Polish hardware site PCLab.pl has drummed up an engineering sample of the upcoming Gulftown Core i9 processor and put it through its paces.
Based on Intel’s 32nm Westmere architectural family, the Core i9 is a hexa core processor designed to evaluate the readiness of the company’s 32nm process node. Westmere parts will largely resemble the Nehalem in terms of performance, though members like the Core i9 have received new instructions for AES encryption and improved virtualization support.
According to PCLab.pl’s report, the early engineering sample did encounter the expected BIOS issues which prevented it from realizing its full performance. Even so, the 2.8GHz processor easily blitzed its competitors in multi-threaded tests, but predictably jockeyed for pole position with the Core i7 and Phenom II in games.
And though Gulftown has 50% more cores than any of competitors, its maximum power draw was only 11W higher than the leading Phenom II at 226W. The chip was also the coldest of any tested chip, topping out at 42°C idle.
Lastly, the site was easily able to push the chip to 4.3GHz on air, but they could not confidently speak to the longevity of the processor at the 1.3V or 1.4V VCORE needed to push those clockspeeds.
Parts based on the 32nm Westmere architecture will include the Gulftown Core i9, a hexa core Extreme Edition desktop chip; Arrandale, a dual core mobile APU; and Clarkdale, a dual core desktop APU.
Th Core i9 is expected to launch in 1Q10 with an MSRP north of $1000 USD; no mainstream version is planned at this time.
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