Kentsfield
Kentsfield is the codename for the first quad-core version of the Core 2 processor. The first model of Kentsfield, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700, will arrive with a clock speed of 2.67 GHz and two 4 MB L2 caches in November 2006, at a price of $999, the same as the Core 2 Extreme X6800. Initial samples of the processor had substantially higher power consumption than their Core 2 Duo counterparts (approx. 130 watts), however the retail version is expected to have a
thermal envelope of 80 W.The top-of-the-line Kentsfield CPU will be branded Core 2 Extreme, while the mainstream versions will be called Core 2 Quad. Unlike AMD's 4x4 (which refers to two dual-core processors on one motherboard), Kentsfield will be a one socket solution; for example, the QX6700 will be two E6700 chips connected together by a 1066 MHz FSB on one
MCM, resulting in lower costs but less bandwidth to the northbridge. As can be expected, 4 cores scale very well in multi-threaded applications, such as video editing, ray-tracing, or rendering, where the performance doubles compared to an equally clocked Core 2 Duo. However single or dual-threaded applications, for example most games, will not benefit from the additional cores. For single threaded applications, initial performance reports indicate that this relatively small increase in FSB and processor speed does not dramatically increase overall performance alone; however, it does leave more room for high-speed, low latency RAM to significantly boost the numbers.
