Home | Forums | Article Search | Subscribe & Shop | Contact Us | Log Out Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 Email This Print This View My Personal Library Heavy Gear September 2007 • Vol.7 Issue 9 Page(s) 28 in print issue Add To My Personal Library Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 Core 2 Extreme QX6850 $999 Intel www.intel.com CPU Rating: 4.5 Specs: Socket LGA 775; 3GHz clock speed; 8MB L2 cache; TPD: 130W Back in November of last year, Intel launched the era of the quad-core but left enthusiasts in the lurch with a processor (the QX6700) clocked lower than its dual-core counterpart. A few months later, Intel heeded their call and offered the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6800, which was clocked at a more respectable 2.93GHz. This time around, Intel is out to add the 1,333MHz system bus to its top-shelf enthusiast chip. The socket LGA 775 QX6850 puts the extra CPU-to-northbridge bandwidth to good use with its slightly improved 3GHz clock speed, achieved with a 9X multiplier and a 333MHz default FSB. Like the previous iteration, the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 enjoys the benefits of Intel’s 65nm manufacturing process and operates at an unchanged 130W TDP (thermal design power). Under the chip’s IHS (integrated heat spreader) the QX6850 is little more than two Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor cores, each with 4MB of L2 cache. Other features carried over from the QX6800 include the power-saving Enhanced SpeedStep technology and malware-thwarting Execute Disable Bit. For our benchmarks, we used the Asus P5B Deluxe, flashed the BIOS to the latest version available at press time (version 1101), and loaded a fresh copy of Windows Vista. We used a 1kW Thermaltake Toughpower PSU, 150GB 10,000rpm Western Digital Raptor, 2GB of Corsair Dominator 1,066MHz DDR2 memory, and Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 Ultra for our graphics card. We also used the stock cooler throughout testing. At the default settings the QX6850 posted 9557 in PCMark05's CPU test and 4099 in 3DMark06's CPU test. (Overall scores for PCMark05 and 3DMark06 were 9587 and 12837, respectively.) In at least one test, the QX6850 can even trump a professional-grade workstation. Our WinRAR compression test scores were close to a minute faster than those of the 8-core Intel Xeon X5365 and S5000XVNSAS media creation system running Windows XP. (See page 31 in the July 2007 issue.) And that’s at the processor’s default settings. We kicked off our overclocking by bumping the multiplier to 10 and upping the VCore to 1.35V, giving us a clock speed of 3.33GHz. Upon restart, our system was stable and posted a 13117 in 3DMark06. On the second try, we changed the multiplier to 11 (for a clock speed of 3.67GHz) and increased the VCore to 1.5V. The system booted, but posted a lower overall 3DMark06 score than at default settings. We tried adjusting the VCore voltages to 1.6V, but the system produced terrible scores. To maintain our clock speed, we eased the multiplier back to 10 and upped the FSB to 367MHz. Again, our system posted weaker than expected scores. When we backed off to 3.5GHz (350MHz FSB and 10X multiplier), we started getting temperature alarms during the POST. According to the P5B’s CPU sensor, the QX6850 was running at 97 degrees Celsius. We tried a variety of different multiplier and FSB settings, but our scores topped out with a 10X multiplier and 343MHz FSB (3.43GHz). Our overclocked QX6850 managed 10924 in PCMark05’s CPU test, 1367 points better than at default settings. We also experienced a 439-point bump in 3DMark06’s CPU score. There’s no question that Intel’s newest quad-core enthusiast processor performs well. But with a more capable CPU cooler, we expect those temperature alarms would not have been such a barrier. Then again, if you’re spending a grand on a processor, you can probably afford the $50 to $75 it will cost to get a better heatsink. by Andrew Leibman Intel Core 2 Extreme X6850 Stock Overclocked (3.43GHz) PCMark05 Overall 9587 10535 CPU 9557 10924 Memory 5636 6065 Graphics 13383 14129 HDD 5712 6598 3DMark06 Overall 12837 13146 SM 2.0 5352 5404 HDR/SM 3.0 5397 5415 CPU 4099 4538 SiSoft Sandra Lite XI SP2 Processor Arithmetic Dhrystone ALU 54,960Mips 63,092Mips Whetstone iSSE3 38,574MFlops 44,097MFlops Processor Multimedia Integer x8 iSSSE3 327,650itps 378,986itps Floating-point x4 iSSE2 179,246itps 203,589itps Memory Bandwidth Integer Buffered iSSE2 4,801MBps 4,901MBps Floating-Point Buffered iSSE2 4,806MBps 4,902MBps WinRAR 3.62 2:46* 2:35* WinRAR 3.70 beta 8 2:45* 2:32* POV-Ray 3.7 Beta20a 1912.82pps** 2173.88pps** Dr. DivX 3:42* 3.18* Cinebench 9.5 Single-threaded :44* :39* Multithreaded :14* :12* *minutes:seconds **pixels per second Specs: Socket LGA 775; 3GHz clock speed; 8MB L2 cache; TPD: 130W  User Reviews Be the first to write a review of this product Want more information about a topic you found of interest while reading this article? 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