Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Preview

Thoughts...

Generally speaking, the higher front side bus speed that the Core 2 Duo E6750 has results in some slight performance increases over the Core 2 Duo E6700 and its 1066MHz front side bus. That's not a bad thing, but to be fair, we weren’t expecting much more than that in all honesty.

If we look at performance as a whole, the Core 2 Duo E6750 is faster than any dual-core processor that AMD has in its ranks and that’s why AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 6000+ pricing is as low as it is. Speaking of which, there were quite a few occasions where the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ was faster than Intel’s Core 2 Duo E6600, which comes in at the same price point.

Should you be a user that has a very focused set of daily tasks for your computer, the Athlon 64 X2 may be the better choice for you. For example, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ performed well in our Photoshop benchmark and it performed particularly well in our 3D rendering tests. In the latter, it was as fast, if not faster than the Core 2 Duo E6750.

However, if you were to look at performance as a whole, the Core 2 Duo E6600 just edges it over the X2 6000+. This is largely thanks to the Core 2’s massive advantages in multimedia encoding tests, where it was well over 15 percent faster in all of our test scenarios.

If anything though performance is a given with the E6750 and the biggest thing to discuss here is the price. Based on the fact that the Core 2 Duo E6850 is rumoured to cost as little as $266 in 1000 unit quantities, the Core 2 Duo E6750 is going to be even cheaper than that. Currently, the Core 2 Duo E6700 is $316, so the upcoming price cuts could see some very healthy cost cuts from the consumer’s perspective.

We currently don’t have any inclination on the Core 2 Duo E6750’s price, but if it was to come in at less than the current price of the Core 2 Duo E6600, it’s going to be game over for the Athlon 64 X2 6000+, quite simply. All that AMD can continue to do is reduce its prices and wait for its Phenom processors to reach critical mass.

We eagerly await final pricing on the Core 2 Duo E6750, and if our sample is released from Customs in due course, we’ll follow up this article with a spot of overclocking. One thing’s for sure though: if the rumoured E6850 pricing (and our pricing forecasts) hold true, the Core 2 Duo E6750 could well represent a very compelling buy if you’ve got a motherboard that supports 1333MHz FSB processors.