Performance during Overclocking

Now that we have found out how far all today’s quad-core testing participants can overclock, we have to check out their performance at these speeds. Therefore, we ran a few additional tests at the frequencies discussed in the previous part of our article.

Overclocking changes the situation dramatically. So, if you are going to use a low-cost quad-core processor in an overclocked system, you have to take different approach to picking the right one for your needs.

For example, you will have to eliminate AMD processor from your list of options. It will not be able to perform as well as the competitor’s solutions.

Good old Core 2 Quad Q6600 turns out a pretty good choice. It does indisputably better than the new Q8200 and performs equally fast with an overclocked Q9300. Moreover, it is easier to overclock than the junior Yorkfield models. That is why Q6600 should remain pretty popular even after Q8200 is launched. There is only one possibility when the new Q8200 may be of interest to an overclocker: if the temperature and heat dissipation of an overclocked processor matter more than its performance.

As for a few more expensive solutions, the junior models in the Q9000 series, you should definitely go for Core 2 Quad Q9400. It is just a little more expensive than Q9300 but 0.5 higher multiplier delivers much better results during overclocking. Although even Q9400 will not let you reveal the full frequency potential of a Yorkfield core. It is practically impossible to overclock it to 4GHz.