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Rumour control: End of the road for Core 2 Quad Q6600
Classic affordable quad core chip could be for the chop next year
Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6600 has become something of a classic in recent times. Not only does the 65nm CPU work on some old 965-based motherboard, as well as new X48-based boards, but it also costs just £147.92 inc VAT for a quad-core CPU, and the current G0 stepping of the 2.4GHz chip is also massively overclockable. You couldn’t really ask for much more from a sub-£150 chip, but the rumour is that Intel plans to knock the Q6600 on the head in early next year.
Taiwanese tech site DigiTimes claims to have spoken to sources at PC vendors who say that Intel has warned them about the chip’s forthcoming demise. The sources say that the Q6600 will be phased out in the first quarter of 2009, although the site also says that several PC manufacturers and vendors plan to cut the price of the chip to clear out the old stocks, so you may be able to pick up a bargain if you haven’t made the move to quad-core yet.
According to the site, Intel will announce the Q6600’s discontinuation in the first quarter of 2009, and call the chip’s end of lifecycle in the second quarter of the year. The move isn’t particularly surprising given that the Kentsfield core is now a couple of years old, and Intel is now pushing its 45nm Core 2 chips and Core i7 CPUs. However, the Q6600 still appears on Intel’s 17 November price list, along with the Q6700, so you should be able to get hold of a Q6600 easily enough at the moment.
Did you buy a Core 2 Q6600, and do you think the chip now reached the end of its shelf life? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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this was the best quad core CPU on the market it overclocked like a bomb i got 4.25 ghz although i couldn't because of my cooling anyway this is my next PC im getting for Christmas asus pt6 motherboard intel core i7 4gb ddr3 2 ati sapphire radeon 4870 x2 crossfire xfi sound card lg blu-ray drive 1tb samsung hardrive 1000w psu antec twelve hundred vista home premium 64 bit lg flatron 24in monitor 5.1 surround system all good for xmas pressy
Comment by custompcfreak at 5:26pm 3rd December 2008
The best value chip I ever had. There is anticipation and hope that it's replacement will be as good, for as long – Intel, stun us.
Comment by knevitt at 4:39pm 3rd December 2008
what a bloody shame this cpu singlehandedly nailed amd's coffin shut and amd are still scratching at the lid to get out I know we have to progress but what a great chip mine is sat at 3.6ghz at the moment not even breaking sweat farewell my friend you will be sorely missed
Comment by pistyll at 8:14am 3rd December 2008
The q6600 I have is clocked in at 3.2ghz with an 8800gts card & 4 gigs of DDR2 @800mhz, every game I play is great at 1600x1050 max settings, Vista is ultra responsive (after service packs and custom tweaks). My hard drives could do with being swapped out for higher capacity at some point but other then that, there's absolutely no need for me to upgrade so I won't.
Comment by luttman23 at 1:41pm 30th November 2008
Many people ask about this and I can certainly say it improved my performance. I upgraded from a E2180 at 3.4 GHz and a 8800GTS 320, to a Q6600 at 3.4 GHz and a GTX 260, and my framerates shot up by 50%.....and everything's smoother and sharper. That's on XP SP3 with Acceleration.
Comment by GabethePilot at 1:31pm 30th November 2008
I purchased one at the beginning of this year when I built my own computer. A G0 stepping version. I was amazed by how easy it is to overclock and how high it will go without breaking a sweat. It runs at 3.4ghz with a pro 7 cpu cooler hardly running either. Must be the chip or the case (Antec 900) or the cooler but the whole system is so fast and isn't noisey at all. If the Q6600 goes it will be a sad day for people on a budget. I've recommended it to everyone I know.
