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Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Reviews 197

Posted by kdawson from the four-eyes dept.
An anonymous reader writes, "The first reviews of Intel's new quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700 have emerged this morning and opinion is mixed. TrustedReviews were blunt: 'There is nothing new on display here. Very few people will need quad cores...' while Tech Report think 'many owners of this beast may be stuck waiting for new applications to arrive that use it to its fullest ability.' The boys at bit-tech managed to overclock to 3.47GHz and found the first killer application: quad-core support in the Source Engine! Nice!"
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Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Reviews More

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Reviews

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  • Yeah, people don't need quad cores, nor do they need more than 640 KB of memory!

    The applications will come soon enough for those.

    • Re:Mandatory 640 KB comment (Score:4, Insightful)

      by porkThreeWays ( 895269 ) on Thursday November 02, 2006 @09:26AM (#16688041)
      Exactly. As computers get faster people will just move on to higher level languages that may not be as efficient. 5 years ago I don't think it was realistic to expect consumers to pay for a GUI based python program. Today, as long as there is an icon on their desktop, it's no problem. Faster hardware means the ability to use higher level languages and spend more time solving real world problems rather than specifics of the language.
    • While the 640KB comment is certainly valid in this discussion, you have to consider that it is only valid if the way we use computers continues along the same path as it has in the past. By this I mean being focused on desktop power (Fat clients). As the communications infrastructure becomes faster and more reliable with things like fiber optics directly into your home, and companies like Google beginning to push the online services and application service provider models, a thin client is going to become
  • ...that many people won't need quad-core machines. They will be entry-level within five years. With the advent of hypervisor based virtualization, computing is going to make a huge change for all OSes. We will no longer be running on bare metal at the OS level and we'l see performance that actually can exceed running on bare metal thanks to hypervisors on the x86 platform. If I had the cash, I'd be getting one of these or whatever AMD releases in response as I'd really like to turn my 16 boxes at home i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suv4x4 ( 956391 )
      It's Foolish to Say...that many people won't need quad-core machines. They will be entry-level within five years

      What you said just now is foolish. In five years it may as well be entry level, but it'll also be 5-6 times cheaper.

      5-6 years is ages in computer technology. Maybe now 200GB disks are entry level, and I indeed have two 200GB disks here and 320GB external disk, but if I go back 15 years ago, I'd still buy myself a 20MB Seagate for my IBM PC and probably never find what to fill it up with.

      Buying ble

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eno2001 ( 527078 )
        Five years is a very short period of time for computer hardware when you're talking the Windows world. If you buy entry-level today, your system won't be viable in about a year and a half. And what I mean by that is that if you want to run the latest whiz-bang OS or Office suite from MS, all I can say is good luck trying. If you want a machine to last five years and you are a Windows user, you MUST pay the $2000+ pricetag for mid-level computing. If you buy an $800 box now with Windows XP and it runs OK

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by suv4x4 ( 956391 )
          Five years is a very short period of time for computer hardware when you're talking the Windows world. If you buy entry-level today, your system won't be viable in about a year and a half.

          Not to argue semantics, but what you just described makes five years a long period for the Windows world. If it was short, you'd not need upgrade.

          What becomes short is the life of your hardware, not the years themselves.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by eno2001 ( 527078 )
            Well I always wind up getting into semantic arguments with people. ;P Being 36, five years goes by very quickly for me, so I think that I would prefer to use the same machine for longer and still be able to use current software on it. I remember back in my late teens and 20s when I had my Atari ST, it lasted from 1985 to 1994 and I rarely had to upgrade software and there were no hardware upgrades required. Just optional upgrades. When I moved to Windows, it seemed that you always had to be on the laste

            • I'm not even close to 36, I'm 23 but 5 years goes by pretty quickly for me. I still have and use the same computer I built 7 years ago and it runs Windows. It is the common computer for the house. It currently runs Windows XP and often acts as our communal stereo since all our music is on it. It's hard drives have been upgraded so it has mirrored 300gig drives in addition to the much smaller OS drive.

              Yes, it probably won't be able to run Vista but it ran, 98, ME, 2000, and XP so I think it did alright. I

        • It really depends on what you want out of the computer. I've got a dual 500MHz Xeon /w 1GB RAM in my care that's still doing fine. I have no idea what it would have costed when it was new, but $4000 might be a low-ball estimate. It's eight years old now and even now has no reliability issues or system crashes. It's a little sluggish but still quite useful.

