Intel's QX9770 quad-core to blow away competition in Q1
Want to see what AMD is up against come Q1? You're looking at it, the 3.2GHz, quad-core, QX9770 Core 2 Extreme processor from Intel. Like Intel's current headliner -- the QX9650 -- we're talking 45-nm Yorkfield class silicon here with 1600MHz front side bus and 12MB L2 cache. HotHardware got their hands on the proc a bit early and call it the fastest quad-core processor they've ever tested, "bar none." Generally speaking, they found it to be about 5 - 8% faster than the QX9650. As you can see from the graph up there, it easily smokes the $300 Phenom 9700 and the $350 2.6GHz Phenom 9900 (both due in Q1) likely won't fare much better. Just keep in mind that Intel's top-performer will cost you around $1,200 by the time it pops in Q1. Somehow, we don't think that's going dissuade any Crysis gamers out there.
