Today Intel is officially launching a new Quad-Core processor, formerly known by the company's internal code name, 'Kentsfield'. Kentsfield is the direct result of Intel's immense manufacturing and process technology prowess. Based on the company's 65nm manufacturing process, one of the very few fabs of its kind in high volume production at this time, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 is an integration of two Core 2 Duo dual-core processors on a single substrate for a total of 4 CPU cores in a single LGA 775 socket.

The Core 2 Extreme QX6700 runs at 2.66GHz on a 1066MHz front-side bus, so its clock speed matches that of the second fastest Core 2 Duo, the E6700. (The Core 2 Extreme X6800 is the fastest at 2.93GHz.)  Targeted at serious PC Enthusiasts and Workstation Power Users, this new quad-core CPU is poised to set new land-speed records in benchmark test suites.  The first reviews can be found on AnandTech, Bit-Tech, HardCoreWare, Hexus.net, HotHardware, LegitReviews, NeoSeeker, TechReport, TechSpot, THG, TweakTown and X-bit labs.

Like any solution with four CPU cores, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700's effectiveness depends on what you feed it. Give it a nicely parallelizable task with four or more threads, and it will utterly embarrass former top dogs like the Core 2 Extreme X6800 and the Athlon 64 FX-62. For applications like video encoding, 3D rendering, image processing, and scientific computing, the QX6700 trumps all other desktop processors-and, I suspect, a great many dual-socket Opteron workstations. 3DMark06's multithreaded CPU test gives us a glimpse of how multithreaded gaming might look, and the QX6700 performs very well there, too.

Feed it a simple app with only one or two threads, though, and this quad-core monster begins to look an awful lot like a Core 2 Duo E6700 with higher power consumption and a much steeper price tag. Of course, even that isn't a horrible place to be. In single- and dual-threaded applications, the QX6700 still wallops the Athlon 64 FX-62 nearly across the board, with similar power requirements and heat output. That fact simply underscores how good the Core 2 lineup truly is.