          If you don't need the latest wizz-bang software, then any computer made now should easily serve five years. Not everybody gives a damn about Vista, t
          • Yeah, I have a dual P3-500 (not Xeon) system with 512MB, it's a dell precision workstation, and it works as well today as it ever did. I put linux on it and it's quite peppy. It's a SCSI system, even. of course I don't actually use it since work bought me a core duo laptop :P
        • And what I mean by that is that if you want to run the latest whiz-bang OS or Office suite from MS, all I can say is good luck trying. If you want a machine to last five years and you are a Windows user, you MUST pay the $2000+ pricetag for mid-level computing. If you buy an $800 box now with Windows XP and it runs OK, I can guarantee you that you'll be spending a lot more money trying to upgrade it to run Vista or whatever comes after vista than you would have had you just plunked down the extra $1200.

          T
    • Well, I'm in the process of paring down from about half a dozen machines to just one. And that's going to be just a lowly dual-core X2 w/ 4GB of RAM and lots of hard disk space. Unless you're running the CPUs flat-out across all 16 machines, you could probably already start making the move to dual-core or twin-CPU dual-core boxes.

      (Long live Xen...)

      Being able to setup scratch servers in a virtual environment without having to put hardware together is rather addictive. Instead of giving every developer
  • It's a no-brainer for any server. That's a pretty big market!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by suv4x4 ( 956391 )
      It's a no-brainer for any server. That's a pretty big market!

      Servers are not desktops. Buying the fastest machine doesn't get you the fastest experience.

      Google grew up buy chaining thousands of cheapo second hand caseless PC-s in a cluster. If they decided to spend their money on bleeding edge technology they'd probably have 3x faster servers, but twice less total computing power.

      Especially since a huge bottleneck in servers are RAM and HDD IO (considering we don't put bandwidth in the equation which curiou

      • Servers are not desktops.

        They're not that different, certainly when it comes to CPUs. For years Sun and their adherents discounted the PC architecture saying "servers are not desktops," with very little more justification than that. Meanwhile they've watched PCs eat up most of the server market they once owned. Buy the right motherboard for this CPU and you can have lots of bus bandwidth. Sure, network and disk are critical, but look at it this way: now you can serve up the same nubmer of disks and

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by suv4x4 ( 956391 )
          For years Sun and their adherents discounted the PC architecture saying "servers are not desktops," with very little more justification than that. Meanwhile they've watched PCs eat up most of the server market they once owned.

          PCs eat their market since they are cheap and widely available. Specialized expensive solutions are not as competitive. Thus again confirming what I said :P
    • I'll probably pick it up for my next batch of servers and home machines both. I just recently upgraded to Core 2 Duo CPUs and I can see and feel a major difference. Maybe for the kids who use one app at a time and mostly stick to Windows it doesn't matter. I run dozens of apps at a time under both Windows and Linux and I do some heavy server work in Linux that can use every bit of power it can get. I love these new CPUs. I no longer have to shell out major bucks for a mobo that can handle four CPUs - now I
    • I dunno, I think it would be a waste on anything I/O bound.

  • AMDs Response (Score:4, Funny)

    by fr175 ( 999487 ) on Thursday November 02, 2006 @09:11AM (#16687879)
    Sure, we could go to four cores next, like the competition. That seems like the logical thing to do. After all, three worked out pretty well, and four is the next number after three. So let's play it safe. Let's make a larger cache and call it the AMD 64 X2Super. Why innovate when we can follow? Oh, I know why: Because we're a business, that's why! You think it's crazy? It is crazy. But I don't give a shit. From now on, we're the ones who have the edge in the multi-core game. Are they the best a man can get? Fuck, no. AMD is the best a man can get. What part of this don't you understand? If two cores is good, and cores blades is better, obviously five cores would make us the best fucking processor that ever existed. Comprende? We didn't claw our way to the top of the processor game by clinging to the two-core industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, five cores is the biggest chance of all.

    • Re:AMDs Response (Score:4, Funny)

      by Jesus_666 ( 702802 ) on Thursday November 02, 2006 @09:39AM (#16688251)
      New in stores: The AMD Fusion. Five cores give you the best performance possible and when you flip the die there's a single core for precision calculations. Best used with AMD Series Cooling Gel.
    • Ahem [theonion.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by admdrew ( 782761 )

        Yes, we know.

        It's amusing to note that this article correctly (intentionally or not) predicted Gillette's actual 5 blade razor over a year in advance.

    • I've got dibbs on the Schick 8-Core Razor.

      OK, so you've heard the joke before.)