Comment by finn1974 at 1:13pm 30th November 2008
I only just bought a q6600 G0 95W quad recently and Im glad i finally chose it over a dual core now Ive been using it. I jumped quite a bit from my last rig, Opteron 150 single core. cant complain about the improvements for just a tad over £109 inc VAT :) Already its running at 3GHz with barely an effort to get it there. Amazing value for money this chip, THATS why they are going to pull it I think. Basically its a budget chip that evrybody can keep for ages because the new models didnt make it look much slower. I bet they dont make their next "bang for the buck" overclocker friendly CPU quite as easy to double in speed. Its a bit like the light bulb and the fact they "COULD" make unbreakable bulbs that last forever, but then, how would they keep selling the new stuff? :) Q6600 was and still is a bargain buut hey, the king is dead, long live the king!! :D I wonder what the replacement line will be? Intel superclock CPU: i7QuadZ6600GTRi released very soon with the power of 4Xq6600's for a tad under £150??? :D lets hope so eh? we can dream cant we?
Comment by hazed100 at 3:41am 30th November 2008
q66 is good value but prime 95, other bench testers and first person games are not a good way of testing a rig. I have a save game in supcom where the gloal population is over 5000 this brings all cpu to there knees and you must be in vista64 with at least 4gig of ram( add another 4 gig if you have a modern gpu setup that exceededs 1gig) the q66 cannot handle supcom fully pumping and @ its sensible max of 3.6 it crashes a lot because of the demand for basically more ram and cpu and even more graphics. In my experience online and at lans the dual core boys in 32bit os whine like bitches.
Comment by timevans at 9:04pm 28th November 2008
Intel are already phasing it out and its in short supply, it goes EOL just after march next year but Intel are planning to make sure its not available weeks before then. So long little buddy.
Comment by Nadulike at 2:25pm 28th November 2008
an e6600 and a 8800GTS 320mb. and i can still handle most if not all games @ 1680x1050. i dont feel compelled to move to anything higher other than a 4850 ati card...and not the cpu
Comment by Lightning_Pete at 12:28pm 28th November 2008
A GPU needs to be fed data from the CPU, the more powerful the GPU, the more demanding it is on the system in terms of data demand. A core duo at 2.6ghz will not be able to feed a GPU quick enough and consequently you won't get maximum performance from your GPU. This is very easy to prove, all you have to do is overclock your cpu/system (not necessary to overclock GPU) and you will see an increase in FPS in games. There will come a point at which overclocking CPU/system bus no longer increases FPS and that is the point at which the GPU is able to work at full bandwidth. For my old E6300 (1.86ghz) & 7900gt, the FPS continued to increase until the CPU was overclocked at 3.1ghz. So that is the speed at which the CPU/system bus was no longer a bottleneck for GPU. With more powerful graphics cards, the demands on CPU & system bus are even greater. Even a Q6600 at default speed won't be able to deliver full bandwidth for an 8800gt or higher. What you will find is that overclocking CPU & system bus generates a far greater increase in GPU performance than overclocking the GPU itself. So for those who say that CPU doesn't need to be fast because the GPU does all the work? That is very much an untruth, the CPU has a very great load since it must provide the game mechanics and also meet the demands of the GPU as well. There is no point in disputing this, if you doubt my words then simply overclock your CPU/system by a significant margin and watch the FPS increase in games.
Comment by feathers633 at 8:11pm 27th November 2008
With my old E6300 overclocked to 3.6ghz, FPS on some UT3 maps would slow to a crawl. Crysis warhead ice level with the ice vehicle was also very slow on dual core even with the massive overclock. Since upgrading to quad core, the crysis ice level was far smoother and UT3 is now lightning fast on all maps with the detail turned up to max (with the dual core I had to reduce detail). You don't have to be einstein to realise that extra cores = extra performance. The amazing thing is that when I say UT3 and Crysis warhead were smoother, that is with a relatively low Q6600 overclock to 3ghz (I now run it at 3.6ghz all the time). The two games I mention happen to support quad core of course but I can say that my windows performance is generally much better. Having 2 extra cores to handle more processes makes all the difference.
