Late last year Intel unveiled the world’s first quad-core desktop processor, stealing a bit of thunder from the amazing Core 2 Duo range. For a whopping $999, the new Core 2 Extreme processor would become Intel's new flagship product.
Although the Core 2 Duo remained the best value choice for most desktop users, the technological achievement was nonetheless there as AMD had - and in a way still is - without a proper answer.
The new Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 processor we are testing today is the first Core 2 product to hit the magical 3.0GHz marker, and it is doing it not with two but rather four cores (dual 4MB L2 cache). Also new for the Core microarchitecture is a bumped up front side bus which has been taken to 333MHz QDR (Quad Data Rate – 1333MHz), whereas previous Core 2 processors all used a 1066MHz FSB.
View: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 review @ TechSpot
Although the Core 2 Duo remained the best value choice for most desktop users, the technological achievement was nonetheless there as AMD had - and in a way still is - without a proper answer.
The new Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 processor we are testing today is the first Core 2 product to hit the magical 3.0GHz marker, and it is doing it not with two but rather four cores (dual 4MB L2 cache). Also new for the Core microarchitecture is a bumped up front side bus which has been taken to 333MHz QDR (Quad Data Rate – 1333MHz), whereas previous Core 2 processors all used a 1066MHz FSB.
View: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 review @ TechSpot
Anyways, it launches on July 22nd, and also on that date the Core 2 Quad Q6600 drops to US$266... and I don't know about you but that's what I'm waiting for. I mean, yeah it's nice that there's gonna be a 3 GHz quad-core, but i'm more interested in a $266 quad-copre than a $999 quad-core. At those prices, I can buy three Q6600s for the same money I'd pay for just one QX6850! (3.7 of them, actually... nearly 3.
Ditto.
Oh yeah I know since its a QX I'll just OC my chip to 1333MHz FSB and have 3.0GHz and get the same performance -_-
Makes me wonder why they sell the QX6800 and QX6850 when any bright spark knows they are both the same chip as the QX6700 but run at a higher FSB in the 6850 and a higher multiplier in the 6800.
Removed - Radish™
Last edited by Radish™ on 16 Jul 2007 - 16:00
hopefully that'll start changing soon.
hopefully that'll start changing soon.
For games, it won't any time soon, except for a few exceptions. That is because of CONSOLITIS. Almost all games today are made with consoles as the baseline, rather than PCs. Consoles are holding back PC development, they don't have the CPU power that PCs have, and soon won't even have the graphics capability PCs are capable of. Consoles are killing PC gaming.
PC hardware vendors, like Nvidia especially, need to start promoting PC gaming. Microsoft obviously isn't helping with their self-serving, deceitful Games For Windows scheme and refusal to port DX10, it's making things WORSE. Microsoft is about as helpful to PC gaming as George Bush is to Iraq. It's almost as if MS is trying to kill of PC gaming they are doing so badly, but I know that's not their intention, they're just blatantly greedy and seem to be incapable of doing anything honestly that doesn't serve their evil world-dominating business strategy in one way or another.
Like I said, that leaves the hardware vendors. Nvidia is rolling in $$$, it's time they spend some of it to promote PC gaming, before PC gamers stop buying all those expensive Nvidia products and become console-playing retards.
hopefully that'll start changing soon.
For games, it won't any time soon, except for a few exceptions. That is because of CONSOLITIS. Almost all games today are made with consoles as the baseline, rather than PCs. Consoles are holding back PC development, they don't have the CPU power that PCs have, and soon won't even have the graphics capability PCs are capable of. Consoles are killing PC gaming.
PC hardware vendors, like Nvidia especially, need to start promoting PC gaming. Microsoft obviously isn't helping with their self-serving, deceitful Games For Windows scheme and refusal to port DX10, it's making things WORSE. Microsoft is about as helpful to PC gaming as George Bush is to Iraq. It's almost as if MS is trying to kill of PC gaming they are doing so badly, but I know that's not their intention, they're just blatantly greedy and seem to be incapable of doing anything honestly that doesn't serve their evil world-dominating business strategy in one way or another.
Like I said, that leaves the hardware vendors. Nvidia is rolling in $$$, it's time they spend some of it to promote PC gaming, before PC gamers stop buying all those expensive Nvidia products and become console-playing retards.
In other words, it has nothing to do with "consolitis". It's because the difficulty level is raised considerably to develop multiprocessor-aware games. A four-year product cycle suddenly becomes a six-year product cycle...cost goes thru the roof. I can only imagine the production costs for DNF...come November, it will officially have been in development for ten years.
Developing for multiple platforms also has its costs. And many console games are developed specifically with the console in mind. For example, you can't do multi-player games on a single PC with a 19" monitor, but four kids sitting in front of a 36" Wega...fun times. That's a huge market. Other games would do well for both console and PC, and there are some that are best played on a PC.
The death of the PC as a platform for gaming because of consoles has been predicted numerous times over the last decade. They've never been correct. DOS took a huge chunk of the gaming platform share away from multiple, competing consoles. DX5 was when game developers fully embraced Windows as a platform, DX8 made a lot of wishes come true, and DX9 made it all look so much better...game developers are now looking at DX10 with great anticipation. And MS is not "refusing to port" DX10...there were significant changes made to the display driver model that XP just is not compatible with. Any rumors you've heard that MS could do a port, or were considering doing a port, are just that...rumors. And those independent projects you've heard about? That ain't real DX10 running on XP, and for many people will cause more headaches than joy.
Last edited by Roger MS on 17 Jul 2007 - 23:19
Jason
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