      But the first two cores lift the stubborn code, and the next two cores separate the task and the next two cores do out of order execution of the code. The Final two cores are necessary because Bic has a 6 core razor and managed to convince the Patent office that was somehow not an obvious thing to do after the quad-core thingy.

  • Name... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Danathar ( 267989 ) on Thursday November 02, 2006 @09:24AM (#16688015) Journal
    It may be fast, but "Quad Core core 2" is just plain goofy! What's next "Quad Cores core 2 duo quad dually quadra core"
    • I haven't read any of the articles, but the real name is "Core 2 Quad." Core being the new architecture replacing Pentium (even though it's kinda a modified to hell P4 Mobile which was more or less based on a P3). 2 being the second revision of the platform (Core was early '06), Quad for 4 cores (obviously).
  • How long until Intel releases a quad-core notebook CPU? And does anyone know what the codename is for that?

    I want one of these but I need the portability of a notebook.
    • Either with Penryn in late 2007, which is a 45 nm Core 2 chip, or they'll wait until the Nehalem micro-arcitechure in 2008.

  • Not really needed yet (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ArcherB ( 796902 ) on Thursday November 02, 2006 @09:46AM (#16688343) Journal
    I had a chance to play with one of these bad boys at my last job as a QA engineer. With the tools I had available (games and basic Windows tools), I was not able to get the processor above 40% utilization. Any slow down was due to HDD access rather than the processor. So while I was able to play Ghost Recon at full res and run a virus scan while I ripped an audio CD, the only drop in game play came when the game had to access the HDD. There was no real performance boost over the Core2 Duo. So what we need is a much faster way access files to see any real performance gains. I'm holding out for affordable solid state HDD's.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by joshetc ( 955226 )
      RAID + WD Raptors helps with disk access.. maybe you should try some of those. Eventually we'll have 10+GB of ram too so I don't see hard drive access being as important soon either.
    • I was not able to get the processor above 40% utilization.

      On a quad core system, 40% CPU = 1 core pegged (100%) and a second core at 60%. In other words, you simply didn't have enough going on concurrently. The reason why you didn't see a performance boost over that of a dual core system is because you never even pegged two cores, let alone four. This is exactly why most people will get zero (or nearly) benefit from a four core system. Heck, most games are still single threaded which means on dual core
    • Did you try running something like Prime95 on the box? Prime95 shouldn't really care about the drive speed at all, I imagine Prime95 (or atleast 4 instances of it) would be able to peg those cores.
  • Why?

    I work for a company that runs their application in a clustered windows shop. The cluster is active passive for highest availability. Microsoft and "high availability" is the greatest contradiction. Ever.

    Every once in a while, we max the two dual-cores out on the server. So a quad core should help us avoid those maxed-out periods.

    I don't know anything about windows cluster, is there a way to add more servers as processing power in this environment?

  • the article was overall an interesting read. it points out the importance that new multicore-CPUs will bring to application developers, and their threading implications.
    made me get interested in threading issues with cores, and how they have chosen a Hybrid Threading direction.
    also, notice the focus on improved AI and realism this brings to games. i see here a shift from gpu based rendering, to more cpu based rendering with improved AI and particle systems (see the rain video in the article).
  • This is a little off topic, but Intel has got be confused here. What is the difference other than the buzzwords:

        - Intel(r) Core(r) 2 Duo(r) E6300 Processor
        - Intel(r) Viiv(TM) Technology(TM) Core(r) 2 Duo(r) E6300 Processor

  • I only NEED vi and serial terminal, that does not mean I WANT to run that.....

    yes..I NEED quad cores :)

  • I need Quads to become common... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jbeaupre ( 752124 ) on Thursday November 02, 2006 @10:28AM (#16688963)
    Because once they are, the duals I want will become the cheap alternative.
    • Because once they are, the duals I want will become the cheap alternative.

      I hear that. We postponed and put off and postponed our desktop upgrade schedule for almost 2 years while waiting for dual-core CPUs to drop in price.

      The price cuts by AMD in late-July this year were extremely welcome. All of the new machines (and I mean ALL, even the people who will never max it out) are now coming in the door as dual-core. I figure we'll easily squeeze 8-12 years of lifespan out of those machines before we h
  • 'There is nothing new on display here. Very few people will need quad cores...'

    Uh, hello? You must be a n00b tech journalist. They said the same thing about the 486 DX 66. And remember Bill Gates' quote from back in 1980? What was it again...?

  • Multi-core at the low end. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by argent ( 18001 ) <peter@@@slashdot...2006...taronga...com> on Thursday November 02, 2006 @11:05AM (#16689549) Homepage Journal
    I wish they'd work on low-end 4- or more core processors.

