INTEL QX6850 Quad Core Extreme Processor INTEL QX6850 Quad Core Extreme Processor

Earth to AMD......earth to AMD........come in AMD.........where are you? A lot of us are asking that question these days, and to be honest, AMD had better arrive on the scene soon, as INTEL's most recent releases offer only a modest improvement over their predecessors. Looking at it from purely a business standpoint, Intel is doing it right: Why compete against yourself? Until AMD gets their act together and releases a processor that forces Intel's hand, there's really no point in bringing any major upgrades to market. While that may be good for Intel's bottom line, its bad for us enthusiasts who wait with baited breath for the next best thing.
A lot of us are asking that question these days, and to be honest, AMD had better arrive on the scene soon, as INTEL's most recent releases offer only a modest improvement over their predecessors. Looking at it from purely a business standpoint, Intel is doing it right: Why compete against yourself? Until AMD gets their act together and releases a processor that forces Intel's hand, there's really no point in bringing any major upgrades to market. While that may be good for Intel's bottom line, its bad for us enthusiasts who wait with baited breath for the next best thing.

All of this should change toward the end of the year, as Intel's Penryn and AMDs Phenom are now on the horizon. But for now, we're basically limited to refreshes of Intel's current Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad lines of processors.

Today we take a quick look at Intel's QX6850 Core 2 Extreme. For those of you with no mortgage, no bills, a great job, or rich parents, the QX6850 is currently the pinnacle of the processing world.

CPU	Core 2 Extreme QX6850
Model	BX80562QX6850 SLAFN
Core	Quad Core Kentsfield 65nm Core Stepping: G0
Frequency	3.0GHz
FSB/Multi	1333/x9 Unlocked (x6 to x16)
Cache	L1: 64KB+64KB L2: 2 x 4MB (8MB Total)
Voltage	1.100V-1.372V
TDP	130W
Thermal Spec	64.5C
Special Features	Enhanced Halt State (C1E) Enhanced Intel Speedstep® Technology Execute Disable Bit 1 Intel® EM64T 2 Intel® Thermal Monitor 2 Intel® Virtualization Technology
Current Pricing	Price

The QX6850 is the Barry Bonds of processors, a steroid freak designed for pure power. Offering four cores each operating at 3GHz, unlocked multipliers giving the enthusiast every possible overclocking option, and 8MB of L2 cache, the QX6850 is a serious ass kicker.

Probably the only argument you can raise against investing in a Quad Core processor is software support. At least in the present tense, not many programs take full advantage of four cores (not all that many take full advantage of two cores, either). However, as multicore processors are the future and continue to build up a mainstream userbase, more and more software applications will be optimized for multicore operation. Another factor to keep in mind is the ability to use the processor's affinity (located within your Windows task manager) to assign cores to specific applications (you'll need to reset the affinity each time you start up a program or reboot).

CPU	Core 2 Quad Q6600
Model	BX80562Q6600 SL9UM
Core	Quad Core Kentsfield 65nm Core Stepping: B3
Frequency	2.4GHz
FSB/Multi	1066/x9
Cache	L1: 64KB+64KB L2: 2 x 4MB (8MB Total)
Voltage	1.100V-1.372V
TDP	105W
Thermal Spec	62.2C
Special Features	Enhanced Halt State (C1E) Enhanced Intel Speedstep® Technology Execute Disable Bit 1 Intel® EM64T 2 Intel® Thermal Monitor 2 Intel® Virtualization Technology
Current Pricing	Price

Browsing forums across the web, you'll see several threads regarding the Q6600 and steppings. Steppings are simply revisions of the CPU where the manufacturer makes adjustments that improve the performance of the CPU. When Intel announced their price cuts the last week of July and released the E6X50 line of processors with the G0 stepping, the Q6600 migrated over to the new G0 revision, joining its big brother, the Q6700. The G0 stepping brings with it a lower TDP, dropping from the B3's 105W to the G0's 95W and the Thermal Spec rises from 62C to 71C. What does this mean to the end user? Slightly lower power consumption, a bit lower temperatures, and potentially better overclocking ability as a result of the lower thermals.