It shouldn't come to a surprise to anyone at this point, but we'll simply go ahead and say it. Intel's Core 2 Extreme X6800 is the fastest desktop processor available today, bar none. The X6800 beats AMD's top of the line FX-62 processor in every CPU benchmark, even when the FX-62 is running at overclocked speeds. In order to truly compete with the X6800, AMD would have to put out dual-core chips in the 3.6 – 4.0 GHz range, as Intel's performance per clock is quite a lot better compared to the Athlon64 X2 product line. With AMD's current manufacturing process technology, these kinds of clock speeds aren't going to come about any time soon, which means Intel will likely hold the performance crown for the foreseeable future. It's looking more and more like quad-core technology will be the savior of AMD on the desktop. However, if rumors are correct, Intel may even beat AMD to bring this technology to market as well.

Note that we said fastest "desktop" processor above. Astute readers will be aware that Intel's Xeon 5160 processor is based on the same architecture as the Core 2 Extreme X6800, and actually runs at higher clock speeds (3.0 GHz) with a faster FSB speed (1333 MHZ), but costs less (about $1000) compared to the X6800. While this may look like a staggering deal compared to the pricey Core 2 Extreme, one must keep in mind that Xeon motherboards are 2-3x more expensive compared to Core 2 motherboards, and Xeon systems also require more expensive / slower FB-DIMM DDR2-667 memory modules. Thus, as a whole, the Core 2 Extreme system will likely be a better value. Still, it's certainly interesting to think about.

Of course, having the best desktop processor on the market means that Intel can charge (more or less) whatever they want. As the $1200 to $1400 Core 2 Extreme is based on the same core architecture as the $400 Core 2 Duo E6600, it's a safe bet that Intel is making very, very good profits on these processors. If you're willing to shell out the cash, this will certainly be the best processor on the market you can buy today, but a good value it certainly is not. In terms of price / performance, the Core 2 Duo E6600 and E6700 models are far better values, and when overclocked, can deliver the same (or better) performance levels of the Core 2 Extreme X6800. However, with the X6800, you get all that performance without all the risk and worry of overclocking, and your warranties are kept intact.

There are a number of comparisons that are important to consider in this summary. First, lets talk about the 256MB Radeon X1900 XT. The 256MB Radeon X1900 XT performed very well, besting a GeForce 7900 GT virtually across the board and it finished right alongside a GeForce 7900 GTX in many of our tests. If this card is actually released at the price ATI is claiming it will be, we suspect it will be quite popular. The Radeon X1950 XTX was also an excellent performer. In a single-card configuration, the Radeon X1950 XTX was faster than a GeForce 7900 GTX in almost every test. The GeForce 7950 GX2 was faster than the Radeon X1950 XTX more often than not, however. The same scenario plays out in the multi-GPU/multi-card configurations as well. A Radeon X1950 XTX CrossFire configuration was faster than a GeForce 7900 GTX SLI setup in the vast majority of the tests, but Quad-SLI came out on top most of the time. The tests were much closer than expected though, considering the battle at the top was between two ATI GPUs and four NVIDIA GPUs.

The 256MB Radeon X1900 XT put up some good numbers considering its projected $279 MSRP as well. At that price, the 256MB Radeon X1900 XT will fall somewhere in between a GeForce 7900 GT and 7900 GTX. Its performance was clearly better than the 7900 GT though, which makes it easy to justify the increased expense. The Radeon X1950 XTX is in a similar position. With a proposed MSRP of $449, the Radeon X1950 XTX's price should lands somewhere in between the GeForce 7900 GTX and GeForce 7950 GX2. Looking at our benchmark results and accounting for its 2GHz GDDR4 memory and redesigned cooler, that's a fair position to be in. The Radeon X1950 XTX out-muscled a 7900 GTX most of the time, and traded victories with the GX2.

Issues Resolved in Catalyst® Software Suite 6.8:

• Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth: Playing the game under Windows XP SP2 using an ATI Radeon® X800 series product no longer results in intermittent display corruption being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-21458
• Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones: Setting the 3D slider to Optimal Quality in Catalyst® Control Center->Advanced View->3D->Standard Settings aspect no longer results in corruption being noticed in the water when playing the game under the Windows MCE operating system with an ATI Radeon® X19x0 series product installed. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22975
• QQ Fantasy: Playing the online game under Windows XP with an ATI Radeon X1600 or X1300 no longer results in the an error message being displayed and the mouse pointer control becoming erratic. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22985
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory: Corruption is no longer noticed during the playing the opening cinematic when AA is enabled at 8x. This issue was known to occur under the Windows XP operating system when using an ATI Radeon X8x0 series product. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22983

Doom 3

Well the conclusion does not need a lot of words I guess. Obviously it is crazy to see how well the Core 2 Duo processors perform. My favorite one has to be the E6600 as for roughly 320-350 USD you'll receive an amount of performance in your PC that is just really breathtaking. It'll beat the 899 USD costing Athlon FX-62 in many ways by a very good margin.

