Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 and Massive Price Cuts
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 16, 2007 3:04 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Million Dollar Question: Dual or Quad Core for the Same Price?
Before talk of Intel's July 22nd price cuts surfaced, we were hardly ever asked the question "dual or quad", simply because the price differential was so great. After next week everything changes, as you'll be able to pick up a quad-core Q6600 (2.4GHz) for a measly $266. At the same time, you could get a much higher clocked dual-core E6850 (3.0GHz) for the exact same price - so which do you pick?
This graph is a lot more colorful than our previous ones because the decision just isn't that clear. If you look at the average, quad-core gains an advantage over dual-core over all of our benchmarks, but if you look at the tests themselves you'll see some trends. Encoding and 3D manipulation benchmarks have the quad-core CPU clearly ahead, while general usage and gaming benchmarks mostly favor the higher clocked dual-core E6850. So, which do you choose?
If you're strictly building a gaming box, you'll get more performance out of the dual-core E6850. However, if you do any encoding or 3D rendering at all, the quad-core Q6600 is a better buy. Our pick is the Q6600 and if you want to make up the performance difference you can always overclock to E6850 speeds, but the chip only makes sense if you're running apps that can take advantage of four cores. As the chart above illustrates, those applications are almost exclusively limited to video encoding and 3D rendering.
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Darkmatterx76 - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
Nice article. I would like to point out 1 small inconsistancy. On page 12, 4th graph down you have the order for that particular "Lower is better" reversed compared to the others in the article.Also, I do have 1 question. Any idea when Intel will offer non-extreme quad cores at 1333 FSB?
zsdersw - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
I don't get it. Both are listed as 2.33GHz with 1333FSB and both with 4MB. What's the use of having two models?zsdersw - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
Nevermind. I found the answer. The 6540 doesn't have Intel Trust Execution technology.. or so I read elsewhere.jay401 - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
So how does the E6850 ($266 3.0GHz 1333fsb) compare to my existing E4400 ($133 running 1333MHz fsb with a 9x multiplier = 3.0GHz)?That's the test I'd like to see. Half the price but half the cache: Which is better.
bobbyto34 - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
Your o/c CPU might just be a little hotter :)Otherwise, it should have the same performance approximatively (less cache in E4xxx). But other tests showed that the E4300@3Ghz and could approach the performance of the X6800 !
lplatypus - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
Here's a little error I spotted on page 2, in case you want to fix it: the QX6850 is not 7MHz faster than the QX6800; it is 70Mhz faster.Gary Key - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
Fixed.96redformula - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
I also think the scale would be better from -100 to 100. It makes it easier to distinguish and more visually pleasing.ManuelX - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
I don't post here much but I had to this time. I simply loved the article. The logic behind the comparison was explained nicely, and the comparisons themselves were super easy to grasp. Good stuff.just4U - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
I am going to have to agree here. Nicely laid out article with easy comprehensive graph comparison(s). Well done Guys!