Q6600 with G0 stepping available mid-July

[Toobad]

The price of existing Quads with B3 stepping are starting to fall slightly. This may be because retailers are clearing shelf space for the latest variant. The "Gee Zero" has a TDP of 95W, 10W less than the B3. I guess this may translate as slightly higher overclocking potential with your existing heatsink or perhaps just lower temps. Anybody buying a Q6600 after the July 22 price drop has filtered through can check to see if they have bought old or new stock by looking on the packaging or processor itself for the sSpec Number:

B3 Stepping = sSpec Number SL9UM
G0 Stepping = sSpec Number SLARC

If you haven't been able to contain your excitement and prematurely inserted your Quad into those 775 holes, you can fire her up and check the CPUID. Joy or despair will manifest itself thus:

B3 Stepping = CPUID 06F7
G0 Stepping = CPUID 06FB

I appreciate not eveybody needs or wants a Quad but I hope this info will prove useful to other "bang4buck" shoppers out there.

[dbh]

Thank you for that tid bit of info (prospective quad core buyer).

[Phil_P]

Thanks

Do you have a source for the info?

[Toobad]

Thanks

Do you have a source for the info?

Read about it yonks ago, but a bit of googling retrieved this as a possible link:
http://www.behardware.com/news/8785/...nsumption.html

[Robbie G]

Interesting but it doesn't really help as you'll never be able to find out the stepping of a new CPU before you buy it.

[DataMatrix]

I usually encode 2 movies at a time so Quad-core would be useful to me.

[dbh]

Only other thing I'm thinking about will Barcelona be faster than this Kentsfield in max hmm!

[funnelhead]

Damn, so now i wont be holding out for July 22nd, ill be holding on for even longer so i can increse me chances of new stock

Tbh, there will probably be smaller vendors that will tell you if its new stock or old....they just wont be the cheapest

f

[graysky]

I usually encode 2 movies at a time so Quad-core would be useful to me.

Encode to what? XviD or x264? If you're doing x264, you can use all 4 cores on the same encode. If you're not doing x264, are you not doing so to watch the output on a standalone player? x264 really rocks up and down XviD. Comparing xvid to x264 is like compare mp3 to ogg or ac3 if you're an audiophile.