> Some searching reveals that there were "Extreme" versions of the Core 2 Duo processor > at one point. According to cpubenchmark.net (which can give a very rough indication > of performance) the fastest of these were more than 50% faster than Core 2 Duo E8600. > > Anyone have any experience with these processors?
The major benefit of the Extreme versions tended to be either more cores, a higher clock, or both. The higher clock's good for MAME, but you can typically match or beat those clocks with a ~$200 Core 2 instead of the $999+ for the Extreme Edition.