It's a measure of how far CPU technology has come when you can buy a CPU with four cores on a single die for about $235. That would be the AMD Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition. It's also true that for under $300, you can buy an Intel quad-core CPU manufactured on a 45 nanometer (nm) process.

If you consider that the original Pentium processor, which ran at 66MHz (and that was the high-end model), was built using an 800nm process, with a measly 3.1 million transistors—well, you get the idea. And people spent upwards of 1,000 1993 dollars to buy one.

It's worth putting all this in perspective before we dive into the performance numbers of these two quad-core CPUs in our showdown today. The Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition and Core 2 Quad Q9300 are capable products and faster than the generations preceding them. One, of course, is faster than the other. As you might predict, it's the more expensive one who's manufactured by the company starting with the letter "I".

On the other hand, the new B3 stepping of the Phenom, even if you don't consider the critical TLB bug fix, just seems a little more well mannered than the original Phenom we reviewed back in December. Rated at a 2.5GHz clock speed, our Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition is currently looping 3Dmark06 at 2.8GHz—and the CPU fan is spinning at normal speeds.

Still, it's worth comparing performance between these two mainstream quad core CPUs. Just for grins, we'll also toss in performance numbers of an Intel Core 2 E8500 dual core CPU, which also costs around $300.

The Core 2 Quad Q9300 is an interesting beast, as it only has half the L2 cache per die of the more expensive quad core CPUs in Intel's product line. For example, the Core 2 Quad Q9450, clocked at 2.66GHz, has 6MB of L2 cache per die, or 12MB total. But the Q9450 also costs about $80 more, so the Q9300 is aimed at a more budget-minded audience who might desire quad-core performance.

Of course, AMD's Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition is even more affordable, at $235, give or take a few dollars. The X4 9850 is a 125W TDP part, while the Q9300 is a 95W TDP processor, and both seem to be fairly overclockable, though the edge in overclockability most likely lies with the Intel CPU—that 45nm high K plus metal gate technology has been quite the boon for overclockers.

Let's check out the system and benchmark setup next.