For our overall result, the consideration of these systems’ power consumption plays a major role. Since we had to increase the core voltage quite a bit during our overclocking experiments, this has a huge impact on a CPU’s power dissipation, which increases dramatically. 
With both CPUs overclocked to their limit, the dual-core chip’s power consumption increases by 51.6%. Our quad-core’s results are a little higher, increasing by 58.3%.
Once both CPUs are put under a full load, the difference in power consumption between our two candidates becomes much more pronounced. While the dual-core model needs 62.6% more energy under load at its maximum clock speed, the quad-core draws a full 75.3% more compared to its default speed.
Energy Cost
In the end, the cost of an affordable overclocking system is not determined solely by the price of its individual components. The added performance goes hand in hand with higher power consumption – a price you pay in the form of your electric bill at the end of the year. 
We base our calculations on an average usage scenario in which the computer runs for eight hours per day. Our measurements represent the entire system’s power consumption, including the power supply, graphics card, and sound card as well as the hard drive and the DVD-ROM. Since we are interested only in the power consumption of the processors, the graphics card is idle in all measurements.
A Core 2 Duo E6750 will cost you about €120 in electricity over the course of a year when running under load for eight hours a day. Overclocked, it will cost you an additional €21.60.
The bill is much higher for the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600. Compared to its dual-core sibling, it eats about €20 worth more electricity, or €140. Overclocking does its part to drive the cost up even more, increasing the bottom line on your utility bill by another €42, for a total of €182.
- E6750 or Q6600 – Which is the better choice?
- The Processors – E6750 or Q6600?
- Processor – G0 Stepping is a must
- Motherboard – Gigabyte or MSI with P35 chipset
- Highlights of the MSI Board – Affordable, Heatpipe on Board
- Highlights of the Gigabyte Board – More Features
- GEIL Memory – An Overclocking Natural
- Cooler - Zalman's CNPS9700LED is Ideal
- Looking at the Bottom Line – CPU, Cooler, Board, and RAM
- Overclocking I – Dual-Core E6750 at 3.00 GHz
- Overclocking II – Dual-Core E6750 at 3.30 GHz
- Overclocking III – Dual-Core E6750 at 3.40 GHz
- Overclocking IV – Dual-Core E6750 at 3.50 GHz
- Overclocking V – Dual-Core E6750 at 3.60 GHz
- Overclocking I – Quad-Core Q6600 at 3.00 GHz
- Overclocking II – Quad-Core Q6600 at 3.20 GHz
- Overclocking III – Quad-Core Q6600 at 3.30 GHz
- Overview of Core Voltages
- Power Consumption and Energy Cost – Less is more with Dual-Core
- Overclocking Yields 25 Percent Performance Increase
- Performance Winner – Q6600 Provides 5.3% More Performance
- Test Setup
- Software Configuration
- Benchmarks and Settings
- 3D-Games - UT2004, Prey
- 3D-Games - Quake 4, Warhammer
- 3D-Games - Supreme Commander, Serious Sam 2
- 3D-Rendering - Cinema 4D, 3D-Studio Max
- Applications - AVG, WinRAR
- Applications - Photoshop, PDF
- Applications - Deep Fritz
- Audio Encoding - iTunes, Lame
- Synthetic - Sandra CPU
- Synthetic - Sandra Memory
- Synthetic - Sandra Multimedia
- Synthetic - PC-Mark
- Synthetic - 3D-Mark
- Video Encoding - Xvid, Pinnacle Studio
- Video Encoding - Premiere, Mainconcept
- Video Encoding - HDTV, DivX
- Video Encoding - CloneDVD
- Conclusion - Intel Quad-Core and MSI P35 Neo2 get our Nod
