Another top notch article. Good job! (^^,)

I really don't understand the point of this article. If you wanted to compare 2x vs 4x cores for performance, why didn't you simply overclock the 4x core to the same frequency as the stock 2x core CPU?

This article seems just to be one about overclocking potential of each chip, not the advantages of one chip over another....a person cannot gleam any informed decision because all overclocks aren't the same, and you can't directly compare the chips because they weren't tested at the same frequencies.

made jumping the fence to a quad much easier

just setup an Q6600 (default clocked) for an customer

what do these cpus Throttle at? (75c ?)

i not sure if its G0 stepping as i did not have much time to test it (i Run CPU-z and Core temp next time i am around :) )

just intresting to see 4 real cores working away (he allso only uses windows XP 64 on both pcs now)

i moved his AM2 4200 X2 to the media PC as it had an P4 hot cake in it (3.6ghz) was not handleing some of the content and was not 64bit cpu

the only thing with this review be nice have Tested the Quad in 2 threaded mode as i am very sure that you can do that (seen it in the past that you can set the number of cores from 1, 2, 3, 4 cores on the mother board)

AMD realy need to get an Quad core out

sums this up nicely
So, we think Core 2 Quad Q6600 seems to be a much more attractive offering these days than Core 2 Duo E6850.

This article was thorough and very well written.

I am looking at Quad Core as an alternative for processing extremely large spreadsheets in Excel 2007, so I was encouraged by the reasonable scalability obtained over a Dual Core. The test you ran was based on a high-end Vista OS. Would XP have provided similar results? What version(s) of Vista and XP enable parallel processing on multi-threaded applications?

Thanks

I think I will wait for the Q6700 with GO stepping before making any decision.In fact if they come out with a Q6800 with GO stepping I will most probaly buy one.

hi!

just a question
can i use the asus blitz motherboard
on a QX6850? w/ the same
setup that you did on this article?

Very good Review, you could only had mentioned the noise level from the cpu´s. but for the rest you just make my chose easier

Very informative report.

Really great article!!! That being said, it should be pointed out that the OC comparison is not exactly apples to apples. The article compares one processer OC'ed to 50% higher (Q6600) than factory (which almost causes it to explode into flames :) v.s. another rather tame OC at 28% over factory (E6850). This is the main reason that the OC Q6600 performs better relative to the OC E6850 in this article. The fact that the Q6600 has a larger L2 cache does not make a whole lot of difference here. An OC of 3.85GHz on the E6850 is pretty tame seeing as there are guys out there that OC it to 4.2GHz on air. What were the core temps with the 3.85GHz setup? My guess is that an E6850 OC'ed to 4.2 (still only 40% over factory) would still beat the Q6600 @ 3.6 on just about any of today's games, larger cache or not. The Q6600 is a future proof buy (and perhaps very near future). The E6850 is still the best processor for the vast majority games you can buy right now.

I've chased endless threads about this subject, and this is the first article to lay out a complete enough story for a nooby to make a decision (i.e. consequences of stock vs. overclock, and dual vs. quad core). I'm going with the Q6600 knowing that I'm not planning to upgrade for a few years. It's fast enough for now and should be faster if more things get optimized for muti-thread processors. I'll leave the OC option open for later...don't need blistering fast performance today.
Thx xbit, good review.

Finally a great comparison between duo and quad processors.

Very informative, helped me to confirm my decision of a quad-core system. :)

quad is the king

Q6600 rocks!

I've been debating between these two processors for a long time and this is best comparison I've come across. You guys are doing the average "geek" a great service, so thanks!

I'm not really into gaming or should I say that video editing is more important to me than gaming. With the Q6600 performing the best in office 2007 and with Vista being able to "intelligently" us the all the cores I think I can finally make a choice. Quad Core ftw!

good tests, now we just need to pick, duo or quad

ENJOY THE ARTICLES ALOT OF WORK WENT INTO THEM.READ THEM ALLTHE TIME WHERE ELSE CAN I GET THIS KIND OF INFO. TELL'S ME ALOT ABOUT WHAT'S GOING ON.THANK YOU

Thanks, article was a relief as I had fears that the 6850 might be outdated compared to the Q6600, but seeing as I want to run my PC at standar speed it'll do just fine. Great analysis and very well written!