Intel Core 2 Duo T9900 vs Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 vs Intel Core 2 Duo SL9600
Intel Core 2 Duo T9900
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The Intel Core 2 Duo T9900 is the theoretical successor of the Core 2 Extreme X9100 (which also clocks at 3.06 GHz) that uses less power due to the modern stepping and the Enhanced Halt State (C1E). The only advantage of the X9100 is the free multiplikator (which allows easy overclocking of the CPU).
The T9900 is a fast dual core CPU for laptops which features 6 MB of shared level 2 cache and a TDP of 35 Watt. Due to the high clock speed, modern games (in 2009) should not be limited by the CPU speed. For single threaded applications it is one of the fastest CPUs for laptops (only beaten by the new Core i7 with enabled Turbo mode).
The T9900 uses a Penryn (Montevina Update) core that features 2 integer units, 1 floating point unit, 1 load unit, and 1 store unit in a 14-stages long pipeline. Due to the Wide Dynamic Execution Technology, the core is able to simultaneously execute up to four instructions.
The integrated Enhanced Speedstep is able to downclock the core dynamically as low as 800 MHz to save power (in idle mode).
The Core 2 Duo T9900 can be used in a Socket P socket with 479 pins: Socket P / Micro Flip-Chip Pin Grid Array (Micro-FCPGA) requires 479-pin surface mount Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) socket (mPGA479M socket) or Micro Flip-Chip Ball Grid Array (Micro-FCBGA) for surface mount (479-ball).
Intel Core 2 Duo T6400
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 is an entry level dual core processor for cheap laptops. It is based on the Penryn core but offers only 2 MB level 2 cache and a slow clock speed of 2 GHz. The performance should be sufficient for office and other casual tasks but high level gaming and HD video editing for example could be limited by the CPU performance.
Intel Core 2 Duo SL9600
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Core 2 Duo SL9600 is a low power laptop processor for small and slim laptops. It features the full 6 MB level 2 cache and all features of the Penryn core (e.g. VT-x and Trusted Execution). Due to the large cache, the CPU shows a good performance for the small clock rate. However, in the MacBook Air, the CPU throttled very often, leading to the slower benchmarks in our database.
Compared to other Core 2 Duo models, the C2D SL9600 only supports the socket BGA956 and is soldered in the MacBook Air models.
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Intel Core 2 Duo T9900 → 100% n=10
Average Benchmarks Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 → 65% n=10
Average Benchmarks Intel Core 2 Duo SL9600 → 66% n=10

* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation