Very good testing. Now, I am sure what CPU to buy. Is there a way that you can tell me which MOBO to buy for the E8500 CPU. Thank you for this great article!

Your DivX 6.8 test is borked. Difference between E6850 and E8400 is only 4.8%, I believe it should be higher because SSE4 optimizations already exist in DivX 6.8.

Moreover you could have tested Premiere CS3 with SSE4.1 update:
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Adobe_Premiere_Pro_Updat e_for_Intel_SSE4.1

What's with these dorks talking about $800 mainstream Intel processors when Intel is gonna sell these new chips at old prices?

If it's such a simple story as "no competition then higher price" then Intel would be raising prices ALREADY

Use some of those brain cells... it'll help

It'd be interesting to see what these chips do on water or exotic cooling. Maybe just with a thermalright 120...

More so interesting to see if passive cooling is possible. For example Zalman 9500/9700 without fan.

VOLTAGES???
On page 3:
E8500-1.136V
E8200-1.200V
Lower clock higher VCore. Can somebody explain.

Just what I noticed. Might have something to do with with Cool'n Quit.

On Page 12 the Base VCore for the E8200 seems to be 1,160 V.

Normally i would expect the slower cpu to have a lower VCore. But if intel had to rise it to get stable, that would explain, that the 8200 is not such a good overclocker as the 8500.

The 6400 X2 should be 3.2GHz and not 3.0GHz.

Looks like my upgrade this year will be Intel.
Sorry again AMD...

Nice review, as always! I have some questions however:

1. Were both platforms (Intel/AMD) tested at same DDR speeds? Page 4 leaves me a bit confused... It may be that a small difference in memory frequency/timings won't change the overall score, but just to be fair, I think those parameters should have stayed the same.

2. In the power consumption test table, suddenly an Athlon X2 6000+ emerges... Is this a mistake, or does those figures really belong to that particular CPU (even worse for the 6400+ in this case..). Moreover, on page 4 the frequency of the 6400+ is given as 3Ghz... which one did you test at the end? :)

Not that those are really serious issues, but a little feedback is always helpful. :)

good to see reviews...

Anyone know when these chips are on for sale?

anyone know when these chips are on for sale?

Great review told me waht I needed to know!!!!

AMD is finished!!! They just can not keep up with Intel.I regret to say this but i can`t see how AMD could regain crown in the near future.This is not good news for the consumer.Intel will have monopol over the cpu market(again).I even think AMD is facing extinction.

Does anyone know a list of motherboards that support these new beauties?

I've actually wondered whether Intel would help out AMD by buying a minority stake. It's not really in Intel's interest to be a monopoly and constantly hounded by government regulators.

It was a pleasure to read this article. Thank you!

This may be a dumb question, but I seem to have forgotten how to calculate percentages. >_>

In the page where you see the chart between the conroe and wolfdale and the performance gain, can anyone explain as to how they got those percentages?

Please use one of them in the chart as a sample
Thank you