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.
**** OVERCLOCKABILITY ****
If you're lucky or 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 VID. This is set at the factory depending on the yield quality of each given unit. Sadly there's no way to tell from the box what VID the processor inside has, but one installed you can run CoreTemp 0.9.5.4 to read the VID. Typical VID values range from about 1.2150 to 1.3250V. A lower VID doesn't guarantee it will overclock better/require less voltage at a given frequency, but it does improve your chances.
**** DURING USE ****
Surprisingly these puppies run very cool compared to their B3 variants and offer crisp performance, especially when overclocked. The stock cooler is sufficient even for some overclocking though its best if you buy an after market cooler. For serious overclocking you'll want a high-endair cooler or if you're aiming for around 4GHz, watercooling.
Due to the fact this CPU has four physical cores, it can process up to four threads in parallel for those applications that specifically support it. Other programs that aren't written for SMP (Symmetrical Multi-Processing) will still benefit as the system will feel much snappier thus responsive, especially the more applications you load at the same time.
Thanks for the quad core design you can happily play a game while in the background encode/convert a video and not feel any decrease in game frame rates.
**** CONCLUSION ****
At this price it's a bargain, couple it with a high-end graphics card for an immense gaming PC. It's a much better buy than the similarly priced E6850 3GHz dual core model, especially once overclocked.
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