We were impressed by the results. Quad-core technology will definitely improve performance for 3D rendering, video editing and video compression/decompression. Which was really interesting to note was that the new Core 2 Extreme QX6700 CPU runs at a lower clock rate (2.66 GHz against 2.93 GHz on Core 2 Extreme X6800) and yet was between 38% and 82% faster for those tasks. So if we had two CPUs running at the same clock rate, the performance difference would be a lot higher.

The best way to really evaluate the forthcoming Core 2 Duo Extreme QX6700 would be comparing it to a Core 2 Duo E6700, which also runs at 2.66 GHz. Unfortunately we were restricted to the two systems provided by Intel.

However, we still have to check how the increase in the number of CPU cores will affect mainstream programs, like Microsoft Office, anti-virus and e-mail, and also games. Unfortunately Intel gave us only a limited amount of time to test the systems and we could only run programs that were already installed on the systems. We couldn’t run a benchmark like SYSmark, which simulates the use of mainstream programs, and we also couldn’t run any games on the new quad-core CPU.

This is just a preview of the performance you should expect from the new Core 2 Extreme QX6700. Hopefully Intel will send us a sample at its launch timeframe, when we will be able to do a more detailed review and also compare it to Core 2 Duo E6700 for a real quad-core vs. duo-core match.