INTRODUCTION

This is a question often asked by many a PC enthusiast or someone simply looking for a nice upgrade to their family PC.  Well, hopefully i can help to clear things up in this article.

Intel have been recently dominating the market with their latest processors.  They offer a simply astounding price/performance ratio and as such AMD are struggling to find their bearings to even begin to compete with them.  I remember back when we were all on single core processors chugging along nicely.  We hear the latest news about Dual cores and suddenly it becomes mainstream.  This didn’t happen overnight though.  At first, there was a lot of controversy over driver conflictions within the 32/64 bit architecture.  Compatibility within windows and also within games.  Slowly but surely the dual core took over and now the majority of people have at the very least a dual core processor.

At that point AMD really had the crown with their Flagship FX-60 dual core CPU which crushed the Intel equivalent.  Intel were not simply going to lie down and take the hit though, oh no.  They brought out a new family of processors known as the “Core 2″ range.  These processors offered excellent value for money while still maintaining performance.  The new chips were codenamed “Conroe” and used a 65nm process technology.  They were first introduced around September of 2006.  The most popular choice out of these processors was the Core 2 Duo E6600 – 2.40 GHz (4 MB L2, 1066 MHz FSB).  It offered a higher L2 cache than AMD could muster, a new socket type with LGA775.  Being made on a smaller process (65nm) allowed them to require less power, run cooler and ultimately overclock seriously well while still offering excellent value for money.  Intel realized their golden opportunity and slapped two of these Core 2 chips together and thus Quad core was born.These new Quad cores were to totally revolutionize the industry as we knew it.  Codenamed “Kentsfield” the new quads made their debut around the new year of 2007.

Again the most popular chip from this series was of course the famous Core 2 Quad Q6600 – 2.40 GHz (2×4 MB L2, 1066 MHz FSB).  This chip was relatively inexpensive, and running on the 65nm process allowed it to be overclocked heavily.  Many users achieved a stable 3.2GHz clock with air cooling alone.  Enthusiasts with water cooling were able to run these chips as far as 3.8GHz and maybe a little higher in some cases.  All the while AMD still unable to produce anything to counter attack this onslaught from Intel.

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