Core 2 Extreme QX9770 Quad-Core review - Page 1 - Introduction

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 Quad-Core Processor Preview
Intel's new 45nm Yorkfield 3.2 GHz tested and agonized

It was merely a week or three ago when we published our first Penryn based processor review here at Guru3D.com.

Yet a little while ago we received a phone call from Intel asking if we wanted to test an even faster Penryn CPU. Well, you know me .. when it comes to enthusiast products I'm like a bitch in heat, bring it on. In that previous article we already have you a good overview of the to be released Penryn products on Q1 of the next year. One of the products in that extensive line of 45nm products, actually the one on top, is the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 Quad core processor. The cream of the crop, top notch product.

It's quite silly to observe that AMD has such a hard time releasing a quad core Phenom CPU that performs close to the most budget level Q6600 Intel processor, while Intel already sent us the new QX9770 which will be released next year.

Now, this article took us longer than expected to make. See, we tested this CPU on a platform that does not support this 1600 MHz FSB based product while it most certainly should have supported it. We initially tested on an NVIDIA nForce 680i. Now trust me when I say that the 680i does not support this Penryn processor. We had to tweak so much in the P31 BIOS that it likely was dangerous for the CPU. We did get it running, but let me state this: please do not try to use the 680i and this processor at home, NV is not supporting it at all. Not even officially on it's new 780i mainboard. On the next page I'll shed some light on it.

This week ASUS was able to provide us with an Intel X38 chipset based mainboard with full support for this 1600 MHz FSB based CPU and OCZ did their part by supplying some DDR3 memory as well. For now let's dive into our preliminary findings. Next page please.

Gents & ladies, meet the most expensive Quad Core consumer processor that money can buy ... it's demonic, devilish .. at one point I even called it Lucifer.

Demonic red, symbolic for how hot this processor actually is...