Intel Core i7-980X Extreme: Hello, Six-Core Computing

[cangelini]

Already the performance leader in desktop processing, Intel is following its quad-core Bloomfield design up with Gulftown, a hexa-core design sporting 12MB of shared L3 cache. Is the lone Gulftown model, Core i7-980X Extreme, worth a $1,000 asking price?

Intel Core i7-980X Extreme: Hello, Six-Core Computing : Read more

 

[one-shot]

[citation][nom]shuffman37[/nom]First Comment, I'll be staying up to read this review =)[/citation]

I'm guessing you didn't read this.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/toms-hardware-reviews-news-comments,9855.html

 

[tipmen]

Hm, not bad at all more cores at the same price as 975. Games don't seem to scale that much but CAD and transcoding is improved overall. Glad to see AMDs 965 hold its own in the game segment.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]one-shot[/nom]I'm guessing you didn't read this.http://www.tomshardware.com/news/t [...] ,9855.html[/citation]
Nope, Haven't bothered looking at that. The 980x doesn't really make any difference in gaming but I wasn't expecting anything earth shattering. Does look good against the 965 x4 for mutlimedia applications.

 

[beans4you]

glad im going with the right x58! miiiight have to upgrade my cpu choice

 

[tipmen]

[citation][nom]shuffman37[/nom]Nope, Haven't bothered looking at that. The 980x doesn't really make any difference in gaming but I wasn't expecting anything earth shattering. Does looks good against the 965 x4 for mutlimedia applications.[/citation]


It is a good reminder how to act on toms you should read it when you get the chance.

 

[gkay09]

Lolz...The Crysis benchmark and the Chris's starting line...Am sure he would have been forced to post that so that no one start with the infamous tag line "But can it play Crysis ?"

 

[gkay09]

And Chris it would be nice if you could post some benchmarks of games that are CPU taxing like the GTA IV/ FSX...Most of the games used in the above benchmarks dont tax the CPU as much as these...

 

[cangelini]

I hear you there gkay...I used to do more with GTA IV (not sure how prolific FS X still is), but it just depends on how many folks still want to see it. As a *general* rule, $1,000 CPUs aren't going to do much for your high-res gaming. However, it's a good point that there are a couple of titles notorious for hitting graphics far less than host processing power!

 

[footsoldier]

wow wow..6 cores already!! Truly is the fastest now. AMD, do keep up!!

 

[pinkfloydminnesota]

NO GTA IV? Should get great gains as it's notoriously CPU limited by the best quad cores. Unforgivable.

 

[Guest]

I wonder how much AMD's Phenom II X6 will be and how it will compare to 980X...

 

[frozenlead]

Why do we bother with iTunes anymore..just get rid of it. I did I don't even know how many years ago.

 

[curnel_D]

[citation][nom]TheCapulet[/nom]FSX would be a perfect gaming title for the CPU benchies. The thing is, it's not a gaming crowd title, but there are still a ton of people who still use it.Another really good title for CPU benchmarks is Lost planet. From what I remember, it is one of the best cpu scaling games, even today.[/citation]
Wholly agreed.

 

[touchdowntexas13]

Alright, so just a bit of speculation, but how does everyone expect these new six-core cpu's to affect prices of the mid-high grade cpus?

Obviously this Intel won't be forcing down any reasonable prices, but I am hoping that AMD's six core will bring down the price of either the i5-750 or the i7-930.

I guess one can always hope...

 

[Zinosys]

Well, from a gaming standpoint, there is not much difference between the chips. But in a corporate environment (workstations/servers), the 6-core processors are going to make a HUGE difference, and to say that you can run 2 extra cores with almost the same power consumption, that's priceless.

Great article!

 

[avericia]

"What’d really be cool for the enthusiast crowd would be a line of quad-core CPUs manufactured at 32nm. Almost certainly scalable to even higher clock rates"

This is exact same thing I've been dreaming of, a high clocked 32nm quad at a reasonable price, maybe even with an unlocked multiplier


Hopefully we don't have to wait until Q1 2011 to be able to buy one.

 

[shin0bi272]

To be honest the main reason I got an x58 mobo when they came out was the rumor that there was going to be an 8 core version with HT and turbo mode within 2 years of the original launch date. It would seem those reports were right (they were intel's original claims after all) but might be a little late depending on how fast the 6 cores sell. But hopefully by the time the 8 core versions come out I'll have the money to buy one lol.

Great article though I really enjoyed flipping through all the pages of benchies... sort of wish you could have used dual 5970's for the gaming test though since the 5850 seems to have been your bottleneck with all the game tests.

 

[doomtomb]

This thing is real and it's FAST. I'm impressed but gamers, you don't need it. Benchmark breakers and Pixar need it though.

 

[noob2222]

This is definatly aimed at business use only. Gamers would be wasting thier money on something like this.

Without seeing numbers, I'd guess AMD will counter with 2/3 of the performance, (possibly more depending on how aggressive they take thier speed boost), but it will be at 1/3 of the price. We may find out as early as April.

 

[magicandy]

How can you run game benchmarks for a CPU without testing THE most CPU-taxing genre, RTS? Seriously, I was at least expecting World in Conflict or SupCom 2....I mean those games will really show you CPU differences.

 

[agnickolov]

Can we please get compilation benchmarks? Please?
This is a purely productivity processor as the gaming analysis clearly showed, but you are missing an important productivity category - software development...

 

[JonnyDough]

When it comes to power consumption only one number really matters and that's "near idle". Background tasks mean that one core has to stay on at all times, but rarely will anyone be using six cores at once. It'll be a an overall rarity that you're actually using all six cores for anything like encoding, your PC is more likely to sit idle, run a game that doesn't require all the processor's power, or be surfing the net. For "full load" I could care less if it's double that of the competition's CPU if I pay a good bit less the rest of the time.

 

[Gandalf]

I've only got the 975.

 

[dco]

Wouldn't mind seeing a couple older CPU's in there (Core2 Quad/Duo). Seeing as someone owning a i7-975/920 is gonna be less likely to be looking to upgrade any time soon.