Thursday, March 11th 2010
Intel Lets Loose Core i7 980X Performance Evaluations
On the occasion of Game Developers Conference, an annual conclave of game developers, in San Fransisco, USA, Intel previewed to audiences its latest Core i7 980X Extreme Edition six-core processor. This meant that the media could publish performance evaluations of the new processor. Intel seems to have pulled it off with this launch. There is a broad consensus among the media that the six-core processor has a performance incentive with most of today's multi-threaded application that scales up well compared to quad-core processors.
The 980X is also the first high-performance processor based on the 32 nm Westmere architecture. The processor is able to maintain a TDP rating of 130W, on par with its 45 nm Nehalem quad-core counterparts. It has six cores operating at 3.33 GHz, with HyperThreading technology enabled, there are 12 logical CPUs (threads) for the operating system to deal with. Each core has 64 KB L1, 256 KB L2 caches, while a large 12 MB L3 cache is shared between all the cores. The Core i7 980X comes in the LGA-1366 package. Most existing motherboards with the Intel X58 Express chipset will be able to support it with a BIOS update. Intel will formally release the processor by April, at an estimated price of US $999.
The 980X is also the first high-performance processor based on the 32 nm Westmere architecture. The processor is able to maintain a TDP rating of 130W, on par with its 45 nm Nehalem quad-core counterparts. It has six cores operating at 3.33 GHz, with HyperThreading technology enabled, there are 12 logical CPUs (threads) for the operating system to deal with. Each core has 64 KB L1, 256 KB L2 caches, while a large 12 MB L3 cache is shared between all the cores. The Core i7 980X comes in the LGA-1366 package. Most existing motherboards with the Intel X58 Express chipset will be able to support it with a BIOS update. Intel will formally release the processor by April, at an estimated price of US $999.
70 Comments on Intel Lets Loose Core i7 980X Performance Evaluations
Are there any 6 core,32nm ,non extreme versions scheduled anytime soon ?
> All the 920 owners get a real upgrade path for when the 920 finally becomes old hat.
> People who buy this chip will get good resale value because of the above, when they move onto the next top-of-the-line chip in another 18 months.
> People at the bottom of the market will get an abundance of "slow" 920s to buy second hand for cheap.
If that all happens x58 will turn out to have been pretty good for us. Hope it does!
Anyhow my Biostar X58 T-Power already has a GulfTown BIOS available (and all the USB problems are finally gone too!). Good times!
me wants :toast:
BTW, are there any new architectures/major updates coming up from AMD that we know of?
Bulldozer but it sounds like it is still a ways off (2011/2012, maybe longer).
Gotta love how the good ol' X58 platform keeps rocking, :rockout: it's like the gift that keeps on giving :laugh:
These rumors are more likely true, just look back in 2006, Intel released there first quad core(QX6700) and after that a slew of mainstream quad cores saw a release. It's a trend really.
They ship fast too. :) ~once they are in stock.