After many months of trickling out information regarding Penryn and Intel’s 45nm manufacturing process, we’re finally able to offer up some firsthand information regarding Yorkfield, Intel’s quad-core, desktop Penryn derivative. We recently got our hands on a new Yorkfield-based Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor and were able to run it through a host of benchmarks, monitor power consumption, and overclock it as well. Come on by the site to see how the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 performed and whether or not Intel’s 45nm manufacturing process is all the company has claimed it is cracked up to be.

Today marks the day where Intel launched processing and overall processing design into a new and exciting era. With the new smaller 45nm manufacturing process, Intel has perfected a quad-core processor line by removing every negative trait from the QX6850 predecessor. With this new process and related processors, consumers can enjoy a cooler and more energy efficient computing experience without sacrificing speed or processor capabilities.

Months of anticipation and speculation are about to end, as Intel prepares the launch of the first 45nm Core 2 CPUs known as "Penryn". This is the new kid on the block – and while you can't buy one yet, we are here to tell you about Penryn, and how it performs. We spent several weeks with a Core 2 Extreme QX9650 quad core Yorkfield processor and we're pretty excited to finally report it all to you.

Of course, these days, Intel has hedged its bets by multiplying the number of cores per processor and ramping up the cadence of design innovations to those cores. The result? The new Core 2 Extreme QX9650 quad-core processor promises big reductions in power consumption and heat production, along with performance increases of up to 20%-at the same 3GHz clock speed as the chip that preceded it. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, this processor could make the prophets of doom and gloom look like downright fuddy-duddies, if you know what I mean. Keep reading to see whether the QX9650 puts a clown suit on the doubters.