The recent price drops in Intel C2D has for the first time offered very high computing power at affordable prices for all class of end users. The newly released E6750 comes with 4MB cache and 1333MH FSB, that promises to improve performance, compared with the "older" E6700 series. Most currently sold motherboards support 1333MHz FSB processors, at least those with Intel P965 and P35 chipsets.

This give users two possible configurations, pairing an Intel E6750 with DDR2 memory or pairing an Intel E6750 with DDR3 memory, that can fully utilise the 1333MHz. So which is the faster combination? Well, its obvious that the DDR3 setup has an advantage, but check first how much DDR3 costs nowadays!

We tested both, with DDR2 and DDR3 memory. From the test results we found that "on average" we had:

• Intel E6750 with DDR3 @ 1333MHz is 7.68% slower than Intel XE6800
• Intel E6750 with DDR2 @ 1000MHz is 8.22% slower than Intel XE6800

Our testbed includes many synthetic and real life applications. The average performance can be considered as reliable when comparing two systems. What is of special interest is that there was a difference between the DDR2 vs DDR3 of only 0.54% in favor of the DDR3 setup. We used SuperTalent's PC3-1600CL7 that allowed us to have the lowest CL6 at 1333MHz. On the other hand, with low priced DDR2 (Crucial PC2-8000) we had very good results in most tests. Unfortunately, we didn't have an E6700 in our labs to test.

So, our test results made it clear that the Intel E6750 can perform almost as well with DDR2 (either P965/P35 motherboards) as with DDR3.

How about overclocking capabilities? Here is where this processor simply... shines! We had heard that other reviewers had reached 4GHz, but we were very a little skeptical, until we reached 3.80GHz. Of course, the system wasn't totally stable, but we managed to get a totally stable system at 3.72GHz, which is very nice :-). The "problem" we encountered was that the CPU temperatures reaching the maximum point and even our Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 couldn't handle such a hot load. We imagine that with water cooling, the Intel E6750 can reach or even surpass the 4GHz barrier. In any case, overclocking up to 3.60GHz should be considered as very realistic, since most motherboards can handle 450MHz FSB.

We left the best for the end. The price! Yes its almost a steal at only €175 (+ shipping). You can now build a powerful system with DDR2 memory, an Intel E6750 and a good motherboard to keep you satisfied for a very long time... Well done Intel!