Intel Demos Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Quad-Core At IDF

MojoKid writes "Intel demonstrated a dual socket gaming rig at IDF this week, based on their Skulltrail platform with the X38 chipset. The interesting thing about this machine wasn't just that it had 45nm quad-core CPUs in its sockets, as well as PCI Express 2.0 capable slots, but also that it was running a pair of NVIDIA graphics cards in SLI. That's right, SLI on an Intel chipset. No word whether or not X38 would officially be supported with SLI just yet. In fact, NVIDIA representatives noted Intel was buying NVIDIA nForce 100 SLI Southbridges just for this one Intel motherboard model."

Comments

Super duper deca-core X8789FDS extreme

[Daimanta]

Seriously, what is it with these names?

Re:Super duper deca-core X8789FDS extreme

[Chandon Seldon]

How else would you name these things so as to communicate A.) what type of chip is it (entry level, mainstream, or high end) and B.) the model number of the chip and C.) the basic technical information that people want (i.e. "quad core")?

Re:SSE4 is overrated

[Ant P.]

The main developer of x264, for example, has stated that SSE4 offers basically no useful instructions whatsoever. Yeah, but it's not there just for video codecs. Maybe someone'll find a use for it to speed up crypto.

That's not surprising

[Sycraft-fu]

I'm sure ATi is not high on Intel's list of people to be nice to now that AMD owns them. Whatever reason they had for choosing crossfire in the first place has now been reassessed I'm sure. Intel isn't going to do anything stupid like prevent ATi card from running on their boards, but neither are they likely to go out of their way to support anything ATi specific anymore.

Re:That's not surprising

[dwater]

...and I guess the same goes for the nVidia/AMD relationship, except more so, probably.

Re:FBDIMMs are a joke for a gameing system + weak

[Jeff DeMaagd]

A AMD 4x4 dual quad-core with DDR2 ram and dual x16 pci 2.0 and all slots with pci 2.0 and SLI, also there will also be a ATI chipset for the same system with all pci 2.0 16x-16x or 8x-8x-8x-8x CrossFire + Discrete PCI-E x4 slot. With Support for HTX slots.

The funny thing is, as far as I can tell, you really aren't even saying anything. You can spew specs and acronyms all you want, but what is the actual tested performance compared to this Skulltrail rig?

Re:Fans

[Anonymous Coward]

Large diameter exhaust pipes do add horsepower. A lot, in fact. Engine exhaust doesn't get magically sucked out of the motor. It has to be pumped out by the pistons. Larger pipe diameters mean less resistance to being pumped out.

Useful, or like chrome on the car?

[davmoo]

I'm not a gamer, so I have to ask...

Is the current state of game software such that it really can take advantage of things like 8 cores? Or is this marketing hype and chest-thumping, but little else?