Quad Pro Quo...
With the recent price cuts from Intel they've also released a new member of the 45mn family of Core 2 Quad processors. The Q9300 "Yorkfield" processor comes in at 2.5 Ghz using a 1333 Mhz front side bus.
It seems to be an obvious successor to the 65nm 2.4 Ghz Q6600 overclockers have been tweaking for the past few months.
With the Q9300, you'll enjoy a faster front side bus, lower operating temperatures (thanks to the 45nm manufacturing process), and new SSE4.1 instruction sets. However being the baby of the Penryn family means there will be some drawbacks. For instance, the L2 cache has been halved (6MB vs 12MB of higher end quad core CPUs). However, early tests show that the smaller L2 cache still doesn't hold the Q9300 back from beating it's predecessor.
As prices drop, overclockers will be drawn to the Q9300's performance and features, but they need to be wary. With a low multiplier (7.5), a solid overclocking motherboard will be required to reach a high FSB. Cooling is a whole other issue too, even with the Q9300's lower thermal design power (TDP) rating of 95w, cooling 4 cores is still nothing to sneeze at, and superior cooling will also need to be an investment. Whether or not the Q9300 will attain the popularity of the Q6600 remains to be seen, but on paper, it has all the ingredients of a winner.
--Ken H.
J. Jones on April 25, 2008 at 10:43 PM
You write "As prices drop, overclockers will be drawn to the Q9300's performance and features, but they need to be weary."
Will users need to be "weary" or "wary"? Most likely the second.
Ken on April 25, 2008 at 11:18 PM
Doh! Thanks, guess it was I that was "weary." Apparently, there's not enough coffee in the world on a Friday afternoon to keep my typos away. Worst, are the ones the spell check can't catch.
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