Intel has chosen Easter Sunday to launch its latest product known by the full name as Core 2 Extreme QX6800, displacing its predecessor's dual-core X6800 and quad-core QX6700. Most enthusiasts will however, just name this model Kentie at 2.93 GHz. This CPU is not based on a new revision of Conroe or WoodCrest, but rather evidence that Intel worked on improving the packaging of the dies. Now, two X6800 dies have enough tolerance to run at their full clock speed, instead than one notch lower as it was the case with QX6700. We already wrote about how Intel created QX6700 here.

Second dot key-breaking game of this review is Stalker, and this game proved to be quite an interesting one. To much of our surprise, quad-core CPUs were slightly behind dual-core ones.  Do not expect the same thing to happen with Crysis, Age of Conan, and Hellgate: London or Unreal Tournament 3. All of these games are multi-threaded and will squeeze every bit of juice left in your quad-core or dual-core CPU, so having extra-power ready is more than welcome.

The Good
- The fastest desktop CPU money can buy as of April 8th, 2007
- Drop-in socket upgrade with majority of S775 motherboards out there
- Nvidia's 680i chipset just got new best friend
- All-around product with good overclocking capabilities
- Brilliant in Modo 203

The Bad
- No 1333 MHz FSB because cherry-picked cores are still reserved for Clovertown
- 150W TDP may be a bit steep when performance/watt is compared to Clovertown at 3.0 GHz
- 1333FSB cannot be achieved even with overclocking or downclock to 2.66 (8x333)
- Time of the launch - brilliant move, guys!

The Ugly
- Intel is continuing to bundle useless stock cooler for $7.00 with a $1000 CPU - and that very same $7.00 cooler is not able to cool this baby down. 4-year old cooler will do a better job, it would not dent your margins to have something decent alongside this hot piece of silicon.

Update: another reviews can be found on:

HotHardware: Simply put, the new Core 2 Extreme QX6800 is the fastest, most powerful desktop PC processor we have tested to date. Due to its 2.93GHz clock speed, which matches that of the fastest dual-core Core 2 processor, the X6800, the new QX6800 is as fast as the X6800 while running single-threaded applications, as is the case most game engines and office productivity tools. While running multi-threaded applications that can fully utilize the additional processing resources afforded by the quad-core design of the QX6800 however, the new Core 2 Extreme QX6800 clearly offers more performance than any other desktop PC platform currently available. Performance scaling isn't always 2x that of the dual-core X6800 when running multi-threaded applications, but the quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6800 does offer significant performance increases in many scenarios. And as more and more multi-threaded applications are released, the advantages of a quad-core processors will pay dividends over time.

Techreport: Having said that, I can't exactly recommend purchasing one of these to have as your own. The thing costs twelve hundred dollars, for crying out loud. And this time around, unlike many others, the new Extreme edition processor doesn't supplant its precursor. The Core 2 Extreme QX6700 lives on at $999, with an unlocked multiplier just like the QX6800. All you're really getting for the additional $200 is a slight bump in guaranteed clock speed. Both of 'em will probably hit at least 3.2GHz just fine, if our overclocking experience is anything to go by.