After releasing the first quad core processor last November 2, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700, Intel comes back with a more affordable version, the Core 2 Quad Q6600.A short review
To have 4 cores, there are three solutions : Have a single die and a complete architecture based on these 4 cores, integrate two dual core processor dies in the same package, or one single die with two CPUs side by side.
To be faster than AMD it was the second solution that was chosen. It has already been used by Intel with the Pentium 4 for the dual core. The QX6700 and Q6600 feature in fact two Core 2 Duos in the same package.
On the contrary, AMD uses the first solution. It is more elegant and is, in theory, more efficient. Now, the only thing is that in practice for the dual core this approach hasn't shown an obvious superiority compared to a "raw" approach in terms of performance. With the release of the K8L in the third quarter, we will see if this is also the case with the quad core.
Now, if this type of processor is available with desktop computers not everyone will be able to fully use them. You have to feed each of the cores in parallel with tasks to execute. To do so, there are two options. Either you have multithreaded applications, which means that they execute their basic functions in parallel, or you have to use several applications that aren't multithreaded in parallel.
In addition to server applications, most multithreaded ones are destined for workstations. This is the case of most software used to create computer generated images, and editing, video and audio encoding.
However, most games are monothread, and when they are multithreaded, performance improvements aren't always that obvious. This was the case for the beta testers of Supreme Commander, even if the lack of stability in results didn't give us the possibility to integrate it in our test suite. 2007 will be the year in which multithreaded games will arrive, but before we expect them to use 4 cores let's make sure that they already use two.
The Q6600
Unlike the QX6700, the Q6600 doesn't belong to the Extreme line. This is the reason why it isn't priced at $999, but at $851! Yes the 8 and 5 are at their right place and this is 2.7 times the price of the E6600.
If the QX6700 embedded the equivalent of two E6700s, this time this is logically two E6600s or a frequency of 2.4 GHz instead of 2.66 GHz.
The L2 cache is 4MB per die but unlike the QX6700 it isn't possible to increase the multiplying coefficient to x9.
