CPU Performance vs Price Roundup

Despite the prevalence of apps that don't take advantage of more than a couple of cores in our benchmark suite, the Core 2 Quad Q6600 comes out looking very good, ahead of the dual-core CPUs we tested, not to mention each and every AMD processor. Once again, the Core 2 Quad Q9300 sits in a particularly nice spot, too. It lies comfortably above all cheaper and similarly priced offerings on the performance scale, but costs only $144 more than the cheapest config with an Athlon X2 5600+. Other quad-core CPUs don't look quite as appealing, and only the very expensive Core 2 Extreme QX9775 setup offers substantially higher overall performance.

Among the AMD processors, we should single out the Phenom X4 9850 for distinction. This CPU places well in our overall scatter plots, very close to two of the best Intel values in the Core 2 Duo 8400 and Core 2 Quad Q6600, and as we've mentioned, it comes with an unlocked upper multiplier for easy overclocking. As a result, AMD's highest performance processor may also be its most compelling overall value.