If you are buying a PC now or in the near future, fact is that you can't really miss an opportunity like the Conroe based processor. I'd really like to recommend that you step in at the 320 USD E6600 or higher. Also overclocking, I didn't have time to go in-depth here but our E6600 processor was able to run at 3 GHz on passive water-cooling. The E6700 would go towards roughly 3400 MHz and the Core 2 Extreme processor halted also at 3.4 GHz. With better cooling, you can rest assured that you can clock even faster, users have reported overclocks up-to almost 4 GHz. You just can't lose with this processor!

- WHQL Certified
- Improved performance on workstation applications
- New NVIDIA PureVideo features and enhancements.
- Adds noise reduction post processing
- Adds image sharpening post processing
- Improved Inverse telecine algorithm
- Improved de-interlacing algorithm
- Improved compatibility with third party MPEG-2 decoders
- MicrosoftR DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0 support
- For a full list of fixed and known issues please view the Release Notes (PDF)

The obtained results indicate that the new low-cost AMD processor that has already started selling turned out a very attractive solution. Although Athlon 64 X2 3600+ features half the L2 cache compared with the 'fully-fledged' dual-core Athlon 64 X2 CPUs and hence can be regarded as a 'dual-core Sempron' at some point, its performance didn't suffer that much. In the worst case, Athlon 64 X2 3600+ is no more than 5% behind the 3800+ model with the same nominal clock speed of 2GHz. And in fact, there are very few applications like that. In other words, Athlon 64 X2 3600+ offers very decent performance, especially keeping in mind that it is less expensive than the 3800+ model.

If we compare the performance of our hero against Intel Pentium D 915, which will most likely be its primary competitor from the pricing standpoint, the AMD solution turns out a definite winner. Just like before, the new AMD processor on K8 microarchitecture outperforms the competitor built on NetBurst. Even the recent price wars didn't change anything, and the recently announced Core 2 Duo processors are still in a different price category.

The important advantage of Athlon 64 X2 3600+ is that it belongs to the Energy Efficient type with the 65W maximum heat dissipation. As a result, this solution will become very popular in quiet systems, because Energy Efficient dual-core AMD processors have always been a little bit more expensive.

As for overclocking, we managed to hit only 2.6GHz clock speed, which is not too impressive. However, on the other hand, the performance boost from overclocking appeared quite tangible. Athlon 64 X2 3600+ working at 2.6GHz can compete successfully with the top model in the family with 5000+ performance rating. So, those overclocking fans who decide to go with the new AMD CPU will be happy.

Our testing shows that the X1950XTX is significantly faster than NVIDIA's 7950GX2 at rather common enthusiast in-game setting. This is definitely very appealing for the gamers, especially when you factor in the ability of the card to run true HDR with Anti-Aliasing compared to the 7950GX2 which can't do that, and the fact that the X1950XTX offers dual display without compromising performance while the 7950GX2 has to sacrifice dual GPU performance for dual display. Add the best performing and best looking default cooler found in the market and it really seems ATi has come up with quite a winner this time. It is rather shocking however, to discover that the card actually draws more power than a multi-GPU 7950GX2. Other than that this card seems to have almost everything going for it, even though 3D Mark performance boost is not catching up to the 7950GX2 at 650MHz Core clock. Now it's much of a question of the availability of the cards at launch, and this may be partly affected by the production quantity of the rather new GDDR4 Memory. For gaming enthusiasts, if this card really retails at the USD$399 it is slated to, this is THE loveboat as you won't be able to get the performance for that price looking at any other card than this. It seems that ATi has delivered quite an uppercut to NVIDIA with this!

