Thursday, November 27th 2008
Intel to Phase Out its Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processor Next Year
DigiTimes reports that Intel is to phase out its most beloved 65nm 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor in the first quarter of 2009.
Source:
DigiTimes
Intel is planning to start phasing out the 65nm Core 2 Quad Q6600 in the first quarter of 2009, prompting several PC and channel vendors to start planning to cut Q6600-product prices to clear their inventory before the end of this year, according to sources at PC vendors.
Intel will issue a product discontinuance notice for the Q6600 in the first quarter next year, and call end-of-lifecycle in the second quarter.
Acer has reduced pricing for its Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600-based desktops to below NT$13,900 (US$418) for the IT Month consumer show in the Taiwan market, and other vendors are expected to follow suit.
51 Comments on Intel to Phase Out its Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processor Next Year
my two are still going strong despite their age.
I mean, Intel still has Celeron, Pentium 4 and initial release Core 2 Duos still on the market . . . but they choose the Q6600 as the next to be blackballed . . .
Granted I had a B3, it was one of the best chips I have ever owned. My X3350 is ranked numero uno. :)
If they have what you send back, then they replace it. They usually keep a few laying around for this purpose.
If they don't have it, they will replace it with something equivalent or slightly better if they have it laying around.(Another Q6000 or QX series).
If they don't have any of those, then they will replace it with something from the currrent line of processors(Q8000 would probably be the case).
e.g. Pentium 4s are pretty revered by extreme OCing enthusiasts - simply for the insane speeds they can hit thanks to the high multis
Remember the days of 486 with DX4, and Pentium Overdrive? Bring that back. Let peeps on a regular s775 that doesnt do 1600FSB buy a high performance CPU on 1033. :toast:
They did have a Q6700, but at $200 more than the Q6600, and the demend for quad processor still fairly low at the time, no one was buying the Q6700. So they canned it a long while ago. The Q6600 sold well simply because it for its time, it hit the sweet spot of performance and price. The other 65nm Quads were way overpriced. Hell, I would say the 45nm Quads are still way overpriced. I would like to see the Q9650 down in the $300 range personally.I've seen this happen once with a customer, and it was an old Socket 478 motherboard with a P4C 3.0GHz. In cases where they don't have the same part, and are going to send something comparible, but an "upgrade" that might not be compatible, they will usually contact the customer to make sure the motherboard will work with the new processor. In this case they wanted to send him a P4E 3.0GHz to repalce the P4C. Since the old one was a Northwood and the new one was a Prescott, his board wouldn't support the new processor. Intel was really cool about it, they shipped him a board that supported the new processor also, which was a great improvement over the VIA POS board he had originally.
Ah well, ive only ever had two processors - my beloved 5000+BE and this, and i have no intention of swapping this out any time soon! especially seeing as it was quite a late batch but still can shadow 4Ghz! (see below)