MaximumPC 2008 06

16 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| JUNE 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com

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INTEL CORE 2 QUAD Q

$266, http://www.intel.com

ROUND 1

PRICE

The Core 2 Quad Q6600 didn’t start off as a budget chip, but

it got there quickly thanks to generous price cuts by Intel.

Today, it’s offi cially listed at $266 in bulk but is retailing for

as little as $240. Intel’s new Core 2 Quad Q9300 is listed at

the same price—$266 in bulk—but thanks to the laws of

supply and demand, it’s going for $300. That gives the Q

a 20-percent price advantage. Given the general affordability

of quad cores, we think all power users are winners, but one

product clearly takes this category.

Winner: Q

ROUND 2

SPECS

Specsmanship in CPUs still matters, even if Maximum PC readers know it can

be misleading. The old Q6600 clocks in at 2.4GHz on a 1,066MHz front-side bus,

uses the older 65nm process, and features 8MB of L2 cache. The newer Q

clocks in at 2.5GHz on a 1,333MHz front-side bus using the new and improved

45nm core, but its L2 cache is only 6MB. That’s 2MB less than the Q6600 and half

that of the top-end Core 2 Extreme QX9770. Breaking it down, the Q9300’s clock

speeds are about 4 percent faster and its front-side bus is 25 percent faster,

on a process that’s about 45 percent smaller. Its cache, however, is 25 percent

smaller. Nevertheless, the Q9300 has a slight edge in specs.

Winner: Q

QUICKSTART^

THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL

Intel Core 2 Q6600 vs. Intel

Core 2 Q

I

ntel’s 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600 has been the darling of penny-

pinchers since day one. Selling for around $250, the 65nm-based

Q6600 is just 600MHz slower than its pricier dual-core brethren,

but otherwise, spec for spec, they’re the same.

So when Intel rolled out its 45nm-based Penryn blue-light spe-

cial, we knew a deathmatch was in the works. Priced the same as

its Conroe counterpart, the Core 2 Quad Q9300 off ers the improved

Penryn core with its faster clock speed and front-side bus. But

while the Q6600 is pretty much the same chip as the $1,000 Conroe

jobbies, the Q9300 has half the cache of the top-gun Penryn CPUs—

less, even, than the Q6600, for that matter.

That made us wonder whether the Q9300 is actually even bet-

ter than the beloved Q6600. To fi nd out if the Q9300 takes down the

Q6600 or falls on its face, read on. –GORDON M A H U N G