Comment by feathers633 at 7:59pm 27th November 2008
Well I've only had my Q6600 for a few months, and will be keeping it for at least 3 years :)
Comment by l00ney at 6:27pm 27th November 2008
I bought my Q6600 for less than £100 in the Summer, an upgrade from an Athlon64 3400+...an absolute bargain, and a massive jump in performance! Its just a pity I couldn't afford a decent mobo and gfx card. I'm considering sticking with the 6600 for my next upgrade, rather than moving onto i7...just purchasing a better mobo, a better gfx card (4870x2 would be nice!) and faster RAM instead.
Comment by jim_bot at 3:13pm 27th November 2008
I bought my Q6600 for less than £100 in the Summer, an upgrade from an Athlon64 3400+...an absolute bargain, and a massive jump in performance! Its just a pity I couldn't afford a decent mobo and gfx card. I'm considering sticking with the 6600 for my next upgrade, rather than moving onto i7...just purchasing a better mobo, a better gfx card (4870x2 would be nice!) and faster RAM instead.
Comment by jim_bot at 3:13pm 27th November 2008
heh.. i still use a 6550 and an x1950pro. cant use any bigger coz my screen's only 19" lol
Comment by thegreat0mi at 2:27pm 27th November 2008
Actually I can attest after moving my machine from the E6600 to the G0 Stepping Q6600 that there was no real difference in frame rates. Indeed in any of my more "normal" work. The difference is when trying to run a large number of programs at once or try to use a large program doing alot (think photoshop with a few hundred layers and pixel counts 10000*10000+), the system just feels smoother than it used too. TBH at the moment I don't really feel compelled to upgrade any of the system. The G0 a 8800GTX and 4GB Corsair RAM. It still screams through most games at 1680*1050 so i'm happy. I bought the thing around this time 2 years ago. Best £2500 i'll buy for a long time.
Comment by reashlin at 2:04pm 27th November 2008
And I have no real reason to upgrade even that just yet. The only intensive think my PC does is play games, and the GPU is still IMHO the most important part of a rig if that's what you spend your time doing... I though about moving to quad-core a while ago but I still don't genuinely believe a quad at identical clock speed would make much (if any) discernable difference to my frame rates. I bet there are plently of you who would disagree though!
Comment by NinkyRudes at 2:03pm 27th November 2008
A friend tried persuading me to buy a wolfdale E8400 but I was pretty sure I was sick of dual cores. I knew quad was the way to go. I get 3.6ghz from it at 1.42v (in windows) and 3.848ghz OCCT stable at 1.5 volts. Has been to 4ghz as well but not OCCT stable yet. A week after I purchased my Q6600 from overclockers, the retail price began to rise!
Comment by feathers633 at 1:19pm 27th November 2008
why is this in the rumour mill? i honestly have read elsewhere at least a month ago that intel will begin to phase out the last of the 65nm parts which are basically the quads. its a fact. theres no real reason for intel to continue making the 65nm parts, especially ones with slimmer profit margins than the 45nm quads. still i also agree that these first generation quads were always going to be underused but neccesary to create to force the market forward. Q6600 will be laid to bed, and in 5 years time looking back it will be noted for its role in affordably supercharging the multi thread era. well deserved old chap :-)
Comment by vulcanproject at 1:07pm 27th November 2008
Unless you are planning a complete new system build, if it's just an upgrade then stick with the Q6600. It has been responsible for holding back AMD and their Phenom range almost by itself. I picked mine up for £89.95 + VAT a couple of months ago and I've seen go up in price since. If you aren't running a quadcore at the moment and your system and wallet can handle it, you would be making probably one of the smartest upgrades you can make.
Comment by crazyceo at 1:02pm 27th November 2008
Although the chip has been knocked down in the pecking order by 45nm and i7 I still seriously doubt if any game has fully taken advantage of the 4 cores. Mine is clocked at 3.2GHz and I cant see me replacing it for sometime yet.
Comment by pveater at 12:32pm 27th November 2008
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