For something a little different today we are taking four quad-core series and comparing how they performance when operating at the same frequency. This clock for clock article features the Phenom II X4, Core 2 Quad, Core i7 and the new Core i5 series. Not only will we be comparing them at 2.80GHz but also at 3.60GHz to give overclockers an idea of what they can expect...

The most surprising match up was between the Core i5 750 and Core i7 860, which I mentioned was our original intention for this article. When clocked at the same frequency there is little difference between these two processors, and when pushing them as high as 3.60GHz there really is no difference. Of course the only difference between the two is the Hyper-Threading support of the Core i7 860, which really failed to help it in the majority of our tests.