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Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor

For Gaming Computers

Extreme Power. Extreme Enjoyment.

It’s time to seriously upgrade your gaming arsenal. With four super-fast cores, the Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor delivers unrivalled performance to create 3D realism and enhanced gaming response.‡ If you perform creative tasks such as video encoding, graphic design and sound engineering, it’s the ultimate processor to power through those computer-intensive programs - without slowing down.

Learn More About Gaming with Intel® Core™2 Extreme

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Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor
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Key Features

Processor
Almost too real
Get stunning realism on immersive multi-threaded games with advanced artificial intelligence (AI), particle systems, dynamic physics and texture- generation engines, with four cores of pure performance.
Expect everything – and get everything
Get the ultimate engine for advanced multimedia with Intel® HD Boost (Intel® HDB) built into the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor. It delivers up to 40 percent higher performance for intensive multimedia applications like HD video encoding.‡
Take control
With overspeed protection removed, you can tune your system for maximum performance to go where no gamer has gone before.Δ
Get it done fast
Maximise your system performance with the latest in cutting-edge processor technologies.

Processor Rating

Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor

Learn what the star rating tells you about this processor

Is faster always better? Yes, but that doesn't always mean you should buy it.

So, as you evaluate the performance of the components below, don’t analyse each component in isolation, but see them as interdependent partners in your proposed system. Bear in mind that your future needs (such as adding software for a growing family or business) may change.

Roll over the words below to reveal their definitions. These will help to explain how different components can work together in your system.



Processor Family
Processor Family
Processor
Number
Processor Number
What is this? 		Cores
Cores
What is this? 		Clock Speed
Clock Speed
What is this? 		Front Side Bus (MHz)
Front Side Bus
What is this? 		L2 Cache
L2 Cache
What is this? 		Silicon Technology
Silicon Technology
What is this?
Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor
QX9770 4 3.20 1600 12 MB 45nm
QX9650 4 3.00 1333 12MB 45nm
QX6850 4 3.00 1333 8 MB 65nm
QX6800 4 2.93 1066 8 MB 65nm
QX6700 4 2.66 1066 8 MB 65nm
QX6800 2 2.93 1066 4 MB 65nm

Intel processor numbers are not a measure of performance. Processor numbers differentiate features within each processor family, not across different processor families. See www.intel.com/products/processor_number for details.

Processor Number

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Processor models vary according to cache size, clock speed and RAM speed. If you run computer-intensive programs, the more L2 Cache you have the better. If, however, you use your PC for gaming, streaming video or watching movies, the size of your L2 Cache is not as significant as having a speedy Front Side Bus and increased Clock Speed. That said, every year, software developers design programs and applications that demand more and more of all three of these elements. So, our advice is to think about tomorrow’s needs as well as today's. Still don’t know how much to err on the side of caution? Choose the best processor you can afford. No matter what, you’re bound to be impressed.

Here is some guidance to consider when looking at our laptop processors:

Intel® Core™2 Extreme mobile processor:
X9000 series: For ultimate mobile gaming and/or media performance

Intel® Centrino® processor technology:
T9000/T8000 series: Great for visually intense gaming and/or high definition media
T7000/ T5000 series: Create and store your photos, videos and music

Intel® Pentium® dual-core processor:
T2000 series: Aptly handles a variety of simple computing tasks simultaneously

Intel® Celeron® dual-core processor:
T1000 series: For when you want to run a few basic tasks simultaneously

Intel® Celeron® processor:
500 series: For when you just need the basics

Extend your hand and place four marbles in the palm. That's the gist of quad-core. It’s that simple.

Quad-core technology is a single processor chip (your hand), including four processor cores (the four marbles) or rather four simultaneously hard working brains. And just like those marbles, each core can work either separately, or together on one large task.

Software developers chop up their code (known as threading) and run each piece concurrently through whatever processor core happens to be most available. Increasingly, software developers rely on Intel® quad-core and dual-core technology so their multithreaded program can do more things simultaneously producing faster, more efficient results for you.

Tip: for exceptional multitasking, look for Intel® dual-core processors. If you’re a mega-multitasker, gaming elitist, or multimedia maven, look for Intel quad-core processors.

The simplest way to understand clock speed is to imagine a stopwatch measuring laps. Question is, where is the stopwatch? At an Olympic pool, a racetrack or your child's sports day?

