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The Fastest Processor You Can't Run
auld_wyrm writes "Intel is trying to push the news of AMD's Barcelona launch out of the headlines with the release of the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770, a 3.20 GHz CPU that runs on a 1600 MHz front-side bus. It is the fastest consumer level processor that has come out, but don't plan on running it anytime soon. The ~$1200 price tag, and the lack of any motherboards that support a 1600MHz FSB will stop this unneeded answer to Barcelona from appearing in enthusiast's PCs for Christmas. Still, the benchmarks from this powerful CPU are something awesome to behold."
It's worse than that even - the processor doesn't exist yet either!
Intel had them overclock an existing Core 2 Quad Extreme to perform the "benchmarks".
Check out the article on Toms Hardware Guide:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Intel-QX9770-X48-X38-QX9650,review-29749.html
Reminds me of all that stuff I read for years in Pop Science and Pop Mechanics -- ultra cool stuff you'll never lay your hands on. Well, this will be available, but probably not for 6 months. Meanwhile, I'm not about to upgrade my mobo for it anyway. I work in Photoshop on an Athlon 64, the cheapest one available about a year ago, and it's still no issue of speed, memory is the problem, having enough of it. Need mobos which can hold 16 GB of memory, not faster CPUs.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
According to the Anandtech review they gave them a real (though pre-production) CPU, and only had them overclock an existing motherboard - merely overclocking an existing processor wouldn't account for the massive differences in power usage.
Advanced users are users too!
You know bloody well it'll take 24 GB of memory to actually run an office app!
It'll also demand a 4GB videocard with a GPU strong enough to process all SETI requests ever in about 20 minutes
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yes. In fact, Linux on this CPU can run infinite loops in five seconds.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Anandtech had a good insight about this release. I'll just quote it directly instead of trying to paraphrase:
"Almost as soon as we had Phenom samples, Intel made the decision to sample a CPU requiring a FSB that wasn't officially supported by any chipset at the time. No, 1600MHz FSB support won't come until next year with the X48 chipset, but it didn't matter to Intel; we were getting chips now.
Take a moment to understand the gravity of what I just said; Intel, the company that would hardly acknowledge overclocking, was now sampling a CPU that required overclocking to run at stock speeds. Even more telling is that Intel got the approval of upper management to sample these unreleased processors, requiring an unreleased chipset, in a matter of weeks. This is Intel we're talking about here, the larger of the two companies, the Titanic, performing maneuvers with the urgency of a speed boat.
It's scary enough for AMD that Intel has the faster processor, but these days Intel is also the more agile company."
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3153&p=2