Intel has today officially lifted the veil of secrecy surrounding their newest and most ambitious processor, the Core i7 980X.
Based on the company’s 32nm Westmere architecture, a refresh of what’s found in today’s Core i7s, the 980X shoehorns six 3.33GHz processing cores into a single package fit for LGA1366. From a sky-high perspective, the 980X more closely resembles the Core i7 900 series than any existing Westmere, as Intel has dropped the on-die PCI Express controller typical of the Westmere-based Core i5 series.
Other perks for the new chip include Turbo Boost functionality, which pushes the 980X to 3.6GHz with one active core, or 3.46GHz with six active cores, provided the chip is operating within its 130W TDP. The 980X also comes equipped with Hyper Threading, which provides access to six virtual threads and a epeen-enhancing twelve processing cores in the Windows task manager. Rounding out the list of major specs, the 980X has a die size of 240mm2 (smaller than the Phenom II X4), support for triple channel DDR3-1333, 12MB of L3 cache and drop-in support for existing X58 motherboards with a BIOS upgrade.
As a point of Interest, Intel is also using the 980X launch to clarify some of the confusion that has surrounded the firm’s processor plans: LGA1366 and the Core i7 900 series will occupy the enthusiast and extreme enthusiast performance brackets throughout Q1 of 2011. Further, the company’s upcoming Sandy Bridge architecture will only be positioned to replace the Core i7 930 and the Lynnfields until at least the second quarter of 2011. In other words, if you’re the owner of an overclocked Core i7 900 series CPU, you already have the best Intel plans to offer until well into 2011.
It is not yet clear what socket Sandy Bridge will end up using, but AnandTech reports that motherboard manufacturers are being told to expect a new chipset, meaning that a new motherboard will likely be required for Sandy Bridge CPUs anyhow.
Returning to the 980X, performance with the new processor is something of a mixed bag. Rendering and encoding applications–a bastion of multi-core awareness–are returning outstandingly high scores on the new CPU. Game results, meanwhile, vary based upon the sensitivities of the engine in question: some titles benefit from the 12MB L3 cache, some titles suffer from the L3 cache’s 14% higher latency (a penalty of size) and some titles continue to care only about raw clockspeeds.
In all, the $999 Core i7 980X is not an amazing deal–for most people. Photoshoppers, video encoders and 3D content creators might be able to justify the pricetag, but the 980X doesn’t offer anything an overclocked Core i7 920/930 can’t provide to your average gamer. The 980X is a technical marvel that offers quite a bit to quite a few, but that has always been the story for the Extreme Edition lineup.
Reviews
TechReport: Read
AnandTech: Read
Hardware Canucks: Read
PC World: Read
Bit-Tech: Read
Articles RSS