Just like a stopwatch, a clock speed measures how fast a processor performs an activity. But which activity?

That’s up to you. How do you plan to use your computer? Will you video your child with your new HD camera? Then find a benchmark test that tells the clock speed of the processor running a media-intensive program. Do you love re-touching photos? Then look up how a processor was benchmarked running the photo software you like to use.

Tip: yes, you will find numbers. You will see rates in gigahertz (GHz), which means a billion cycles per second.

But numbers don’t tell the story. How you use your processor is what you want to find out. After all, you wouldn’t compare a lap time from your local swimming pool with a grand prix race, would you?

Imagine the RAM of your computer as one city, and the CPU as another. Between them is a wide road (the Front Side Bus). When you’re making calculations, developing graphics - anything you and your software demands - the Front Side Bus transfers data quickly to meet that demand.

Tip: whatever system you choose, make sure the components work together. For example, if you’re building a media computer, having a 1333 MHz front side bus that can handle HD video is wonderful - but make sure the CPU is adequate for the challenge.

Imagine arriving at your local shop and having all your favourite food fly off the shelves and fill the shopping trolley in minutes.

That’s L2 cache. It remembers the information you access most frequently in your computer so you can easily get to it without those annoying lags. (Just don’t expect it to remember documents you didn’t save.)

Tip: more L2 cache reduces bottlenecks and helps speed memory performance.

45nm – A nanometre is one-billionth of a metre. The processors we have on the market are just 45-billionths of a metre wide. To get an idea of the size of the technology: you could lay over 2000 of our transistor gates side-by-side and almost equal the diameter of a strand of human hair. The new Hafnium-infused Intel 45nm process allows transistors to be packed more densely than the 65nm process. With the use of hafnium oxide replacing silicon dioxide (in use since the 1960s) the new transistors leak less energy, produce less heat and switch faster.

Nearly doubling the density of our processors means extra performance, an up-to-50-percent larger L2 cache, and new levels of breakthrough energy-efficiency. Cool – in many ways.

The Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor QX9650 enables great performance on today's games, and provides extra compute engines to allow you to rock on multithreaded games.

 



The performance results shown represent overall processor performance of the new Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9650 compared with the Intel Core 2 Duo processor E6750 and normalized to Intel Core 2 Duo processor E4700.

The higher score demonstrates increased processor performance from the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9650 which allows for a more enhanced gaming experience.

Company of Heroes* is a real-time strategy game set in World War II.

Enemy Territory Quake Wars* is a multiplayer, team-based first-person shooter set in the futuristic Quake universe.

World in Conflict* is a real-time strategy video game.

Click here for more information on how these processors were configured for these tests.Σ Σ

+  Product and Performance Data

‡1 Performance based on select industry benchmarks, game titles, and multimedia creation applications. Actual performance may vary. See www.intel.com/performance/desktop/extreme/ for additional information.

‡2 Performance measured based on TMPGEncoder Xpress* 4.4 optimized for Intel® HD Boost, comparing Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor Qx9650 to the Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor Qx6850. Actual performance may vary. See www.intel.com/performance/desktop/extreme/index.htm for more information.

Δ Warning: Altering clock frequency and/or voltage may: (i) reduce system stability and useful life of the system, processor and other system components; (ii) cause the processor and other system components to fail; (iii) cause reductions in system performance; (iv) cause additional heat or other damage; and (v) affect system data integrity. Intel has not tested, and does not warranty, the operation of the processor beyond its specifications. Intel has not tested, and does not warranty, the operation of other system components beyond their industry standard specifications. Intel assumes no responsibility that the processor and other system components, including if used with altered clock frequencies and/or voltages, will be fit for any particular purpose.

Σ1 Calculation based upon using VirtualDub* 1.7.2 to reduce the size of a 66.2MB MPEG2 video file in 720X480 resolution at 5Mbps by using DivX* 6.7 to convert the video into DivX MPEG4 format for higher compression.

Σ2 Extrapolation of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom* testing where 200 photos (125 of which are 10MP photos and 75 of which are 6MP photos--all in jpeg format) are resized to 480X360 resolution and 160 pixels per inch to be optimized for viewing on a portable device or for uploading to Facebook*. The total size of all photos is about 830MB. Complete photos only.