Since the release of Intel"s Conroe micro-architecture, the company has been making waves, massive waves. In terms of performance, Intel washed away main competitor AMD, and they have continued to do so during the past three months with the success of their Core 2 Duo and Extreme processor series.
Step aside dual-core, it is now the time of the quad-core and you better believe it. The new quad-core series consists of the Core 2 Quad Q6600 and the Core 2 Extreme QX6700. Both feature a dual 4MB L2 cache, operate on a 1066MHz FSB, and have a thermal output of 130 watts. However, the Core 2 Quad Q6600 is not scheduled for release until early next year, and so today we will be looking at the more powerful Core 2 Extreme QX6700 version, which Intel had promised to make available this month, humming along to the tune of just 2.66GHz using a cool 1.34 volts of power.
The very same technologies that made the Conroe so powerful are all included in the new Kentsfield architecture. In fact, there are no new additions, so it is merely a quad-core version of the Conroe, but of course this is hardly a bad thing. So how does the Quad Core QX6700 performs? Read on and find out.