Intel Core 2 Duo E6700

Intel announced its line of Core 2 Duo desktop CPUs today. If you're buying a new computer or building one of your own, you would be wise to see that it has one of Intel's new dual-core chips in it. The Core 2 Duo chips are not only the fastest desktop chips on the market, but also the most cost effective and among the most power efficient. About the only people these new chips aren't good for are the folks at AMD, who can claim the desktop CPU crown no longer.

We've given the full review treatment to two of the five Core 2 Duo chips. You can read about the flagship $999 Core 2 Extreme X6800 here and the entire Core 2 Duo series here. In this review, we examine the next chip down, the $530 2.67GHz Core 2 Duo E6700. While the Extreme X6800 chip might be the fastest in the new lineup, we find the E6700 the most compelling for its price-performance ratio. For just about half the cost of AMD's flagship, the $1,031 Athlon 64 FX-62, the Core 2 Duo E6700 gives you nearly identical, if not faster performance, depending on the application.

As we outlined in a blog post a month ago, the Core 2 Duo represents a new era for Intel. It's the first desktop chip family that doesn't use the NetBurst architecture, which has been the template for every design since the Pentium 4. Instead, the Core 2 Duo uses what's called the Core architecture (not to be confused with Intel's Core Duo and Core Solo laptop chips, released this past January). The advances in the Core architecture explain why even though the Core 2 Duo chips have lower clock speeds, they're faster than the older dual-core Pentium D 900 series chips. The Core 2 Extreme X6800 chip, the Core 2 Duo E6700, and the $316 Core 2 E6600 represent the top tier of Intel's new line, and in addition to the broader Core architecture similarities, they all have 4MB of unified L2 cache. The lower end of the Core 2 Duo line, composed of the $224 E6400 and the $183 E6300, have a 2MB unified L2 cache.

We won't belabor each point here, since the blog post already spells them out, but the key is that it's not simply one feature that gives the Core 2 Duo chips their strength, but rather it's a host of design improvements across the chip and the way it transports data that improves performance. And out test results bear this out.

On our gaming, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Photoshop tests, the E6700 was second only to the Extreme X6800 chip. Compared to the 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-62, the E6700 was a full 60 frames per second faster on Half-Life 2, it finished our Microsoft Office test 20 seconds ahead, and it won on the Photoshop test by 39 seconds. On our iTunes and multitasking tests, the E6700 trailed the FX-62 by only 2 and 3 seconds, respectively. In other words, with the Core 2 Duo E6700 in your system, you'll play games more smoothly, get work done faster, and in general enjoy a better computing experience than with the best from AMD--and for less dough.

CPU Limited custom Half-Life 2: Lost Coast demo (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast 1,024x768 no AA, no AF

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800

167.1 

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700

159.1 

AMD Athlon 64 FX-62

120.1 

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+

99.6 

Office productivity test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Microsoft Office productivity test (Word, Excel, and Powerpoint)

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800

535 

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700

536 

AMD Athlon 64 FX-62

556 

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+

591 

Photoshop CS2 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Adobe Photoshop CS2 image-processing test

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800

215 

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700

219 

AMD Athlon 64 FX-62

258 

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+

264 

iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Apple iTunes encoding test

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800

138 

AMD Athlon 64 FX-62

146 

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700

148 

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+

162