New Desktop Multi-Core CPUs

At the same time Intel launched its new high-end "Extreme Edition" CPUs for laptops and other mobile solutions, the company also introduced a handful of desktop based chips, all quad-core, to compete with AMD's upcoming Barcelona quad-core processor. Top of the line is the $999 priced Core 2 Duo Extreme QX6850, a 3GHz chip featuring the new 1333MHz frontside bus specific only to Intel processors for now.

A number of three dual-core, slower and cheaper processors also use the 1333MHz bus. They run at 3GHz (Core 2 Duo E6850, priced at $266), 2.66GHz (Core 2 Duo E6750, priced at $183) and 2.33GHz (Core 2 Duo E6650, priced at $163). These are not brand new chips, as their internal architecture is quite old. They are upgraded versions of Intel desktop processors already available on the market. What is truly new is the Core 2 Quad chip featuring a slower 1066MHz frontside bus. It is named Q6700 and will run at 2.66GHz (a kind of standard speed for Intel's quad core designs) and will cost about $530.

Beyond the massive increase in frontside bus speed, nothing has changed in the internal workings of the QX6850, other than the fact that Core 2 Extreme QX6850 is now based on the quad-core Conroe architecture. Even the Thermal Design Power is unchanged. Core 2 Extreme QX6850 will require a motherboard and chipset able to support the new 1333MHz frontside bus. Motherboards with such high FSB are based on Intel's P3x and G3x chipsets or on Nvidia's nForce 6.

These processors should tip the performance scale in Intel's favor, even more so since the company released its new P35 "Bearlake" chipset and has plans to move soon to the even more powerful X38. These new chipsets are the ones which make possible frontside bus speeds of 1333MHz and support for the incoming DDR3 memory modules. A wider bandwidth PCI Express version 2.0 is also supported for the latest graphics cards by the X38 chipset.