Whether or not something is lower cost really depends on your perspective and when you compare Intel’s upcoming Core 2 Quad Q6600 at about $851 to the $999 for the Extreme quad core, sure it is lower cost.

However, when you consider that you can get a nice dual core CPU in the Core 2 duo 6700 for $530, the new Q6600 isn’t that cheap. Nonetheless, if you have your heart set on a quad core CPU, the Q6600 is supposed to run 2.4GHz and come with 8MB of level 2 cache. Intel certainly has some great parts in its quad core fleet, but they still only expect quad core to be about 3% of their total desktop shipments in 2007. That number will go up more when we finally start to see games and apps that utilize multiple cores for better performance. Buy your own Intel quad core CPU here. Story and image via Guru3D.