3DMark06

3DMark06

Notes

We chose Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6600 because it sells at roughly the same price as AMD’s Phenom 9600 running at 2.3 GHz. The Q6600 isn’t even at the top of Intel’s performance lineup. If you want faster and have the money, there’s the Q6700 and any number of different Extreme Edition chips ready to deliver.

You won’t need those pricier models, though, because at least in Futuremark’s synthetic gaming benchmark, the Q6600 comes out on top of even our Phenom 9600 Black Edition overclocked to 2.5 GHz. Both tests—the 3D suite and processor metric—demonstrate Intel in the lead, despite AMD’s architectural slam dunks.

AMD could really use faster core clocks here. The Phenom 9600 would also show much better with 1066 MHz memory, but as mentioned, no amount of CAS cranking or voltage tweaking would get our 790FX board stable with that 5.33x multiplier.