Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 / 2.4 GHz processor

Advantages: Fast speeds, four cores, great overclocking potential, easy to install
Disadvantages: Absolutely none!

General Overview: The Q6600 Is a fantastic new chip by Intel. It provides the end user with an extremely powerful, cheap and multi-purpose chip. At one point this chip would cost you £500 alone. Now they have cut the price down to roughly £170 making it the perfect choice for enthusiasts and gamers alike. The Q6600 has four cores each running at 2.4Ghz with 8mb L2 cache which means it can do four times the work in the same amount of time compared ...
...1066Mhz FSB (FSB is the "Front Side Bus" this tells the processor how fast to run when combined with the processor's multiplier which is different depending on which CPU you buy. Increasing the FSB will increase the speed of the processor, known as "Overclocking", there is a section in this review on overclocking for those who are interested.) Overclocking: Overclocking is the art of making your PC parts run faster than they are rated by the manufacturer. ... Read review

Advantages: 4 cores
Disadvantages: none

...with the recent announcement from intel that 6 core cpus are just around the corner the price of quad core chips will drop even more making them an even more attractive and great value purchase. I would also not purchasing the faster quad core chips unless you have money to spare, as this chip while running at 2.4ghz straight from the box can easily be overclocked with very little effort, and for minimal expenditure for a aftermarket cooling solution ... Read review

Advantages: Price, very cool running (G0 stepping), high overclockability
Disadvantages: None as I'm aware

**** DESIGN **** Right now this is the best value for money CPU one can buy. Don't be fooled by thinking its slow if it's only 2.40GHz for each core. The Core 2 architecture is all singing all dancing compared to Intel's previous Netburst so even at 2.40GHz, it would take a Netburst CPU (if such quare core existed) running at ~4.4GHz to rival it in performance. This due to the latter, amongst other vital signs, being a much deeper pipeline design. ...
...fortunate enough to buy yourself a G0 stepping, you can a good chance of getting it to 3.6GHz 9x400 on a decent stable motherboard and good air cooling. You can locate a G0 Q6600 buy searching for the SLACR S-spec while ordering. Worth keeping in mind is that the retail boxed version have a 3 year warranty while the OEM version whatever the merchant providers, i.e. 1 year. For best overclocking you'll want one with the lowest Voltage ID, known as ... Read review

Advantages: 4 cores. New G0 stepping Q6600 runs cooler and is easy to overclock
Disadvantages: Software doesn't take advantage of all 4 cores.

I bought this a while ago for £160 even at that price it is a bargain and now you can get it £140 a no brainer in my opinion. An extremely powerful processor 2.4Ghz per core adding up to a total of 9.6Ghz. The best thing about this processor for me though is its potential for overclocking, if you get the new G0 stepping which is a must this processor can easily be overclocked to 3.3Ghz just by using a good cooler such as a Scythe Infinity and would ...
...default cooler. This processor will do it all if you want to encode a video no problem I have encoded a full 90minute film in less than 30minutes and while I was doing that I was also playing a top end game without any lag. Coupled with 2Gb of fast DDR2 memory and a good graphics card such as a 8800GTX your new rig will easily be able run new games and future games for many a year. The easy installation of the LGA775 socket makes it a breeze to ... Read review

Advantages: Quick, runs cool, easy to overclock
Disadvantages: None

I bought the G0 stepping version of this processor from ebuyer.com for just over £150 back in august 2007. It came boxed with a cpu fan which already had some heatsink paste already applied, an instruction manual and a guarentee certificate. It was simple to install, and I'm currently using it on a EVGA 680i motherboard. The processor is outstanding and can run anything you put to it very very quickly. A lot of applications don't yet use more than ...
...you play games like Crysis however, which are multi-threaded, the game makes use of all the cores and thus will help the game run at much higher settings. The processors also handles things like enocoding or rendering videos very well - compared to most processors I've used the time taken is a lot shorter. I recommend getting the G0 stepping version, simply because it is far better at overclocking and you will be able to get greater speeds with ... Read review