    For general computing, I'd rather have a quad-core 500 MHz processor than a single-core 2 GHz one. It'd run cooler and be more responsive, even though the peak performance would be lower.

    Ideally I'd like a computer with a display engine running an OpenGL-based remote display server, and one or more compute engines... and maybe even a separate processor for the file system with its own battery-backed RAM. Not just a RAID controller, a NAS box inside the computer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )

      For general computing, I'd rather have a quad-core 500 MHz processor than a single-core 2 GHz one

      I don't think you do. A java application here chokes on the 4 x 400MHz sparc (about a minute to render the menubar!) and runs well on the older 1.8GHz AMD systems. Memory is not an issue on both, and is far more plentiful on the Sun anyway. Dual or quad core or 1GHz vs 2GHz is a different story but I think 500MHz is too slow for far too many things now that don't have more than one process or thread.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by argent ( 18001 )
        I don't think you do.

        I think I do.

        A java application here chokes on the 4 x 400MHz sparc

        I know the sparc is a bloody anemic processor, thanks to its bizarre stack discipline, but I had no idea that a quad 400 MHz Sparc was worse than the 33 MHz 68000 in my Clie, or the 166 MHz Pentium (not III, or II, or even MMX) in my Toshiba Libretto!
        • but I had no idea that a quad 400 MHz Sparc was worse than the 33 MHz 68000 in my Clie

          I did not write anything resembling that - 1.8 GHz is not 33 MHz. Perhaps your reading comprehension replaced the word "A" with something like "every" instead from your imagination - in which case I suggest you actually read a post before replying to it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by argent ( 18001 )
            *snork*

            I've run Java apps on my PDA. If you've got an app that's running like snail snot on a quad core sparc then either (a) your quad-core sparc is slower than my PDA, or (b) the guy who wrote the application needs retraining. With a 2x4.

            Your choice.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dbIII ( 701233 )
              Situation (b) applies far too often - situation (a) has to be a joke, troll or ignorance.
    • and maybe even a separate processor for the file system with its own battery-backed RAM. Not just a RAID controller, a NAS box inside the computer

      That is what RAID controllers are now - like the current 3ware ones with a powerpc processor. There are also file servers full of SATA drives that pretend to be a single big SCSI external disk.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by argent ( 18001 )
        That is what RAID controllers are now - like the current 3ware ones with a powerpc processor.

        I don't mean block storage, I mean something that exposes a file system API to the rest of the computer.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbIII ( 701233 )
          I don't mean block storage, I mean something that exposes a file system API to the rest of the computer.

          Wouldn't that be slower? What advantages would this offer? Currently things are moving towards iSCSI where even devices on a network pretend to be block devices instead of network filesystems - but perhaps you have some ideas I haven't thought of.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by argent ( 18001 )
            Wouldn't that be slower? What advantages would this offer?

            Same thing that a battery-backed cache on a RAID controller does, except in spades. The battery backed cache gives you block integrity even if the system loses power, so you can do write-back instead of write-through caching. This gives you file system integrity even if the system loses power or the OS crashes. Which means you can do more buffering and smarter buffering.

            OS independance. You don't have to have file system drivers for everything. If yo

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dbIII ( 701233 )
              Same thing that a battery-backed cache on a RAID controller does, except in spades ...

              With this paragraph you described recent, fairly inexpensive RAID controllers which can do all you say - unless you mean a really big cache many GB in size. The file system abstraction in the next paragraph is a different idea however.


  • The Kentsfield release is all well and good, but I need those Quad-Core Xeons! Anyone know when we can expect them?
  • Has anyone spotted any benchmarks of kernel compile times (or any other gcc based compile time benchmarks for that matter) ?
  • I would like very much to own one of these processors, and fully intend on buying one for my RetailEdge bundle motherboard.

    I run real-time hard crypto on all of my disks (except my boot disk, this is a Windows system after all) and I'm not talking about that wimpy EFS either. I'm severely CPU-bottlenecked right now, with a dual-core processor.

    Having quad cores, I'd use an affinity manager to force the encryption/decryption processes to bind only to the second physical CPU, giving the crypto (and maybe some
  • 640 Cores ought to be enough for anyone.
  • It's really not for Windows users... it's for 3D rendering shops and iTV so that we can compress/decompress video on the fly, and play itunes.

    Then we have two cores to spare to run a windows based game.

    I guess all that threaded Code and OpenGL are finally paying off.

    Yippee!

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