Final Thoughts and Conclusion
So what have we learned from the QX6700? Well, one thing we have learned is that four cores are better than one when it comes to multi-tasking/productivity. In a professional environment, these chips could run circles around any other chip out there. There are computers using four and more cores out there today for machines that do serious multi-tasking. However, what’s the use of four processing cores when they are all, individually, weak? Never before have four processing cores this powerful been packaged, in any way, shape, or configuration- into a single consumer- or business-level computer. This is not to say that a QX6700-based computer is faster than the supercomputers you hear beating Chess grandmasters and cracking codes, etc. No way. The processing power of those supercomputers is many thousands of times that of the QX6700. Then again, you can’t play games on Blue Gene.

Speaking of gaming, it is clear from our tests that the QX6700 at stock speeds is slower than its predecessor. This would make sense, considering the QX6700 is clocked 266MHz lower than the X6800. However, when we overclocked the QX6700 to 2933MHz to bring it up to X6800 speed, it was still slower. We found out through alternate testing that this was probably the result of inferior memory performance due to deficiencies in the memory interface, and probably the communication between the two dies on the package. However, if you are like many gamers out there that like to do other things while gaming, then the QX6700 becomes slightly more appealing. If you are one of the select few that is an EXTREMELY HEAVY multi-tasker, and we mean running massively intensive applications and gaming at the same time while eating popcorn, then the QX6700 becomes ideal. Multi-tasking is the saving grace of the QX6700, no question about it. But what about those of us who don’t really multi-task that much?

Well, unfortunately, said people will have to wait until applications come out that can actually make use of four processing cores. This is not to say that there are not programs out there that already do this. Autodesk’s 3D Studio MAX 8 and 9 are capable of working with four processors; Adobe’s Photoshop CS2, Apple’s Quicktime Pro 7.1, and several media encoding applications are as well. However, we are only just starting to see a lot of mainstream applications, namely games, that make use of two processing cores, so the timeframe for four cores in games is largely uncertain. However, we have received information from Intel about several games that are slated for release soon or are just now coming out that make use of four cores. They include: Epic’s Unreal 3 Engine-based games, Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Remedy’s Alan Wake, THQ’s Supreme Commander, and last and certainly not least, Valve’s Half-Life 2: Episode 2. That’s right, HL2:EP2 will use a multi-threaded version of the Source engine that can use four processing cores. Assuming we have any idea what we’re talking about in terms of programming, it shouldn’t then be too hard to make all source games work with four cores. The performance benefits we might see here could be tremendous. In that list of games- there are quite a few that we were already looking forward to, and now hearing about their multithreaded-ness makes us extremely excited to give them a test.

So our final thoughts about the Core 2 Extreme QX6700? Well, it is irrefutably the most powerful consumer-level processor in existence. That much is certain. However, its use as the base for a gamer’s dream machine is something that depends on the gamer and what kind of things they do besides gaming. For someone like a professional graphic artist, animator, movie editor, the QX6700 could be an invaluable resource. For someone like a guy that likes to listen to music while gaming, it is more than likely a huge waste of money. Would we recommend it to everyone? Of course not. Would we recommend it to gamers with virtually unlimited budgets? Not necessarily. At this point it probably sounds like a broken record, but the only people that we can whole-heartedly recommend this processor to are those who do HEAVY MULTI-TASKING on their computers on a daily basis. Virtually everyone else, if they have the money of course, would be better off with an X6800, as its overall performance in gaming and single-threaded applications is in most cases superior to the QX6700. Does this mean the QX6700 will never be as good as the X6800 at gaming? Absolutely not, and we look forward to the day that it is. Because that will be nuts.