Conclusion

By dropping the price of the youngest quad-core processor below $300, Intel made a great gift for hardware enthusiasts. Our today?s test session revealed that this processor can really do great in skillful hands. The overclocking potential of the Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor based on the new G0 core stepping is quite sufficient to help it compete successfully in almost any applications.

According to our tests and numerous overclockers?reports online, quad-core Core 2 Quad Q6600 processors can overclock up to 3.6GHz with proper air-cooling. In this case they can perform better than Core 2 Duo CPUs overclocked to their maximum. Moreover, we see this tendency even in those applications that are not optimized for multi-core processors and that are getting fewer day by day. As we saw there are very few tasks left, where overclocked quad-core processors cannot outperform overclocked dual-core CPUs. They defeat their rivals not only thanks to twice as many computational cores, but also thanks to twice as large L2 cache.

So, we think Core 2 Quad Q6600 seems to be a much more attractive offering these days than Core 2 Duo E6850.

However, those computer users who do not want to mess with processor overclocking may think differently. In this case Core 2 Duo E6850 with 25% higher clock speed performs better in a lot of applications, including games. Moreover, it is also more economical. As a result, the most optimal choice for a system working at nominal speeds would depends a lot on the type of tasks it is intended for.

Nevertheless, we shouldn?t forget that most upcoming applications and games are being designed with multi-threading in mind. That is why Core 2 Quad Q6600 may be a more promising solution even if used in its nominal mode.