Core 2 Extreme QX6700 will be the first quad-core processor on the retail market and Intel’s new flagship is expected to arrive already next month. At VR-Zone they’ve now published a preview of this very exciting processor and discuss everything from pure performance to overclocking and power consumption. Overall it seems that, as expected, that the biggest problem is the software of today that doesn’t support quad-core processors, or multithreading per say. There are simply very few developers that optimize there programs for multiple cores and a lot of the performance is then lost. They also test the processor with Windows Vista and there it seems that for example Windows Movie Maker seems to be optimized for multithreading, which bodes well for the future.
What is positive about QX6700 is the power consumption, which is actually not much higher than that of its dual-core siblings. Intel seems to have done well with the power saving functions and we’re eagerly looking forward to seeing the first quad-core processor on the market. Especially as they managed to push the processor from 2.66GHz to stable 3.73GHz using just air cooling.
“The outstanding X factor of the Core 2 Quad for me is first of all, the very non-proportional power consumption/ Heat output, in a good way. I saw for myself that the power drawn is not a huge amount over the Core 2 Duo even with Quad Cores. This is rather pleasing when you know that it is technically a double serving of a Core 2 Duo.”
