Intel Core i7-980X 6-Core Official Reviews Out!
@ 2010/03/11It’s rare that anything we review has the longevity that Intel’s Core i7 Bloomfield platform has enjoyed. If you were one of the fortunate few to buy a Core i7 920, 940 or 965 back in November 2008, you’d still have one of the fastest desktop CPUs today in March 2010. The downside to all of this is the price tag. The Core i7 980X is an Extreme Edition processor, meaning it’s introduced at the $999 price point. And currently it’s the only way to get 6-cores in a Core i7. Currently Intel doesn't have any plans to introduce 4-core versions of Gulftown on the desktop, although we will see some 32nm quad-core Xeons later this year.
It's rare that you get more cores, more cache and more performance at effectively the same power budget. But the Core i7 980X gives you just that.
I have to say that Intel's Core i7 980X is the first Extreme Edition CPU that I've ever gotten excited about. In the past you used to have to choose between more cores or high clock speeds. Thanks to power gating and Gulftown's PMU, those days are over. The 980X gives you its best regardless of what you throw at it. Lightly threaded apps benefit from the larger L3 cache and heavily threaded apps take advantage of the extra cores. The performance advantage you get at the low end ranges from 0 - 7%, and on the high end with well threaded code you're looking at an extra 20 - 50% over the Core i7 975. Even more if you compare to a pedestrian processor. There are a few cases where the 980X does lose out to the Core i7 975 thanks to its higher latency L3 cache, but for the most part it's smooth sailling for the 6-core beast.
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sho...spx?i=3763&p=1 (max OC 3.6ghz)
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...75&Item id=63 (max OC 4ghz)
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...ition-review/1 (max OC air 4.4, water 4.7Ghz)
Full list:
http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=883
http://techreport.com/articles.x/18581
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...or-review.html
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi..._core_i7_980x/
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha..._core_i7_980x/
http://www.ocaholic.ch/xoops/html/mo...l_lang=english
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/317...cpu/index.html
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/int...cessor_review/
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/31...ing/index.html
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,6...ftown/Reviews/
http://www.tweak.dk/review/Intel_Cor...erner/1077/1/1
http://www.awardfabrik.de/prozessore...en-i7-920.html
http://www.nordichardware.se/Recensioner/?skrivelse=560
http://www.motherboards.org/reviews/...ds/2024_1.html
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/944
http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/...ulftown-review
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/proce...l-core-i7-980x
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2361083,00.asp
http://techgage.com/article/intels_c...or_sick_scores
http://computershopper.com/feature/i...st-pc-reviewed
http://www.futurelooks.com/intel-cor...cessor-review/
http://www.cowcotland.com/articles/5...exa-cores.html
http://www.pcinpact.com/link.php?url...el%2F381-1.htm
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1801
http://www.hardware-mag.de/artikel/p...treme_edition/
It's rare that you get more cores, more cache and more performance at effectively the same power budget. But the Core i7 980X gives you just that.
I have to say that Intel's Core i7 980X is the first Extreme Edition CPU that I've ever gotten excited about. In the past you used to have to choose between more cores or high clock speeds. Thanks to power gating and Gulftown's PMU, those days are over. The 980X gives you its best regardless of what you throw at it. Lightly threaded apps benefit from the larger L3 cache and heavily threaded apps take advantage of the extra cores. The performance advantage you get at the low end ranges from 0 - 7%, and on the high end with well threaded code you're looking at an extra 20 - 50% over the Core i7 975. Even more if you compare to a pedestrian processor. There are a few cases where the 980X does lose out to the Core i7 975 thanks to its higher latency L3 cache, but for the most part it's smooth sailling for the 6-core beast.
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sho...spx?i=3763&p=1 (max OC 3.6ghz)
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...75&Item id=63 (max OC 4ghz)
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...ition-review/1 (max OC air 4.4, water 4.7Ghz)
Quote:
While the i7-980X was an absolute beast in the heavily multi-threaded video encoding test, the single-threaded image editing and lightly multi-threaded multi-tasking tests weren't any faster on the i7-980X. None of our test games ran any faster on the i7-980X either, but neither did they run any slower. |
http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=883
http://techreport.com/articles.x/18581
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...or-review.html
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi..._core_i7_980x/
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha..._core_i7_980x/
http://www.ocaholic.ch/xoops/html/mo...l_lang=english
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/317...cpu/index.html
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/int...cessor_review/
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/31...ing/index.html
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,6...ftown/Reviews/
http://www.tweak.dk/review/Intel_Cor...erner/1077/1/1
http://www.awardfabrik.de/prozessore...en-i7-920.html
http://www.nordichardware.se/Recensioner/?skrivelse=560
http://www.motherboards.org/reviews/...ds/2024_1.html
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/944
http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/...ulftown-review
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/proce...l-core-i7-980x
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2361083,00.asp
http://techgage.com/article/intels_c...or_sick_scores
http://computershopper.com/feature/i...st-pc-reviewed
http://www.futurelooks.com/intel-cor...cessor-review/
http://www.cowcotland.com/articles/5...exa-cores.html
http://www.pcinpact.com/link.php?url...el%2F381-1.htm
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1801
http://www.hardware-mag.de/artikel/p...treme_edition/