Core 2 Quadro Review - A Closer Look
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Today we'll be looking at the Core 2 Quadro (Kentsfield). The sample we have is a QX6600, clocked by default to 2.4GHz per core, with a 1066MHz front side bus and a total of 8MB of cache.
Here is an image of our sample chip. The Core 2 Quadro is on the left, and a Core 2 Duo is on the right. They appear essentially the same, with no major differences other than the wording. As you can see our Quadro reads ES A4, indicating that it's an early engineering sample, while our Duo reads ES <production location>, indicating that it's intended to be identical to retail. Therefore, our chip may differ somewhat from retail Quadros.
Here is an image of the LGA (land-grid-array) of our two chips (Core 2 Quadro on the left and Core 2 Duo on the right). As you can see, the chip uses the standard LGA775 socket, which means that is should be drop-in compatible with most boards that run the Core 2 Duo. The most modification required should be a bios update, providing an exciting upgrade path for Core 2 Duo users.
We installed the CPU into our test setup, and quickly attempted to boot the board with success on the first run! The board posted correctly and the POST screen read: "Genuine Intel® CPU @ 2.66GHz Cores: 4". What surprised me was that it ran perfectly on our board with all cores being detected and with no need for a bios update.
Here is the POST screen of our Asus P5WDG2-WS Pro with the latest bios revision 0307. As you can see it detects our chip and sees all four cores.
Next: The Test Setup >>
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