Those into massive multi-tasking or highly threaded applications will benefit the most from a quad-core processor, but even with AMD's massive steps forwards, we still feel the Q6600 is the slightly better purchase, regardless of the small £10 price difference. Both can be overclocked, but the Phenom X4s are much hotter and less tolerant to heat in comparison. At just over 60˚C our Phenom at 2.8GHz was stable, but at just under 70˚C it locked up.

If you can keep it cool then it should really work for you, however even with an expensive, large and very capable ZeroTherm cooler we still couldn't keep it cool at a quite reasonable 1.45V. Admittedly 65nm Core 2 Quads are hot runners at high voltage too, but they seem to be more tolerant of higher temperatures and the Intel 65nm process seems to leak less current.



Link: Bit Tech