Under most circumstances it’d be quite appropriate to start off this review with statements on how Quad-Core CPUs really don’t matter to the mainstream at this time etc. etc. But under the guise of an Intel-driven multi-core marketplace, it’d be completely out of line. You see, the time for more than two cores on the desktop really is now – the must-have games coming out very soon take full advantage of more than two cores; and let’s face the music here, it’s those games that really make it a justifiable purchase.

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In our analysis of Intel’s Core2Duo we showed you how it is the definitive CPU to have right now– leaving all of its past Pentium brethren and current competitors in the wash of its wake. To underscore what that review proved – there is no other CPU we can recommend more right now than what Intel has out.

The ante is getting upped once again by the current market leader, Intel, with the release of its code-named “Kentsfield” Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Quad CPU. As the name implies this chip has four full cores, each operating at a clock speed of 2.66GHz, 8MB of L2 cache (4MB to each pair of cores) and run at a 1066MHz bus speed (266MHz Quad-pumped). Essentially what Intel has supplied the market with is – for all intent and purpose – a XEON CPU. The amount of cache and cores speaks of a server-class CPU of yesteryear.

To break things down a bit more, this chip is quite literally 2 E6700 Core 2 Duo chips thrown together in a single CPU package; however the power consumption is a bit lower than if you had two physical E6700 CPUs.

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