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Test Setup

Because Quad core processors are such a step forward as far as testing requirements go, we did something a bit different than a lot of our other reviews. Intel was kind enough to send a list of "recommended benchmarks" for showing the power of the QX6700.. and we carefully reviewed the list, however we noticed that most of the software listed had newer versions available on the net, and in some cases, the tests required files that were not available on the net.

So we decided to update the list of software; downloading newer trial software, and where possible, using test case files that are available to the public at large - as well as running the benchmarks we normally use for processor reviews.

We also ran our "standard" processor benchmarking suite on the motherboard supplied by Intel, but we later switched to our excellent Asus P5W DH for our overclocking tests as we know the boundaries of that board and did not have time to fully explore the Intel board.

Benchmarks

Software used during testing consisted of the following:

• Windows XP Professional
• NVIDIA ForceWare 84.21 drivers
• CPUZ Version 1.35
• CineBench 2003
• LAME MP3 Encoding
• LAME MP3 Multi-Threaded Encoding
• PC Magazine Winstone 2004
• PC Magazine Multimedia Content Creation 2004
• Photoshop Elements 5.0
• ABBY Reader Professional 8.0
• 3D Studio Max 9
• 3DMark 2006 CPU bench
• iTunes
• POV-Ray 3.7 beta 13
• RightMark Memory Analyzer
• SiSoft Sandra 2004
• TMPGEnc MPEG2 Encoding
• WinRAR
• WinRAR mult-threaded
• Call of Duty
• Comanche 4
• Doom 3
• Far Cry
• Halo
• Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
• Unreal Tournament 2004

In order to keep the testing as fair as possible, we will use the following test platform:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (Conroe) 2.66GHZ 1066MHZ FSB 4MB L2
• Intel Core 2 Quad QX6700 (Kentsfield) 2.66GHZ 1066MHZ FSB 8MB L2
• Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard
• Intel BadAxe motherboard
• Corsair PC2-8500 memory @ 4-4-4-12/2T
• XFX GeForce 7800 GT

For the FX-62::

• Athlon FX-62 2.8 GHz 2x 1MB L2 cache processor
• ASUS M2N32-SLI motherboard
• Corsair PC2-8500 memory @ 4-4-4-12/1T
• XFX GeForce 7800 GT

As is our custom for a while now, we discuss our overclocking adventures at the end of the article. However, in the results you'll see in the following pages we include overclocked benchmarks to show you what gains you might get if you also achieved similar overclocks - our test sytems were all stable at the settings shown with air cooling. The chart labels incorporate a lot of information about the test configuration. The first line shows the socket type and the model of the processor. Since all the processors shown are dual core devices, we did not specify that on the charts.

The second line shows the "FSB/HT clock rate" x "CPU multiplier"  and the effective DDR memory speed. Please note that all DDR2 tests were run at 4-4-4-12 timings where possible.

Ok, enough talking about the basics... let's get on with the testing!

Notes about our charts:

Please note that to help you digest the chart information we use a different colour to mark the labels and the bars/lines so that the stock speed products will stand out and be easier to identify.  Just look for the dark red text and darker coloured bars - for this review, the Core 2 Duo E6700, Core 2 Quad QX6700 and Athlon FX-62 running at stock speeds will be highlighted.  This differs from how we normally highlight the product we review because we have such a large sample of data for this review.

For some of the charts we have omitted some less important single threaded results in order to save time as those results are of little interest when reviewing a quad core processor.