Core 2 Quad Q6600: Review, Overclocking, Test in 2012

Is the old-timer still alive?!

The Core 2 Quad Q6600 (Kentsfield) was my favorite LGA775-compatible processor for a long time. At such a low price, it possessed all the capabilities of more expensive processors: high overclocking potential, modern instructions, and high performance. What more could you want from a processor?

But years passed, and initially, it was pushed off its pedestal by the very attractive Phenom II X4, and then by its younger brethren, the Core i3 for the LGA1156 platform. They were much cooler, overclocked better, and had similar performance.

In games that used 2-3 threads, the Q6600 certainly lost, but in applications utilizing more than 3 threads, it allowed all its 4 cores to unleash their full potential and was beyond the reach of the Core i3. But as I said, years passed, Sandy Bridge-based Core i3 21xx processors appeared, and dark times came for the Core 2 Quad Q6600. Recommending it for an upgrade, even from a Core 2 Duo, was no longer entirely reasonable. Now, compared to its new competitors, it suddenly became hot and power-hungry, while its younger brothers, the Q8400, on the contrary, shone with new colors thanks to DDR3.

In this article, the 'bearded' Q6600 will face real quad-core processors built on the Sandy Bridge and K10.5 architectures: Core i5 2300, Core i5 2500, and Athlon II X4 620, respectively. In addition, it will be joined by the quite powerful dual-core processor Core 2 Duo E8400.

Processor

It's time to move on to reviewing our subject. First, let's look at its photo:

The marking of the test sample is SLACR, and it was produced in Malaysia.

CPU-Z utility screenshot:

Before us is the most popular 65nm Kentsfield quad-core processor. It is equipped with a total 8-megabyte Level 2 cache (3MB per die), with a nominal core voltage of 1.216V. Its stock frequency is 2.4GHz, achieved by multiplying the 266MHz system bus by a multiplier of 9. Our sample's revision is G0, which is simply excellent, as this means the typical thermal design power (TDP) of this sample is only 95 watts.

Overclocking

When overclocked, Core 2 Quad Q6600 processors are notorious for their intense heat. And unfortunately, this characteristic stopped me at a frequency of 3150MHz. Although the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ test cooling system is quite good, it stopped coping with the Q6600's extreme heat even at 3150MHz. When attempting to reach 3300MHz (core voltage 1.36v), the temperature of the hottest core went above 100 degrees. Thus, I had to settle for the nominal voltage and a frequency of 3150MHz.

To achieve this, the FSB frequency had to be increased from the nominal 266MHz to 350MHz, which I believe any P35/P45 chipset-based motherboard can handle. The RAM operated at 1400MHz with timings 9-9-9-28.

Test bench and software:

Motherboard LGA1155 - ASUS P8Z77-V LX (Core i5 Overclocking and Test)
Motherboard LGA775 - MSI P35 Neo Combo (Core 2 Quad Overclocking and Test)
Motherboard LGA775 - Biostar P35 D2-A7 (Core 2 Duo Overclocking and Test)
Motherboard AM3 - ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO (Athlon II X4 Tests)
Processors - Core 2 Quad Q6600, Core 2 Duo E8400, Athlon II X4 620, Core i5 2300, Core i5 2500
CPU Cooling LGA1155 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
CPU Cooling LGA775 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
CPU Cooling AM3 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
RAM - 2x2GB DDR3 Hynix PC12800 (9-9-9-34)
RAM - 2x2GB DDR2 Corsair PC6400 (5-5-5-16)
Video Cards - Sapphire Radeon HD6950 (800/5000MHz)
PSU - FSP 500W
Hard drives - Samsung SP160GB

Software:

Windows 7 x64 SP1
CPU-Z 1.60.1
CineBench 9.5 x64
CineBench 11.5 x64
Light Work - Renderbench
3D Mark 2006 v1.2.0 (CPU test only)
3D Mark Vantage v1.1.1 (CPU test only)
Hot CPU tester PRO
AMD Catalyst 13.1
wPrime v1.55
Fritz Chess Benchmark
SuperPi 1.4
FRAPS v3.1.0

Graphics quality settings in games:

GTA IV:

Resolution - 1280x1024
Textures – high
Reflection quality – high
Water quality – very high
Shadow quality – high
Filtering quality – x16
View distance – 100
Detail depth – 100
Traffic density – 100
Field of view depth – on/on
Vertical sync – off/off

Prototype:

Resolution - 1280x1024
Textures - high
Shadows - high
Anti-aliasing - 0x

Rendering

In Cinebench 9.5, the Q6600 overclocked to 3150MHz managed to get quite close to the Core i5-2300, but one should not forget the frequency difference. The lag behind the Core i5 2500, overclocked to 3915MHz, is frightening – over 100%.

In the newer version of CineBench, with the exception of the Athlon II X4 620 significantly outperforming the Q6600, practically nothing changes. The E8400, however, completely faltered and even with an overclock to 4050MHz, it ended up in last place.

RenderBench is a single-threaded test. And here you can see how much the Sandy Bridge core accelerated compared to Wolfdale and Kentsfield. The E8400 at over 4GHz still couldn't beat the i5-2300 running at almost 3GHz.

Overall performance

CM 2004 is a fairly old test. It does not support most technologies. Nevertheless, it is here that you can notice that applications without support for modern instructions receive practically no performance increase from the presence of a Core i5 processor.

Calculations

Chess move calculation, however, parallelizes beautifully; moreover, the ring bus, which only Core i5 2300 and 2500 processors possess, is not of particular importance here. A large cache and high frequency are important here, which the Core i5 2300 cannot boast. The Q6600's first victory over its kinsman! We also note the failure of the Athlon II X4 620: despite its higher frequency, it has a very small cache – only 512KB per core, which played a cruel joke on it.

And it all happened again; after the first victory over the i5 2300, the Q6600 was once again behind it.

Archiving

Neither the Q6600 nor the Athlon II X4 620 have anything to gain here: the most important factors are the ring bus, a polished memory controller, and full DDR3 support, which are only present in the i5 2300 and i5 2500. Therefore, the old-timers initially had no chance even to come close to them.

Games: Synthetics

In synthetics, the Q6600 looks pale, although, considering how old it is this year, there's no shame in it.

Games

In Prototype, a large cache is important, and for this very reason, the X4 620 shows such meager results. Yet, the game works well with 3 and 4 cores. This is evident from the Q6600's lead over the E8400. However, the results of the i5 2500 chip can be considered incomplete, as the test bench's Radeon HD6950 graphics card simply cannot deliver a higher number of frames per second.

It's time to stop using the built-in GTA4 benchmark. The FPS in it is off the charts, but in the game itself, things are not so smooth.

The large cache allowed the Q6600 chip to overtake the X4 620, but even when overclocked, the 'Quad' could not reach the level of the Core i5 2300.

Conclusion

The Core 2 Quad Q6600 is not just a processor, it's a warrior. Even despite its venerable age of 6 years, with successful overclocking, the old-timer can provide an acceptable level of performance in many modern projects, which commands certain respect for Intel engineers.

While there are cooler, more powerful chips like the Core i5-2300, the Core 2 Quad Q6600 is not as weak as, for example, the Core 2 Duo E8400, which still costs exorbitant money, and its performance corresponds to a simple Celeron G530 or Pentium G630.