Good read.

About Lost Planet, after reading what was stated in the article I got the impression that you didnt activate the usage of four cores in that game.

Here :

==>"The game itself creates two computational threads, however larger L2 cache of the quad-core processor grants its victory in overclocked mode. In nominal work mode Core 2 Duo E6850 wins the first prize as it boasts considerably higher working frequency."

It is articles such as this that offer the insight to successful computer configuration. And, it's free! It doesn't get any better than that.

“Further overclocking of our Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor was possible theoretically, but required additional Vcore increase. Unfortunately, in our test platform with air-cooling it resulted in uncontrolled increase in processor temperature and throttling kicked in.”

Why the temperatures are not reported in processors reviews? I know it depend a lot of:
- Room temperature
- Case used
- Cooler
- Correct mounting
- Motherboard
- …

But it would be nice to know!
Just for curiosity at what speed/temperature the throttling kicked in?

Excellent Article.

Really shows the great potential and success of quad core Intel CPUs. The core marchitecture truly is a marvel, with strong clock for clock performance, very few weaknesses, and potential for very high clock speeds spell WIN WIN for Intel.

Too bad Barcelona isn't going to stand a chance.

Your E6850 doesnt overclock very well
Mine runs at 4.2Ghz stable on a Tuniq Tower 120

Where did you get CPZ-Z 1.41 ?
latest official is 1.40.5

what you fail to disclose is that even if a program is wrote to take advantage of multi core it can only see two cores.

Would have been really nice if you shown all your bios settings.

really helps me to deside when to G0 of this 2 powerfull procie now a days.. points to quad.. most promising in mind... hehe!!!! peace o

would be more interesting to see the two cpus at the same clock speed - say put them both at the fastest you could get from the slowest one (runing both at 3.6GHz) and then you'd really see if the extra cores on the quad help.

is that a mistake on CPU-Z as the FSB is quad-pump and the DDR3 is double data so surely it should be 1:1 ratio.

well... you could have atleast made benchmarks with both @ same speed just for reference.... I'm clueless as is....

I can see the stron case for the Q6600, but being on the same die and all, for almost $100 less the E6750 should reach the same top speed as the E6850 and save money in the process. Also, the X3210 is a cheaper quad core, does that clock up as high as the Q6600?

you should measure the power consumption of both processors - both spec'd and overclocked

Great test, i can see that it was right choice for me to order a Q6600 instead of a E6850.

I have both a X6800 C2DE and a Xeon X3220 Quad. The 3220 is being utilized in my 975 main box. While the X6800 is in the downstairs secondary box... nuff said.
OD

Very nice review. I'm going to buy Q6600 and overclock it to 3GHz(Enough for me, I like silent). It gives me similar performance to E6850 in most of actual software and speedup in the future.

I was wondering the exact question, this article addressed.

excellent x 1000

As it happens, I was debated on which of these exact CPUs to use - this article's data was precisely what I needed to make an informed decision. Very well done and I have added X-bit to my favorite sites.