At the $600 - $700 price point, the Core 2 Duo E6700 is in an interesting area. At this time, AMD doesn't really have a product to directly compete with it, as AMD's top of the line FX-62 processor is more expensive, and is generally meant to compete against the Core 2 Extreme X6800. AMD's next best, the Athlon64 FX 5000+ is all but impossible to find on the market, and is meant to compete with the less expensive Core 2 E6600 model at the ~$400 price point anyways. Therefore, the Core 2 Duo E6700 has this specific price point all to itself. For those who want high-end performance, but don't want to shell out the cash for Extreme Edition or FX-series top of the line processors, the Core 2 Duo E6700 more or less is the only option out there. Not that it's a bad option, mind you. Let's take a closer look:

It's not too much of a shock that we like this processor. We're big fans of the Intel Core 2 Duo architecture, and every chip we've tested thus far has simply improved our opinion of Intel's new product lineup. The Core 2 Duo E6700 is the fastest Duo on the market, providing the best stock speeds but also proved itself to be the most overclockable Core 2 Duo chip we've tested to date, as it was able to easily clock up to 3.5 GHz with very little effort.

Even without the overclocking element, the Core 2 Duo E6700 is a tempting option for potential buyers. At stock speeds, the 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo E6700 is able to beat an overclocked Athlon 64 FX-62 processor in the vast majority of tests, even gaming. At the same time, it consumes less power, creates less heat, and also is less expensive in comparison to the FX-62. With this chip now on the market and in decent supplies, it's getting to be nearly impossible to recommend Athlon64 dual-core hardware, as Intel is doing everything which AMD is going better, and at lower price points.

This isn't to say that the Core 2 Duo E6700 is a 'cheap' processor. Nay, the E6700 is in high-demand at the moment, which is driving prices quite a bit higher than their originally intended price point of $500-$600. At this time, E6700's are about 10% higher than what most expect them to be at, but we would expect that to fall as supplies make it to market. Even at this higher price point, the Core 2 Duo E6700 provides excellent price to performance, although we would still say that the Core 2 Duo E6600 is a better overall value when comparing the two processors. However, in comparison to “ultra high-end” chips like the Core 2 Extreme X6800 and Athlon64 FX-62, the Core 2 Duo E6700 is a steal.