Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 Review

Presenting the Core 2 Duo T6500! This Laptop processor is a powerhouse in Intel's mid-range series. Launched in 2009, it packs 2 cores and 2 threads. It runs at a base clock speed of 2.1GHz, can accelerate to 2.1GHz, and has a power requirement of 35W, making it an ideal choice for your gaming system. The Core 2 Duo T6500 is a product of the advanced Penryn 45nm technology and is a part of the distinguished Core 2 Duo series.

And guess what? The Core 2 Duo T6500 is the ultimate successor to Intel's previous-gen gaming champion, the Core 2 Duo T5500. The Core 2 Duo T5500 was based on the legendary Merom and 65nm process, and it made its grand entrance into the gaming scene back in 2006. But now, it's time for the Core 2 Duo T6500 to take the throne and conquer the gaming world!

The Core 2 Duo T6500 takes the best parts of the Penryn architecture, which gives you 15% more instructions processed per cycle (IPC) on average, and shrinks it down to a 45nm process. This creates a super powerful chip that performs awesome in all our tests, especially considering the competitive price, compatibility with most existing PGA478 motherboards, ability to overclock, and included cooler. Basically, it's a win-win!

We already went deep into the nitty-gritty details of the Penryn chip design in our reviews of the Intel Core 2 Duo T6570 and Core 2 Duo T6400. If you want to learn more about the Core 2 Duo T6500's architecture (which is identical to the Core 2 Duo T6400), head over there!

The Core 2 Duo T6500 is the more expensive version of the Core 2 Duo T6400, and it shows with its higher base and boost clock speeds: 2.1 GHz and 2.1 GHz, respectively. That's a nice boost in speed, but the real game changer is the higher power delivery (PPT). This lets the motherboard pump more juice (up to 142W) to the Core 2 Duo T6500 compared to the Core 2 Duo T6400's limit of 35W. This extra power allows the Core 2 Duo T6500 to crank up the boost clocks even more aggressively, on both single and multiple cores. That means the performance gap between these two CPUs might be bigger than what the specs on paper suggest.

Heads up! If you already have a Core 2 Duo T5500, this new generation doesn't offer a huge jump in performance. You might be better off waiting a year to upgrade or spending more on a higher-end CPU.

Intel has been struggling lately to keep up with the new Turion II processors. This has forced them to get creative with their existing lineup. The Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 isn't exactly new - it's basically a Core 2 Duo T5500 with a higher clock speed. But there's one more twist...

For gamers, both the Turion II Ultra M620 and Core 2 Duo T6500 are great choices. They're neck and neck, with a slight edge to the AMD CPU if you don't overclock it. The Core 2 Duo T6500's base performance can be achieved with cheaper RAM (around $90), whereas the Turion II Ultra M620 needs faster RAM ($110-$120) to hit the frame rates we showed. The price difference is small though, and with anything less than an RTX 2070 or Vega 64 graphics card, your GPU will bottleneck your performance anyway. BottleneckAtPlay

One of the best things about the Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 is that it comes with a free CPU cooler! You can grab the Core 2 Duo T6500 for $15 without having to spend extra on cooling.

The Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 comes with a basic heatsink cooler, nothing fancy. But it gets the job done for this low-power CPU (TDP of 35W). You won't need a fancy aftermarket cooler unless you want to overclock it.

However, the Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 falls a bit behind in clock speeds. The Turion II Ultra M660 can reach 2.7GHz base clock and boost up to 2.7GHz.

If you don't care too much about overclocking and max boost speeds, then the Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 is a good option for $15. It also has 2 cores and 2 threads, but with slightly lower clock speeds (2GHz base and 2GHz boost).

Building on the success of mainstream Core 2 Duo CPUs, Intel is now attacking the mid-range market with the Core 2 Duo T6500 processors, available since 1 January 2009.