AnandTech finally have Benchies for q6600 vs E6850

[Sarduk]

what im worried is that current core2quads are a rush project. just like the pentiumD series.

Of course the Intel Quads are a rushed job - they are two Core2Duos tethered together - meaning that when putting all cores under the same load, the bandwidth has to be split two ways - half to one pair of cores and half to the other pair.

Also, one pair of cores can only use 4MB of the cache, I believe (4MB to each pair of cores).

However, this was a successful tactic and means Intel have monopolised the Quad market for quite some time, while AMD went ahead and spent time (and still spending time) doing it the "proper" way. AMD have said that they "wished" they went ahead and tethered like Intel did., as business-wise it was a good move.

 

[Vertigo]

The biggest problem with the current quad-core design is that there's no shared cache so all shared memory access must traverse the front side bus, which is already stressed in a dual-core C2D system.

I believe Nehalem will bring both native quad core with a shared cache, similar to what AMD are promising with Barcelona, and also Intel's version of the hypertransport bus and integrated memory controller. Intel aren't being very innovative lately but seem to be taking the best ideas from AMD and refining them. This is no bad thing from a consumer point of view.

Penryn strikes me as a mere stop gap to keep AMD's Barcelona at bay until Nehalem arrives, which is going to be a major performance step forward I believe, akin to the P4-C2D jump.