Gizmodo: core 2 quad

Forty Years Of Intel: Interactive Timeline

Matt Hickey — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:30:00 EDT

This week marks the 40th anniversary of Intel, the people who likely made the CPU in your computer. To mark the occasion, the people at PC Magazine have put together a pretty comprehensive timeline showing every major generation of Intel processor from the first one to the current Core 2 Quad and Atom series processors. We've all used them at some point in our lives, and I remember my first Intel processor was a Pentium II running at a blazing 233MHz. I loved that laptop. What was your first Intel processor? Or which was your favorite? [PC Mag]

Intel Launching Cheap Quad Core Processors to Battle Budget AMD Triple Cores

matt buchanan — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:10:00 EDT

Digitimes is reporting that Intel is about to pop a series of cheap quad core processors (Q8000) to slap back at AMD's budget triple core offerings. The first will be the Core 2 Quad 8200, which'll run at 2.33GHz with a 4MB L2 cache, supporting a front-side bus of up to 1333MHz for around $200. Difference between these and standard Q9000 series is that these don't support Intel's Trusted Execution or Virtualization Technology.

These seem kinda redundant, since you can pick up a Core 2 Quad 6600 for that much (or the newer 45nm Q9300 for not a whole lot more), both of which trounced AMD's fastest quad core in benchmarks. And AMD's triple cores ain't exactly anything to sing about to begin with. [DigiTimes via Tech Report]

AMD Quad-Core Phenom X4 9850 Reviewed (Verdict: Owned by Intel Quad Cores)

matt buchanan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:57:39 EDT

The Phenom X4 9850 is at the top of AMD's latest heap of quad-core Phenoms. It's free of the performance-sapping bug that plagued the first batch of Phenoms, and AMD hopes it'll claw back some ground from Intel. Maximum PC stacked it up against two quad-cores from Intel—the mid-rangeish Penryn Core 2 Quad Q9300, as well as an older Core 2 Q6600. Ouchies for AMD, the Intel pair blew past it.

The Penryn-based Q9300 "owned the night," with the Q6600 trailing, and Phenom in back of both. It wasn't "so far behind as to be dead in the water" but "it doesn't quite go head-to-head with the Penryn lite." (They call the Q9300 Penryn-lite because it has half the cache of the higher-end Penryn quad-cores.)

The 9850 X4 is the fastest AM2 chip around, however, so if you're sticking with that board "it's a pretty good upgrade." The bigger problem is that AMD still has nothing to touch Intel's top quad cores, and won't for months, at least. [Maximum PC]

Intel Delays 45nm Quad-Core CPUs to Give AMD a Breather

matt buchanan — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:45:35 EST

Rather than continue hammering on AMD while they're down, Intel is apparently taking AMD's troubles as a little break of their own, delaying the launch of three 45nm quad-core Core 2 processors (Yorkfields) until Feb. or March, depending on AMD's release schedule for its upcoming tri-core and Phenom processors. This kind of reminds us of when Toyota wanted to raise its own prices to help out GM and Ford, which makes us sad. We prefer the far bloodier and more competitive processor wars of a couple years ago. [Digitimes via Inquirer]

Quad-Core Laptops Coming, Costs $10,000+ Fully Loaded

Jason Chen — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:30:30 EDT

Not quite as groundbreaking as Wang Computers' word processor, XtremeNotebooks is offering the first Quad-Core Intel processors in laptops at a price of over $10,000 per unit fully stocked. The XTreme 917 has a Core 2 Quad Q6000 processor with dual NVidia processors and almost 1TB of hard drive space, which means that unless this has a car battery inside, you'll be looking at some dismal on-the-go use life. [XtremeNotebooks via PRNewswire via Wired]

Sony to Unleash Core 2 Quad Mutha

Charlie White — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:37:41 EST

Sony's raising the bar in Japan starting February 10, shipping its latest VAIO R Master desktop complete with the latest Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor inside. This one nearly has it all with a price to match, including a Blu-ray drive, three gigs of RAM and you can even cram 3TBs of SATA storage in there. But look out, if you go top-of-the-line all the way it'll smack you down for well over $8K.

Take a look at a truly badass pic plus some personal experience with the Intel Core 2 Quad:

We're sold on these Core 2 Quad processors. We've been testing an HP machine with dual Core 2 Quads on board, and it screams like no other, especially with editing apps such as Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0. But the mild-mannered HP box doesn't look nearly as ominous and powerful as this upcoming Sony VAIO R Master mofo. Bring it to the states, Sony. And oh yeah, put two processors in there instead of just one, for eight-way nirvana. – Charlie White

VAIO type R master [impress]