Intel Xeon X3210 2.13GHz Quad-Core

[Rob Williams]

One of the most popular CPUs on the market right now is the Q6600, thanks to the fact that it offers four cores at 2.4GHz. But what about the Xeon's? Their prices are also more affordable now, with their X3210 2.13GHz retailing for $260. Read on as we pit this Quad-Core against the rest of our fleet.

You can read our full review here and discuss it here.

[thomasxstewart]

When Penryn hits, how low will they go? First ATI hasn't much to offer, apparently PAN Flashed when Oil was Thin & its DRY Market now, Intel being Only Name,everywhere you look.

Who would think Core 2 Duo for $80, Server is more stable & less Workstation mainboards exist for NT6. As well as Vista Ultimates' trouble, mostly unstated, if it works great, yet So FEW, for such power, its really NOT Processor problem at present, its MAINBAORD weakness. VistaUltimate needs losely configured lower class processorsmainboards to fully function, yet Server 2008 is much tighter, so I believe Quad is going to PENRYN in style with proper Software & Mainboard.

Putting Server 2008 on C: boot, active; might bring Vista Ultimate into fray with some real guts to push, yet remain stable & complete on second partition.

Say penryn Quad from $450 to $1,100, its worth it if you have Mainboard thats' extra super certified. Mega Certified might be better, from Mind of: thomasxstewart.

Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.

Scrap what i was going to post .. as i re read the overclocking part agane

you should stick with C on the temps and when overclocking you seems to have an strange problem with getting temps reports seems not very good for an review
3ghz seems an norm overclock for an core2 100c not Likey the temps for the overclock that is more likey Due to an Failed overclock (Vcore to low from the looks of it)
you was getting as the cpu/PC would of turned off way before that (80-90c) maybe with the heatsink not fitted right

next time use other testing programs to get temp reports (Coretemp the motherboard monitor that comes with the motherboard or an reboot and go into bios)

aprt form that the review was good

[Rob Williams]

I don't know... Everest reports the same temperatures as CoreTemp (CoreTemp also crashes on most P35 systems), so it wouldn't be more accurate. Last month, I had a less-than-ideal Quad-Core which was slightly overclocked, and Everest noted that one of the CPU cores hit 100C. I used my Type K temperature measurement to see how hot the CPU was actually getting. As you can see in the picture, it was reading 76C. That diode was just touching the side of the IHS, so the cores themselves must be at least that, or higher.

I just wish Intel would give us a reliable way to measure temperatures, since it's near impossible right now to conclude on our readings.