CRITICAL:
- Vulnerability in Server Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (921883)
- Vulnerability in DNS Resolution Could Allow Remote Code Execution (920683)
- Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (918899)
- Vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Could Allow Remote Code Execution (920214)
- Vulnerability in Microsoft Management Console Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917008)
- Vulnerability in HTML Help Could Allow Remote Code Execution (922616)
- Vulnerability in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Could Allow Remote Code Execution (921645)
- Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (922968)
- Vulnerability in Windows Kernel Could Result in Remote Code Execution (917422)

IMPORTANT:
- Vulnerability in Windows Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution (921398)
- Vulnerability in Windows Kernel Could Result in Elevation of Privilege (920958)
- Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows Hyperlink Object Library Could Allow Remote Code Execution (920670)

For Quad-SLI owners, configuring a system doesn't necessarily stop once the hardware is up and running, however. To take advantage of the high resolutions offered by today's crop of large monitors, many games have to be modified manually. For power users, we don't think this will be an issue, but for gamers that don't happen to be very tech savvy, taking advantage of what Quad-SLI offers could be somewhat difficult. Keep that in mind. Another major consideration for Quad-SLI is cost. The parts needed to assemble a worthwhile Quad-SLI system are considerably expensive at this time. The products we used for our build consisted of the following core components...

Core 2 Extreme X6800 - $1300
XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 - $570 x 2
Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C3 - $400
Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe - $250
Turbo Cool 1 Kilowatt - $500
Dell 3007WFP - $2199
-------------------------------------
Total Cost - $5789

As you can see, we were approaching the $6000 mark with just the core components to a high-end Quad-SLI rig. We did not take into account a case, drives, input devices, a dedicated sound card, or any other accessories for that matter. Clearly, Quad-SLI is not for everyone; then again it isn't meant to be. But for those that can afford the hardware, there is currently nothing more powerful when it comes to graphics performance. And as NVIDIA further optimizes their Forceware drivers, Quad-SLI performance and compatibility should only get better.

Intel's snazzy new CPU architecture again proves very potent. As you've witnessed, the Core 2 Duo E6300 generally got the better of this comparison in terms of performance. The E6300 is faster than the EE SFF-and, by extension, any of the three versions of the Athlon 64 X2 3800+-when running at stock speeds. When overclocked by an easily achievable 25% to 2.33GHz, this CPU can run with a AMD's fastest processor, the Athlon 64 FX-62. That's pretty darned spiffy for a processor that lists for under $200.  The E6300 doesn't draw much less power than the higher models of the Core 2 Duo, making it arguably less energy efficient than those chips. Still, the E6300 is easily more efficient than a Pentium D or a regular Athlon 64 X2.

Also, outside of a few exceptions, the E6300's smaller L2 cache doesn't handicap it significantly in terms of clock-for-clock performance compared to Core 2 Duo processors with 4MB of cache. What that says to me is that there's no reason to fear grabbing a 2MB version of the Core 2 Duo if you plan to overclock. You're not likely to miss the extra cache.

In short, if I were building a PC today and I could get my hands on an E6300, I'd grab it and go to town on the overclocking. The only reason I might hesitate would be worries about my motherboard taking the front-side bus beyond 1333MHz without problems. If you aren't confident about taking the front-side bus into the stratosphere, the higher multiplier in the E6400 might be worth the extra money. Beyond that, the E6300 looks like a killer CPU for an enthusiast's desktop PC.

When you consider all six games, the winner becomes abundantly clear. There's not a single game where the Core 2 Duo didn't deliver a higher average frame rate. Across all games, Intel's new CPU delivered a 16% higher frame rate. What is more important is that it spent a significantly smaller amount of time beneath our arbitrary thresholds for a really smooth and enjoyable gameplay experience. In fact, there are three games-half of our sample group!-where the Core 2 Duo essentially never dipped below the minimum threshold at all.

Both systems are truly fantastic game platforms, and the recent aggressive pricing by both Intel and AMD are very exciting. Compared with last year's tests, the games in our group are more demanding, and our minimum frame-rate thresholds are higher, too. Despite this, both systems delivered higher overall frame rates and, more importantly, spent less time beneath the minimum FPS threshold.

Though we proclaim Core 2 Duo the clear winner, we can't be too hard on the Athlon 64 X2. It turned in a great performance and definitely makes a great gaming CPU. We've lauded the game performance of AMD's CPUs for a long time, and they didn't get any slower with the introduction of Intel's Core 2 lineup, just less expensive.

The real winner here is the consumer. You don't need to spend several thousand dollars on hardware to make a great gaming system. At 1280x1024-the most common LCD resolution and 40% higher-res than 720p high definition-you can have a really awesome time gaming with a single sub-$300 graphics card and a CPU just over $300. And you don't need to reduce the game's detail levels to do it; we ran all these tests using each game's "high" setting. With such high-performance dual-core CPUs priced so aggressively, and with Vista coming out in the next year with a strong focus on improving PC gaming, the signs look good for PC game fans.