Background

Single Core, Dual Core, and now Quad Core. Well that is the promise of Intel earlier this year when we attended a briefing in Bangkok, Thailand.

Based on the Intel core Microarchitecture, it aims to improve on the areas on its energy/power efficiency, better performance and performance/watt. It is apparent that Intel is going to leave the Netburst architecture behind and move on to the Intel Core Architecture for mobile, desktop and servers.

A look at the chart shows the Kentsfield which is the upcoming quad core processor for the desktop. It seems like Intel is very confident with its processor and has pushed forward its released date of its new Quad-Core Processor the QX6700 (code name Kentsfield).

So what is unique about this processor? This processor QX6700 is built on the 65nm manufacturing processor. As mentioned, it is based on the Intel's Core Microarchitecture, thus it shares the goods of intellitent power capability, smart memory access, wide dynamic execution, advanced digital media boost, advanced smart cache technologies etc.

Most importantly, this processor delivers two Dual Core Processors in a single 775 LGA package to provide amazing boost to multimedia and multitask applications.

The CPU is rated 2.66GHz and has a system bus of 1066MHz. TDP is rated at 130W and has 2 x 4MB of L2 Cache. CPU VID is 1.350v.

Below is a picture of the QX6700 versus the X6800.

In the following pages, we will take a look at the CPU's performance against the X6800 in terms of multimedia, multithreaded and gaming applications.

Systems Compared

QX6700 vs X6800

• Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 with F6 BIOS / INF update Ver:7.2.2.1006
• 2 x Corsair XMS2-8500C5 1024MB  800MHz running in CAS 5 5-5-15
• ASUS EN7900GT TOP
• Hitachi 7K80 SATAII HDD
• Windows XP SP2

Benchmark Tests Run

Memory Benchmarks

- SiSoft Sandra 2007 Memory Benchmarks

Content Based

- PCMark2005
- DVD Shrink
- Pov Ray 3.7 Beta 15
- Xmpeg with DIVX 6.4
- DiVX Converter

Graphics

- 3DMark2005 (1024x768x32)
- 3DMark2006 (1024x768x32)
- DOOM3 (Hi Quality)
- FEAR
- Chronicles of Riddick (1024x768x32)

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