THG and Motherboards.org take a further look at Intel E8500 CPU - the fastest Core 2 Duo solution on the market with the clock speed set at 3.16GHz. For a MSRP on the Intel CPU price list of $266 this makes an affordable solution for those not wanting to spend $999 on an Intel CPU like the QX9770 that's upcoming. Dual Core CPUs like the E8500 are excellent choices for the everyday user. The E8500 also overclocks like a beast reaching 4.389 GHz, a nearly 40% overclock on normal air-cooling. Other people have reached over 4.5GHz on theirs. Dual Core processors still have a market as only the Q6600 Core 2 Quad CPU reaches this level of price but performance on the E8500 beats that CPU in many cases.

So, where does Intel stand following its 45 nm Core 2 Wolfdale launch? Compared to the 65 nm Core 2 Conroe core, the device offers slightly more performance in most of our benchmarks. For some of the benchmarks, its performance merely matched that of the 65 nm Core 2 Conroe core. Needless to say, it also beats all of AMD's Athlon 64 X2 or Athlon X2 dual-core offerings. It also beats AMD's Phenom quad-core processors for applications that haven't been optimized for multi-core processors. This applies to our gaming benchmarks and lots of the audio/video transcoding tests. However, all dual cores lose against the Phenom and the Core 2 Quad under certain conditions, meaning thread-optimized applications. 3DSMax, Cinema4D, the Mainconcept H.262 encoder and Adobe Premiere are excellent examples.

Wolfdale runs considerably cooler; it fits into all the current motherboards that are based on a recent chipset, and the processors aren't even much more expensive than their E6000 65 nm predecessors. If you are about to purchase a new computer soon, Core 2 Duo based on the Wolfdale core is clearly what you want, as it offers excellent dual-core performance combined with low power requirements. I recommend going for the 3.0 GHz clock speed, as the performance difference compared to a 3.16 GHz device, which also requires an odd multiplier, is negligible. Core 2 Duo isn't only the fastest dual core, but it has just become the most reasonable one as well, as all Wolfdale/Penryn enabled motherboards are ready to accept a quad core processor should you decide to upgrade. If you can wait a few more months, the X48 and P45 chipsets will be available and will make the new Core 2 an even better choice, as the Front Side Bus will be accelerated to 400 MHz (FSB1600 quad pumped). However, any noticeable performance differences between a Core 2 Conroe and Wolfdale are too small to justify purchasing a new processor.