Since the beginning of computers, the primary aim was to make them smaller and more powerful, capable of dealing with multiple tasks at once. We now have a piece of hardware that can finally stand up to every demand. Please welcome the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.
History
Intel introduced its first processor, the Intel 4004, back in 1971. The numbers for that CPU are an outstanding clock speed of 740 KHz, being able to execute up to 92.000 word instruction/second. It could access 4 KB of memory and use 640 bytes of random access memory (RAM)--not quite a winner for today's demands, but surely a road opener.
Another important breakthrough was the introduction of the MMX instructions set that contained 67 instructions in January 1997 with the unveiling of the Pentium MMX chip. Since then, the only way for processor performance was up.
Evolution
The Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 is the first quad core chip for the masses--the first one was the QX6700. The Extreme Edition of the Q6600, which also came with an "extreme" price making it pretty much unreachable. It was released in January 2007, not long after the release of the very powerful Core 2 family, but tests pointed out the Q6600 to be much faster than its predecessors.
Technology
Coming with a clock speed of 2.4 GHz, 1066 MHz bus speed and 8 Mb level 2 cache, the Q6600 is lightning fast. Built on Intel's 65 nanometer technologies, the Q6600 counts 582 million transistors and uses the LGA775 socket.
Hyper Threading Vs. Multi-Core
What's the benefit of multiple cores over hyper threading? If you think of it logically, you'll figure out that a processor that manages tasks in an efficient way but only has one core will always be slower than a processor with multiple cores and which can deal with multiple tasks at the same time. And here we're talking about a quad core CPU.
Advantages Aand Disadvantages
Since it's a quad core CPU, the increased speed and ability to handle multiple tasks at once represents a major plus for it. However, a pretty big minus appears when it comes to its price, which at the point of its release ranged from $550 to $1,000, not quite the cheapest choice.
Tags: Core Quad, Core Quad Q6600, Intel Core, Intel Core Quad, multiple tasks