http://www.maximumpc.com | JUNE 08 | MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC | 17
And the Winner Is...
W
e initially thought the smaller L2 cache would handicap the
Penryn-based Q9300; however, the cache defi cit didn’t really
matter and this CPU did quite well, beating the Q6600 by as much
as 14 percent in some tests. In others tests, the Q9300’s performance
was just about what you’d expect from a CPU with a 5-percent
clock-speed advantage.Our conclusion, based on these tests, is that if you’re building a
budget quad-core today, you should reach for the Q9300 over the
Q6600. However, if you’re looking to upgrade your older P965 or
nForce 680i board from its dual-core or single-core proc and it won’t
support Q9300 (or any quad-core Penryn for that matter), the Q6600 is
still a worthwhile upgrade, especially given its $240 street price.ROUND 3
COMPATIBILITY
Even we admit that Intel is getting better
at not screwing folks with motherboard
incompatibility, but it could still learn
a lesson from AMD or even the Intel of
old, which allowed you to house three
generations of processors in its Slot 1
motherboard. When it comes to dropping
the latest quad-core proc into an existing
dual-core mobo, the winner is the Q6600.
While it won’t work in every Socket 775
board, it stands a better chance than the
newfangled Q9300, which pretty much
works only on motherboards made in the
last 12 months. Of course, check your
board for compatibility fi rst, but we’re still
giving this to the Q6600.
Winner: QROUND 4
OVERCLOCKING
There’s a reason the Q6600 is beloved. The
second iteration of the CPU, the step G
versions, are agile overclockers. For this
test, we had the 2.4GHz CPU running at a
very stable 3GHz, and we fi gured another
couple hundred megahertz were attain-
able with fi ne-tuning. That’s probably the
outer edge of what the Q6600 is capable of
without serious tweaking and cooling. We
expected the Q9300 to do better—and it
did. On the same nForce 790i Ultra board,
the Q9300 pushed 3.5GHz on a 2,000MHz
front-side bus without breaking a sweat.
Mind you, both overclocks were done
with a stock Intel cooler, so your mileage
may vary. Our verdict? Both are good over-
clockers, but the Q9300 is better.
Winner: QROUND 5
PERFORMANCE
We tested the Q6600 with 15 gaming, encod-
ing, and other CPU-intensive benchmarks
and then dropped the Q9300 into the same
board and reran the tests. The Q9300 won
almost every test with margins of from 3
percent (nothing to crow about) to 14 per-
cent (crow away!). The Q9300 lost only our
FEAR benchmark, and only at low resolu-
tions. This round easily goes to the Q9300.
Winner: QINTEL CORE 2 QUAD Q
$266, http://www.intel.comMAXIMUMP C .com
LEARN MORE AT
http://www.tinyurl/2wfqmu