Last week, we took a
look at the so-called "budget minded" Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 desktop
processor. Okay, it may be slapped with the 'budget' tag, but it certainly
isn't budget performance -- our benchmarks indicate that it performed on an
average of 2-5% better than the previous generation's midrange E6600 CPU, yet
retails for only roughly $140 -- not to mention that it overclocks very
decently. Today, we'll examine something on the other end of the spectrum --
the second fastest consumer desktop processor offered by Intel. So far, the
fastest as far as I'm concerned is the QX9770 on LGA775, but one down is
another 'Extreme' model with an unlocked multiplier -- and that's the Intel
Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor, with an impressive 12MB (2x6MB) L2 cache over
four cores operating at 3.0GHz stock. If you're looking for something that
spells 1337, pwn, omgwtfbbq, and whatever else you can describe it as, look no
further than the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650. Plus you can sit back and relax
to see how much it owns in the benchmarks. We won't waste anymore of your time. @ APH Networks @
