With the addition of Intel’s latest quad-core processor, computer enthusiasts, designers and gamers have all found a new love. The new Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800 runs at 2.93GHz giving it the fastest native clock speed achieved from any Intel® Core™ Quad-core desktop to date, setting the new benchmark for computing standards.

The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800 is ideal for those gamers, digital design professionals and enthusiasts who crave the highest performing computers they can get their hands on. Multi-threading in CPUs has been around for a fair while now, and it’s not new to have your game running 2 threads continually to achieve better game play, but now with four cores becoming more common, game developers are start to take notice.

At the recent Game Developer's Conference* in San Francisco, a number of developers demonstrated the advantages of multiple processor cores and threads with new games that have been "threaded" to increase performance. This results in the delivery of smoother gameplay, more realistic game effects and more lifelike artificial intelligence. Some of the most exciting titles of the year such as Crytek’s Crysis*, Gas Powered Games’ Supreme Commander* and Flagship's Hellgate London* have undergone substantial joint engineering efforts with Intel to use more than two processing threads to their advantage.

Microsoft has really tackled the quad-core era head on, taking quad-core processing and integrating quad-core threading into the recently released Microsoft Flight Simulator*. “The latest version of Microsoft Flight Simulator* X, Service Pack One (SP1), due out later this month, is a great match for the extreme multi-core processing delivered by the new Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor," said Phil Taylor, Flight Sim Program Manager, Microsoft Game Studios. "Flight Sim X SP1 greatly increases multicore utilization and will scale as more threads are available leading to reduced load times as well as frame rate improvements and greater visual complexity during flight. The Flight Simulator team at Microsoft is pleased to work with Intel to provide our end users with a great gaming experience."

The release means more than just cool tricks in games. The design world has embraced the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800. Adobe*, Cakewalk*, DivX*, Sony Creative Software* with dozens of other developers have produced applications taht can use all for cores, and generating speeds of upto 65% faster1 than the Intel Core 2 Extreme dual-core processor X6800 on video encoding. This is a key capability as more households are recording and editing high-definition video to capture, preserve and share memories.

The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800 is produced on Intel's industry-leading 65 nanometer process, key to enabling the large 8 megabyte cache. A 1066 MHz system bus is supported and the processor is available now at a cost of $1,199.
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1 1 MainConcept* H.264 Encoder v2.1 using input file 30sec long, 1920x1080 HD mpeg2 video clip with a bitrate of about 18000kpbs. Output is H.264 format video encoded at 6000 kbps. Details and system specs at http://www.intel.com/performance/desktop/extreme/video_encoding.htm.

For more information on the Intel Quad-core, check out Intel.com