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LOSTCIRCUITS	SHORTCUTS: SMP and the New Intel Kentsfield Key Features Power Management and Cache Questions Test Setup, Benchmark Overview Power Consumption Memory System 3D Rendering: TrueSpace POV-Ray 3.7 Cinebench 2003 DVD Shrink, Dr DivX & Mainconcept H.264 Futuremarks FarCry, DOOM3 F.E.A.R. Prey, Call of Duty2 Final Thoughts Give Us Some Feedback on this Review
Intel's Core 2 Quad Extreme Edition QX6700 Codename "Kentsfield"
(Review by MS, November 1, 2006)

Summary

Today Intel is releasing its latest Extreme Edition CPU, model number QX6700, that signifies the first step into a new era of computing by bringing four processor cores in a single die to the affordable desktop computing market segment. Needless to say that the "affordable" part is to be taken with a certain grain of salt, a msrp of US$ 999.- is just above that - but maybe not. Intelligent Die Pairing, Smart Memory Access and Fast Memory Access, Cache Sharing and Selective Clock Gating are part of the new lingo that every geek better might absorb today rather than tomorrow. But geeks are geeks and mere mortals are interested more in what is behind the buzz words, namely how well the Kentsfield really performs.

From isolated power measurements to cache access and from Dr. DivX to Mainconcept, not to mention all kinds of 3D Rendering programs and games, we have a plethora of benchmarks to compare the new Intel flagship with mother's finest from both Intel and AMD. In a nutshell, it is wicked fast.

Symmetric Multiprocessing

Symmetric multiprocessing or the technology of running several "identical" processors in one system has been the privilege of a few for the longest time. Starting with the implementation of virtual processors in the form of HyperThreading, the consumer space has gotten used to having multiple processors sharing the different workloads as long as they consisted of different processes or applications or at least threads within the same application. While virtual processors still paved the road to the software environment consisting of an operating system capable of handling more than a single CPU and likewise initiating the proliferation of multithreaded software, they were still virtual in nature, meaning that they essentially took advantage of very badly written software in dire need of faster access to the individual threads.

Suffice it to say that in a perfect software world or even an imperfect one, virtual processors as implemented in Intel's HyperThreading technology might have shown a minor advantage, or maybe even a disadvantage by causing conflicts as it became somewhat obvious in some composite benchmarks like, for example, certain iterations of WinStone. However, there couldn't be any doubt that a true symmetric multiprocessor system still got the better of any HyperThreading whenever the software was truly multithreaded and the performance scaled with the number of processing units rather than the parallelism in the feeder pipes.

The 8M marking designates the L2 cache size and by extension a quad-core CPU

Multicore Dies

Rumor has it that AMD really deserves the credit for pushing multicore integration on a single die, however, technically, Intel beat the Texan horse by releasing the 800D series before AMD had any offering in the market. However, the 800 series and subsequent 900 series a.k.a. Presler carried over the legacy of Intel's Netburst architecture centered on frequency and characterized by inefficient pipelines and, more importantly by a sheer insatiable hunger for power. Not even the combination of HyperThreading with dual cores for a total of four virtual cores could overcome the problems that were exacerbated by leakage currents in the order of more than 50% of the total power consumption. Bottom line here is that all in all, no matter how enhanced Intel's SpeedStep architecture became, the design was a temporary band aid to keep the Men In Blue in the spotlight - even if it was hidden behind the floodlights of Powerball.

(BX80557E6300)

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