guru3d Core 2 Quad QX 9770 versus Core i7 965

So once we posted our article, initially our target was to show you the difference between an everyday yet very fast Core 2 Duo based system and Core i7. Last years high-end PC against this new one.

There were however numerous requests from readers who would have loved to see a fast Core based Quad Core processor in our test. I figured that was a valid request, and therefore I quickly assembled a high-end 3-way SLI ready system.

Now, before we begin, some rules: we will only use 3-way SLI (GeForce GTX 280 x3) here. Would we have used two-way SLI GeForce GTX 260 for example, this would limit the results for Core i7. See, the 260 GTX in SLI would be GPU bottlenecked. It's a state where the GPUs can't render any faster, yet the CPU still has plenty of headroom to compute. And a GPU bottleneck is exactly what we are not trying to show.

So I took a 1300 USD Intel Core 2 Quad Q9770 Extreme processor. And the 300 USD nForce 790 SLI Ultra. We put some snazzy DDR3 memory on there with fast timings clocked at 1333 MHz.

This is the very best you can buy in the blue colored Intel Core 2 Quad land, really. So we again equip the motherboard with the three GeForce GTX 280 graphics cards in 3-way SLI with exactly the same conditions and drivers as on the Core i7 / X58 platform. What's also nice is that this is a clock for clock comparison as the Intel QX 9770 processor, just like the Core i7 965, runs at 3200 MHz.

Have a look....






http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i...ance-review/19