To bad the only thing that will benefit from this CPU is intels bank account.

Who needs more than 640K -- or four cores for that matter? ;-)

Yes, Intel is making it *really hard* to remain an AMD fanboy. Yet, I know if I buy this now, it just means when Intel will screw me down the road when there is no more AMD.

Sweet. My old Dell Dimension XPS 2nd Gen just crapped out on me. I was going to go with a $224 core 2 duo, but now I'll just upgrade to that core 2 quad for $266. I win. Thanks intel, even though you'll probably release an OCTO-core processor next week and make my new build obsolete.

when's this gonna get into the iphone?

oh wait, that's so 2 weeks ago!

but the real question is: is Intel Transmeta-ing AMD?

To "MJDEVIANT", there is no $266 quad core. The E6850 is dual core. The quad core is $999.

Cheaper? I could have sworn they already had quad-cores for $1000...

AMD will come back.

Uh ... MARKB, MJDEVIENT is right - Quad sweetness for $266 on July 22. This is from the Anadtech article:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz 1066 4MBx2 Now $266

Holy cow! The 6800 (2.93 GHz Dual Core, but in Extreme Edition form) was over $900 last week...and now a *better* processor (the E6850, with faster FSB and 3.0GHz) is $266?!?? Granted, it won't have the "unlocked multipliers" for easier overclocking...but sweet jesus! That's nice.

the quad-core 2.93 GHz extreme edition was about $1300 on NewEgg last week...and its "replacement" at 3.0GHz is now $999 -- also very nice, but still way too rich for anybody I know.

$400 difference from the old Extreme compared to the new one.
And why would you buy a 3ghz extreme when you can get almost the same from a intel core 2 duo with the same GHZ for $733 less.
I mean i love Core 2 Extreme processors but dam.
If i was making a comptuer i would buy the intel core 2 duo and just buy a better graphics card. cause with $733 you could get a big difference in your graphics card or w/e you're lacking

This could be good news, but we've yet to see software companies take full advantage of multi-core processors. More importantly, third-party developers have to re-think the way they create software to work in scalable multi-core environments (example: PS3, although touted for having one of the world's fastest 9-core CPUs, has games that look no more impressive than consoles using single or dual core systems, since programmers can't figure out the programming structure needed to take advantage of the entire CPU).

I'm a pretty difficult guy to impress, as most things seem lacking in some way or another no matter how new they are. I think multi-core computers can play a big part in a more centralized environment. For instance, what if Windows Media Center could evolve into Windows Home Center, controlling all your media, home automation, communications, shared software, etc. If you shove enough cores into a home's central computer, it can send multiple HD streams (5+ TVs), record multiple HD channels (3 or 4, for example), and stream everything to other PCs or extenders without skipping a beat. If an OS can efficiently assign cores to different tasks, you could have a central computer and add clients (simple PCs) that can access that media or programs stored on a central system. Better still, they should develop some kind of grid computing to pool all the processors in your network to handle big tasks (like converting an HD video in seconds instead of hours, gasp). If only it wasn't a pipe dream :)

@WINDHAWK - I agree, I used to be a fan of AMD. Until they screwed me over with the 939 platform.

bitches.

Hmmm, reminds me of the Pentium II/III K6 processor lag before the release of the Athlon.

What sort of missle command center would you be running, to actually need something this powerful in a PC?

@John

Why? Because we need something to take care of those smug apple fanboys...

Uh, Apple fanboys use the same procs.

no, they dont. they use whatever hardware apple says they can. it will probably be 4 months before apple gets these into their computers, by then intel will have newer and better chips out. pc and linux users can take advantage of these right now.

Nice to see that Intel can glue two dual-core processors together calling it Quasi-Core and impress some of you out there. I'll wait for AMD's actual 4 core processors late this quarter. With their 2,000 Mghz front side bus hypertransport set-up why the heck would I want an Intel that caps out at little over 1,300?? It doesn't matter how many cores you put into an Intel. The communcation bottlenecks at the bus and screws everything. Just look at all the big shots that are switching to AMD based servers because Intel is too slow for data recovery and simple things like email servers. The only thing that Intel does better than AMD is marketing.