Performance

General Performance

SYSMark 2007 is an integral benchmark showing the systems performance in real applications of different types. That is why it is not surprising at all that the obtained results turned out very diverse: far not all the algorithms are optimized for quad-core processors. As you can see from the charts, Core 2 Quad Q9300 performs best of all during video processing. Here defeats all the competitors in nominal mode as well as during overclocking.

In other cases Core 2 Quad Q9300 yields to the new top dual-core Wolfdale processor, Core 2 Duo E8500, which boasts 26% higher nominal clock speed. Even overclocking doesn’t help, because it doesn’t really make up for the frequency difference between the quad- and the dual-core Penryn CPUs.

Note that overclocked to 3.5GHz Core 2 Quad Q9300 doesn’t lose to Core 2 Extreme QX9770 with twice as large L2 cache or to Core 2 Quad Q6600 overclocked to higher frequency of 3.6GHz. In other words, the youngest Yorkfield processor will not lose its attractiveness for computer enthusiasts even despite some overclocking mishaps.