Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 - DigitalVersus

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Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400

STORES	£
Ebuyer	151.05
Misco UK	158.99
Dell (UK)	238.54
Dell Business	271.38


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Specifications
Socket	775
Number of cores	4
Clock rate	2.66 GHz
Cache	6 MB
Thermal Design Power	95 W
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Technology	45 nm
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Régis Jehl
Updated: November 06, 2008 - Test date: October 27, 2008

Quad-Core from Intel

Intel launched the Core 2 Quad Q9000 range in January 2008 with two models: this Q9400 (2.66 GHz) and the Q9300 (2.5 GHz).

The two processors are in between the Q8000 series and the more powerful Q9050 series, with the main distinguishing feature being the amount of cache: from 4 MB on the Q8000, Intel first upgraded to 6 MB on this Q9000 series before doubling it again to 12 MB on the Q9050 processors.

All three families use 775 sockets, but the Q9200 and Q9300 are engineered at 45 nm, giving them a rather average TDP of 95 W.

Like the majority of quad-core processors, this 2.66 GHz Core 2 Quad Q9400 is designed with a rather demanding audience in mind: professionals who work with 2D and 3D video editing, complicated photo manipulation and other complex complications.

For such users, the upgrade from a dual-core to a quad-core processor is very noticeable.

Compare the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 with the AMD Phenom X4 9750 and other CPUs in our
Product Face-Off

Comparing it to the Core 2 Duo E8200, another 2.66 GHz chip, but with a 'mere' two cores on board, the performance difference was clear.

The E8200 took 6 minutes 48 seconds to encode our test video as a DivX file, while this Q9400 made the most of its extra cores to complete the same operation in just 4 minutes 51 seconds.

Provided that the applications you run are optimized for quad-core chips, then the uplift in performance is very worthwhile.

The downside of these improved results, of course, is an increase in the amount of power that these quad-core processors need.

On our test PC, we observed a power consumption of 253 W with the CPU load at 100%, as opposed to the 207 W needed by the Core 2 Duo E8200 which also runs at 2.66 GHz.

The Q9400 is still a lot less greedy than the AMD Phenom X4 9750 and its 303 W, though.

Pluses

Shows off its four cores: great for all sorts of demanding applications

Good in non-optimized applications too

Minuses

High power consumption

As with most of the other quad-core processors that we've seen, the Q9400 really comes into its own when you throw plenty of demanding applications at it. If you're not editing 3D video or playing the latest games on it, though, it's less of a must-have.