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- Date:
- Sunday , October 28, 2007
- Author:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Intel's New 45nm Yorkfield QX9650
Intel marches forward with another groundbreaking processor. Four cores of 45nm goodness. At this rate, you have to wonder whether or not desktop software and AMD will ever catch up. How good does it overclock? All signs point to, "Wow!"
System Configuration
The introduction of the QX9650 Penryn at 3GZ clock speed gives us a few opportunities that many times we don't get when it comes to testing new processors. First we have a new generation of processor that uses the same FlipChip Land Grid Array packaging and socket 775 as the current generation Core 2 processors. The QX9650 also happens to be clocked with the same bus and stock multiplier as the current QX6850 flagship; both 1333MHz bus and “9” multiplier. When it comes to being able to compare retail clocked products at stock settings, we don’t usually see this. So the quad core QX9650 and QX6850 are “direct” comparisons. Secondly, we have the X6800 dual core processor that easily clocks to a FSB of 1333MHz with a small bump in core voltage. This overclock only represents a clock speed increase of 70Mhz, although the bus speed is bumped from 1024MHz to 1333MHz.
For our testing we used the same exact hardware and software setup for each suite of processor testing. The processor represents the only change in the system. This affords us the ability to compare all three processors on a very much “apples to apples” basis.
AMD
So what about AMD? Well, what about them? Quite frankly I did not find it worth the effort to once again compare their aging K8 core. Let’s face it, we all know that Core 2 is faster than AMD Athlon X2. The world is moving to quad core processors and when we have the chance to share AMD quad core processors we will certainly do so. Calling Intel "fastest" brings up a whole host of real work performance questions and we will be addressing that and looking into gaming as well. But we all know when comes to desktop applications that demand performance Conroe based processors excel.
Testing Criteria
We have broken our testing down into four sections. Power, Synthetic, Media, and Games. We will of course provide explanations of each as we move along.
