Intel QX6850 soon

[D_o_S]

Intel deals yet another blow to AMD with their new QX6850 CPU. It is the highest-end offer of the new revamped 1333 MHz FSB Core 2 series.

The QX6850 is the CPU that will hold Intel the performance flag until quad-core Penryn CPUs arrive. It consists of four cores (dual die) clocked at 3.0 GHz, a FSB set to 1333 MHz and 8 MB of L2 cache (4 MB shared per die). The QX6850 will be released by the end of the month (around July 22) and, according to the previews posted today, it will be a natural choice of the PC enthusiast, although it doesn't bring any innovative features to the table. The QX6850 is high-end, it will be expensive and awaiting competition.

We have a quick round-up of the QX6850 articles just below.

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[WarEagleAU]

More and more releases, Intel is doing what AMD did with their Athlon 64 line when they were the performance champs. I personally cannot wait for the penryns to come out and then AMDs 45nm procs next year.

Also, I cant wait for the Phenoms as AMD and several other internet sources are prodding them as faster than anything Intel offers Today [read not the penryns]

 

[winhack]

Question on the QX6850 regarding cooling: Does the QX6850 require water/liquid cooling, or can it work with just the included stock HSF?

I've read a number of of web-site reviews, and as far as I can see no one has done (or at least mentioned) anything exorbitant regarding cooling the QX6850, but every time I see a picture of the test setup, it's always just spread out on a desk, not installed in a case (for the obvious reasons).

I know that the QX6700 can operate just fine in a very well ventilated, roomy case with the stock HSF and some auxiliary case fans without a problem (presuming no OC'ing is going on as well, I might add). I also recall early stories about the QX6800 when it came out and how it did not even ship with a stock HSF and always required some form of water/liquid cooling to be implemented (which was one of the reasons given as to why it was so difficult to get ahold of--due to the fact that it needed specific cooling requirements to be met in order to operate safely and have a nice, long life).

I have not heard any mention one way or another about the cooling requirements of the QX6850. According to Newegg, the QX6850 DOES come with a stock HSF, which would indicate that it *theoretically* could be cooled using just that device. In contrast, however, many of the user reviews indiciate that liquid cooling is a (near) must (of course these same users rarely indicate whether they are OCing or not).

So the question remains: in a very spacious case (Silverstone TJ09) with multiple additional case fans (5 at least) and reasonable air flow and no overclocking (at least to start with), can the QX6850 survive without additional liquid cooling, or should it not even be considered and go straight to liquid cooling? Now that the QX6850 is generally available, hopefully someone will have some practical experience they can share with me and the other readers to shed some light on the subject.

Adjunct question: If liquid cooling is required, what is the current consensus on simple-to-assemble, good quality liquid cooling systems?