Having used the QX6700 for more than a day now I can safely say for those into graphic design, video editing or 3D animation for example will greatly benefit from a quad core processor. However, if it were me I would wait for the slightly less expensive Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor.

Superinc made a very valid point with the 64-bit example. Generally we find that hardware paves the way for new advancements and software follows, supporting the new hardware. This was the case with 64-bit computing, even 32-bit and 16-bit computing. The same was found with dual-core processors, so it is no surprise that we are going to find the same scenario when it comes to quad-core processors. The advantages now for quad-core processors are evident and very beneficial for graphic design, video editing and 3D animation applications. You can bet that quad-core support is going to rapidly increase now that processors are available!