Hardware Intel Core 2 refresh: QX6850, E6850 & E6750

Do you come in a polite mode, or do you always feel entitled to point out the obvious with such unwarranted attitude? Yeesh. Employ a little courtesy and ask for clarification before deciding a statement is rubbish, would ya? It goes a long way.

As for the SupCom benefits, it's like 5% overall...hardly anything to write home about. But that's neither here nor there.

 

are there any figures for crysis performance gains over dual core?

 

I don't have a build of the game yet, but from what I've heard everything points to the engine running on at least three cores (one is dedicated to physics).

HL2: Episode Two was a game that I forgot to mention, and I believe there are "quad-core optimisations" in World in Conflict. While playing the beta, it's certainly felt "smoother" on quad-core but I'm not sure how measurable that is going to be - I'll see what I can do on that front.

 

Thanks for the clarification. I'll keep an eye on pricing, because short of the pricing actually hitting 160, there's little point comparing it to the E6850.

 

I was literally about to buy an AMD system but the morning before I ordered all my stuff I saw the news of the price cuts, and decided to wait for the reviews. Now I'm getting an Intel system. I wonder if AMD is going to be able to compete.

 

The question on the minds of all of us here in the offices!

Although general concencus is that Intel can't afford not to have their competition in the marketplace. Being best is no good when there's no-one to be beat but yourself!

 

Kick and ban, you mods are too tolerant.

OT: The Q6600 is a great price for those who can use it, but face it, the E6750 takes the cake for general-to-advanced use at a great price/performance ratio. The same price as the E6300 after it got a price slash? Oh, baby. Now they need to shift these old >$160 CPUs to the <$130 range and "domino" the Pentiums to the $60 range. (I like dirt cheap hardware)

 

Q6700 cpu using a Multiplier no higher than 9? If the Q6700 cpu is only a partly locked QX6700 cpu then the Q6700 cpu has a multiplier of 10, Not 9 as the Q6600 cpu has a multiplier of 9 already.

 

Greetings all. Love the site, really helpful information here. And I am really surprised at how the crew here interacts with members. Thats awesome!

Anyhow. I've been reading my fool head off recently about CPU's, Mobo's, RAM, and other misc comp hardware.

My question is more related to the effincy of a quad over a dual in the FSB, is having a dual 1333 over a quad 1066 going to impact the system performace that greatly? Granted you litterally double your computing power on the quads, but is that going to effect it overall to the faster 1333 fsb? What would suffer?

This system I am putting together is going to be my game baby for awile, and I want it to be good.

Thanks, going to post more. This sites great!

 

First of all, I would like to commend the author on a quality article. It is unique in that no other hw review site (that I am aware of) has gone as in-depth as bit-tech in covering TXT. I also believe that the appropriate approach was used in explaining and describing it - straight from Intel. I am personally very much against this initiative, and so I do have some additional suggestions/comments. While Trusted Computing's application for DRM was briefly mentioned, there are many other dangers from such a system.

As a prerequisite for any discussion on trusted computing, it helps to redefine our everyday meaning of trust. In this sense, a "trusted" computer is "a computer that behaves in an expected manner for a particular purpose." Richard Stallman calls it treacherous computing, but I prefer to think of it as controlled computing. The difference is that trust is a mutual realtionship, whereas control is not. You just have to ask yourself one question: Who is doing the controlling? This video does an excellent job of illustrating that fact.

Inside of a TPM, there is a unique, immutable endorsement key which harkens back to Intel's Processor ID from the Pentium 3 era. This allows a computer to be recognized remotely online. This can be used in a beneficial way for when you want to log into your bank account, e-mail account, online game, etc. It can also be used for DRM in lieu of Windows Media Player's globally unique ID number, or the machine ID's for Itunes, or for adware/spyware tracking user's browsing (pr0n) habits.

As this article mentioned, Trusted Computing can also be used to control which programs/files can be run/accessed/played at boot or inside the OS. There is a HUGE potential for not only vendor lock-in, but also the eradication of open source software. A computer with this type of a system would "measure" a file and match it with a list of certificates stored in the TPM, another storage device, or a remote party like Verisign before running it. The problems for open source software is that these certificates cost money. Free and Open Source Software would no longer be free. This also has implications for DRM. The MAFIAA, for example would not only be able to identify YOU (through your unique and immutable endorsement key) as the person trying to access their "content," but they will also receive your PCR's (Platform Configuration Registers, these describe your computer hardware and software configuration) so that they can determine what programs you are running (better have a licensed and uncompromised media player/operating system), and what hardware you are using (this way they know if your video card REALLY supports HDCP/PVP.)

Well, anyways, I'll take a break there. As you can tell, I am not a fan of the stuff. There are some good technologies in there, but they are implemented in a way that only makes sense for a DRM/global identification system. I'd really like to hear what all of you think about this. If you are interested and would like to learn more, I would suggest Ross Anderson's FAQ as a very comprehensive (if slightly outdated) reference.

 

Most motherboards, ram and these Intel processors (love) can handle higher FSB, a Q6600 should be able to handle 1333mhz FSB easy, and with great cooling and abit of know how you can go to silly speeds with lots of these C2D and quads. If its going to be a gaming system for a while you will want quad, as as the article says more and more games will be coming out in future that will take advantage of it (Crysis, Alan Wake etc )

 

So just to clarify:

I buy a Q6600 for 160 quid.

As long as I can overclock it to 3.0Ghz (meaning a 333Mhz, quad pumped to 1333Mhz FSB, and a multiplier of 9) I have, for all intents and purposes a QX6850 worth 600 quid!

Wow, things haven't been this good since the good ol' days of the opty 165!

I heard the 680i boards suck a bit when it comes to quad cores, any truth in that? I'm thinking of getting an EVGA reference board cos I need SLi.

 

Did you ever do anything with the Phyxs card and the valve particle whatsit? if not, i may be interesting to see if the card with a slower processor did better than just a higher end processor.

Also, would these new 1333MHz FSB processors work in a motherboard which only supports 1066MHz? This may be a stupid question, but i was wondering if they were backwards compatible? I have an Asus NF4 MB that i don't want to get rid of...

 

I will be looking at the prices next week to see what the Q6600 and E6750 will be doing.

I am hoping the Q6600 drops alot so I can get one as I can overclock to 3GHz in Air with no problems (Thats enough for my needs), and I am ready for the quad core software that will be coming in the future. If not, then its an E6550 or E6750.

Fingers crossed for a good price in the UK.

 

PhysX doesn't work in the Valve Particle Simulation, as it's all done using a modified version of the Havok physics engine (I think).

Potentially yes, because they're essentially the same as the older Conroe chips. However, it's unlikely to run "properly": you might have to press F1 every time you boot.

 

Will we see the price drops immediately in online stores (on the 22nd) , or are they going to screw us for a while?

 

LOL, I have to do that anyway

 

I'd hope it was the former... AFAIK the retailers get price protection so when Intel drops prices, they can too.

 

Welcome! Interact? I live here

More FSB is always better, regardless. But the extra FSB will have a greater effect on the quad though, as they all fight for memory access. Quantifying that is hard depending on the need for memory access by any number of cores. In 15 odd months when Nehalem hits I think Intel will again wipe the floor as the memory access will be so much more low latency.

 

Exactly - maybe I've been around for too long, but I'll believe this 160 quid wonder when I see it. Until then, it's all hot air.