The Core 2 Extreme QX9650

The Core 2 Extreme QX9650

The latest high-end processor from Intel is the Core 2 Extreme QX9650. It is a quad-core chip running at 3 GHz produced on a 45 nanometer assembly line. It has a total of 12 megabytes of cache on the chip. Here is a complete review, including a summary of the 45 nm production process:

Penryn Arrives: Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Review

In this article they were able to boost the memory speed to 1600 MHz and overclock the chip to 3.6 GHz (a 20% increase) without any trouble, which bodes well for the speed of future chips.

Here are two other announcements:
- Intel’s 45nm Penryn/Yorkfield architecture packs serious punch- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650
- Penryn Ticks Ahead

The Anandtech article talks about the future: “The other important item to note on the roadmap going forward is that top line in the table - yep, the one that says Bloomfield. Bloomfield is none other than Nehalem, the 45nm successor to Penryn. It’s a brand new architecture complete with an on-die memory controller, SMT (Symmetric Multi-Threading - 2 threads per core) and 8MB of shared cache (probably L3 shared among all four cores). While it’s still a year away, it’s very nice to see it on an Intel roadmap this far in advance of its launch.” That chip will probably crack the billion transistor barrier.

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