ExtremeTech has a head to head match up of the AMD X4 9850 and the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300. Will AMD finally gain some ground on the current Intel offerings? I guess you'll just have to read about it @ ExtremeTech.

It's worth putting all this in perspective before we dive into the performance numbers of these two quad-core CPUs in our showdown today. The Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition and Core 2 Quad Q9300 are capable products and faster than the generations preceding them. One, of course, is faster than the other. As you might predict, it's the more expensive one who's manufactured by the company starting with the letter "I".

On the other hand, the new B3 stepping of the Phenom, even if you don't consider the critical TLB bug fix, just seems a little more well mannered than the originalPhenom we reviewed back in December. Rated at a 2.5GHz clock speed, our Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition is currently looping 3Dmark06 at 2.8GHz—and the CPU fan is spinning at normal speeds.

Still, it's worth comparing performance between these two mainstream quad core CPUs. Just for grins, we'll also toss in performance numbers of an Intel Core 2 E8500 dual core CPU, which also costs around 0.

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