I have a hard time believing CNQ2.0 was set up properly when the Phenom 9600 is shown drawing 77 watts more idle power than the C2D E8500. Something was obviously screwed up.

Thank you.
Very informative article. I also read Tomshardware and prefer your side by side compairisons. The +/- % is most valuable in this respect.

ok, so this looks like itll be my new cpu, based on these benches. undoubtably future developments will make way for the new sse4 instructions, not to mention quad core utilization. im from south africa and u cannot believe the price of comps here, u speak of the q9300 at $266, here its over 350, and the step up q9450 is more than double. so in my instance, this review has been unbelievably helpful in deciding my next chip. thank you very much. vmap

Dual Core Q9900 = 3.4 ghz
L1 : 2048 kb
L2 : 4096 kb
L3 : 1024 kb
From: $3150$

Q9900 overclock 3.4 ghz --- 4.8 ghz
FSB 1333 mhz overclock 1640 mhz

Appreciate these test.. can't wait to see the Q9450 beeing tested OC'd against E8500 OC.. keep up the good work!

If AMD hadn't stumbled so badly, we would be seeing Q9450 by now. AMD needs to look at alternatives, not just IBM. Forget the (slow and "unpredictable") immersion techniques.. Double patterning tools (like the ones Intel's using) are already out. And also look elsewhere other than SOI, just look at Phenom clock and power consumption.

In the specs table Q6600 shows L2 cache 2x4MB instead of 2x2MB

awesom review. it gave me the answers to the questions in my mind. i have a core 2 duo E6600 now and was in a confusion to get penyrn family becoz of SSE 4 as i use it mainly for encoding to divx and mpeg4 h.264 encoding to store movies to hard disk and psp.also of overclocking .do i need to get this or wait???

Q9300 is where? It's past early March already.

Harry

very good keep going
especially statistical datas are impressive

I have seen a lot of tests and i was keep asking what is better q6600 or e8400. now the e8400 is e better choice , but i think in future it will be better to have q6600 with GO revision

Crysis not Crysys

What's the cost saving difference assuming 6 hours a day from Q6600 to Q9300?

i would have like to have seen a q9770 clocked
at 2.5ghz, to see the difference between 6mb L2
vs 12mb L2
good review hope you will test q9450 soon!

Well, a great article no doubt in terms of d quantity n exhaustability 2 d core...
Kudos 2 u guys!!!
but, i hv just one complaint, plz don't make so many typos people, rest's cool!

Great review

How did you get the Q9300 up to 1800MHz FSB on a motherboard with a max FSB of 1600MHz?

I really enjoyed the review. However, since reviews on these chips (Q9450) is EXTREMELY SCARCE. I am starting to wonder if everyone thinks these are duds, or are told not to reveal the information or what? It is the weirdest release yet.

Please do a comparison of the following:
Q6700
Q9450 - X3350
E8500
If possible. I think all the major forums have this question in it as some chip prices will fall shortly.

Another question is what is the best motherboard for OC these chips :). Thank you if you have the time or any ideas anyone.

One more thing the Voltage Range:

VID Voltage Range: Q9300 > 0.85V – 1.3625V

VID Voltage Range: Q6600 > 0.85V – 1.5V

To OC the Q9300 to 3.4GHz or 3.5GHz This Core wont LAST !!!!!!!!!!