Intel Core™2 Quad Q6600, 2.40 GHz 6600 (BX80562Q6600) Boxed Processor

Many people extol the virtues of this processor for overclocking. And yes, the potential is great, so long as you accept the need for adequate cooling and the likelihood of increased noise as a result. But what of those of us who seek silence?

I installed this processor in a PC used mainly as a home music studio, with some exceptionally resource-hungry software. I do not overclock, as I do not wish fan noise to contribute to my recordings, but I do use a decent cooler - Arctic Freezer 7 Pro. The result? Little short of amazing!

2.4GHz may sound like a drop from my previous 3.2GHz Pentium D - and I have to say the Pentium D had itself been a dramatic improvement on the 3.2GHz Pentium 4 I used before. But the Q6600 is in a league of its own by comparison. In computer down-time, I run Distributed Computing projects (via the 'BOINC' platform) and this gives the opportunity to benchmark the individual cores. The Q6600, without any overclocking, benchmarks at about 1.5 times faster (per core) than the Pentium D - Intel's replacement to 'Netburst' technology is just that much more efficient.

A note of caution - not all software is set up to benefit from quad core technology as yet (though you can be sure any background processes will not interfere with your work). If you work with higher spec music or graphics software (and I'm sure there are more categories too) you will get the full benefit. In any event, this is a really fast CPU - energy efficient if you go for the G0 stepping - and now available remarkably cheaply too.

And it's good for a 5.9 on the 'Windows (Vista) Experience Index'.

Highly recommended!

PS: It might not be the very latest design – but bear in mind, not all Intel’s newer processors are necessarily ‘better’ – they have now broadened their range, and whilst the sky seems to be the limit for the high-end models, the budget offerings (with lower L2 caches etc) are very unlikely to out-perform this old-stager.