Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Processor Review

Super Pi and ScienceMark 2.0

Super Pi Mod Version 1.5 XS:

Super Pi calculates the number Pi in this raw number crunching benchmark. The benchmark is fairly diverse and allows the user to change the number of digits of Pi that can be calculated. In this benchmark we ran Super Pi to 1 million places, 4 million places, and 32 million places.

Probably some of the most jaw-dropping results that we saw with the Core 2 benchmarks happened to be in the Super PI tests. As you know, one of the big challenges between enthusiasts is to get the lowest SuperPi times possible. Many have used extreme means (read: cooling, like water, Dry Ice and Phase Change) to do this. As you can see in the results, the Core 2 Duo just blows everything else out of the water and core 2 quad fails short here, but that’s because it runs at a lower clock frequency. In the 1M places bench, the X6800 comes in at just over 17 seconds. This is incredible! What makes it even more incredible is that this is a little over 41% faster than the fastest AMD CPU is able to do! We see similiar results in the 4M and 32M tests as well, where the X6800 continues to lead the pack, with nothing from AMD even coming close!

ScienceMark 2.0 Beta:

Science Mark 2.0 is an attempt to put the truth behind benchmarking. In an attempt to model real world demands and performance, ScienceMark 2.0 is a suite of high-performance benchmarks that realistically stress system performance without architectural bias. For the Memory Testing, higher numbers represent better performance. On the remaining tests, lower seconds represent better performance.

Primordia “calculates the Quantum Mechanical Hartree-Fock Orbitals for each electron in any element of the periodic table.” We ran the benchmark on default using Argon as our element.

As you can see, our Sciencemark results show that processor frequency is all that matters in Sciencemark and the E6700 and QX6700 both score nearly the same as both are 2.66GHz processors. Cipher and the Molecular Dynamics are led by the X6800 Core 2 Duo, followed by our AMD chips, the FX-62 and the 5000+.