Introduction
Today sees the official uncovering of one of the worst-kept secrets in the hardware industry.
Intel has been openly talking about its next-generation Core microarchitecture for the majority of 2007. We already know that it's code-named Penryn, that it adds a number of improvements over the present desktop 65nm Conroe/Kentsfield cores, and will be a drop-in upgrade on most motherboards.
What we can reveal today is its architecture in detail, just how well it performs against the CPU that it's usurped to be at the top of the food chain, and how well it stacks up against AMD's fastest single-socket desktop processor to date - the Athlon 64 X2 6400+.
Without further ado, let's introduce the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650. Brace yourselves for some benchmarking frenzy!
