I. Introduction

It is now year 2007, and we already know that Intel has been killing pretty much all benchmarks available to enthusiasts in the desk top world. Enthusiasts are now looking forward to an affordable quad core, which is currently available only to the cream of the crop users. In 2006, much has changed in the Chipzilla line of products. This year saw the launching of so many products from Intel. This year is when Chipzilla migrated from being a CPU company, into a platform company. They have launched many great products, and in this year, they have launched a new uA that shook the world, and changed the computing landscape forever. Quad Core is now the buzzword in the enthusiast segment, even before Dual Core computing became the universal mantra. Eight way computing is already a reality on the high-end server segment, and this can be achieved at an amazingly lower priced, relatively speaking, compared to a couple years back. And this octa-core computing with just two physical sockets, which is an achievement itself. However, while uber enthusiasts are raving about these Quad Cores, it is noteworthy that even the lowest speed binned of the Conroe family, the 1.83GH E6300 model, is already wrecking havoc in the performance arena. This processor will be one of the candidates of this article.

Flashback to a year ago of 2005, and we see Chipzilla being the first to launch Dual Core for the desktop and led in this effort ever since. They have spearheaded value dual core computing, with Smithfield 2.66GHz/2MB L2/533MHz being the best bang for the buck money can buy. The superb overclockability even prompted THG, a world reknowned hardware review site, to pit this budget processor against its contenders and came up as the best. Year 2005 is also the best year for Chipzilla in terms of hitting its $$$ goal and getting the best record revenue. This is also the year where four thread processing is a reality, with Extreme Editon, Dual Core computing and HT combined, it is amazing to see four CPU on the task manager of Windows OS, on a desktop setup, before Quad Core is born.

Going even further and earlier, the year 2004, and we'll get back remembering meeting the first LGA775. It is the time when the world also sets eyes on an old Extreme Edition migrated to the newer socket. Hence. while the new LGA775 processors sports a new numbering scheme, this processor still carries the old way of modeling CPU by GHz. This processor, based on Gallatin core, along with the Conroe, will be the focus of this review.

So what's the goal of this article? Just to look back, compare the performance, and learn to appreaciate what we can get now, at a fraction of a price about two years ago.