Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 - DigitalVersus

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200


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Socket	775
Number of cores	4
Clock rate	2.33 GHz
Cache	4 MB
Thermal Design Power	95 W
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Technology	45 nm
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Régis Jehl
Test date: October 27, 2008

Quad-Core from Intel

The Core 2 Quad Q8xxx series was introduced in May 2008 with this model, the Q8200, and is not as powerful as the Q9x00 and Q9x50 lines.

The amount of cache is what distinguishes the three different lines: the 4 MB available on this processor increases to 6 MB on the Q9x00 and 12 MB on the Q9x50.

All three lines feature four cores and fit a 775 socket. Engineered at 45 nm, they work at a Thermal Design Power of 95 W, which is rather average.

Intel's powerful range of Core 2 Quad processors are aimed above all at professionals making a lot of use of demanding applications for editing videos, retouching photos or performing complex calculations.

Compare the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 with the Intel Core 2 Duo 8500 and other CPUs in our
Product Face-Off

For its target audience, the inclusion of four cores definitely allows the Q8000 series to bring a performance boost.

To take our 3D rendering test, for instance, this quad-core processor running at 2.33 GHz took just 1 minute 41 seconds, as opposed to the 2 minutes 14 seconds required by the dual-core E8500--which runs at 3.16 GHz.

While these statisitcs are impressive, they're not necessarily indicative of a gain across the board, and if your needs are simpler, you might find that a more affordable dual-core processor perfectly adequate for your needs, especially if your applications aren't optimized for the four cores on board.

This is often the case with 3D games, with the E8600 reaching a framerate of 41 fps in our test on World in Conflict, whereas this Q8200 was a touch slower at 36 fps.

Power consumption on the Q8000 series is reasonable, and we measured our test PC at 161 W wile the processor was idle and 222 W while the CPU load was 100%.

Classic quad-core performance: speedy across the board

Good in non-optimized applications too

High power consumption

The Q8200 performs well, and will offer an improvement in performance if you regularly use applications that can make use of its four cores but don't necessarily want to move to a more expensive chip from one of the Q9xxx series. For others, a dual-core processor will deliver the same amount of power without the increase in energy usage.