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Intel's Core i7-980X Six-Core Benchmarked

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the faster-harder-better dept.

Ninjakicks writes "Although they won't hit store shelves for a few more weeks, today Intel has officially unveiled the new Core i7-980X Extreme processor. The Core i7-980X Extreme is based on Intel's 32nm Gulftown core, derived from their Nehalem architecture and sports six execution cores. The chip runs at a 3.33GHz clock frequency, that can jump up to 3.6GHz in Intel's Turbo Boost mode. This processor has a max TDP of 130W, which amazingly is the same as previous generation Core i7 quad-core CPUs. Of course, it's crazy fast too. Some may say that the majority of applications can't truly take advantage of the resources afforded by a six-core chip capable of processing up to 12 threads. However, the fact remains there are plenty of multi-threaded usage models and applications where the power of a CPU like this can be put to very good use."

10 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU? by Targon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I know there are SOME people out there who have $1000 to spend on just a CPU, but until these come down a long way in terms of price, it is WAY out of my price range.

    1. Re:Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU? by rotide · · Score: 5, Insightful

      All new bleeding edge CPUs are expensive. That's not the point of the article/submission. The point here is that a very fast 6 core, 12 thread consumer level processor is now on the market.

      Price will come down in due time.

    2. Re:Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU? by Vectormatic · · Score: 2, Insightful

      hey, i never said AMD was more expensive then Intel, and i bet you that if they could charge $1000 for their top end, they would (and they should, milking the high end is the easiest way to recoup dev costs)

      personally i prefer AMD because of their price/performance ratio too, and they have consistently kicked intels but there

      --
      People, what a bunch of bastards
    3. Re:Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU? by Khyber · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Rendering farms?"

      Those would be handled by massively parallel GPU clusters, not slower than crap CPUs.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    4. Re:Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU? by hairyfeet · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Dude make it into a file server or netbox. no reason to toss when KVMs are dirt cheap, I think I paid $24 for my 4 port at Newegg with cables. I am typing this on a Sempron 1.8Ghz with 1.5Gb of RAM, which makes for a whisper quiet netbox/downloader without needing to fire up my quad.

      So don't toss dude, re-purpose. As long as it still runs good and doesn't throw errors there is no reason you can't still get plenty of use out of it as a file server, netbox, or a dedicated box for downloading large files. Just add a nice cheap KVM and you are good to go and you'll be glad you have it, just as I am glad to have this whisper quiet Sempron for checking my email or downloading files at 3AM.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    5. Re:Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU? by Zeio · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'd buy it on sight if it supported ECC. No ECC support = unstable system. I always have an ECC system, and I always get high "3DMarks" and frame rates and I never get a BSOD or other system errors.

      Without ECC its impossible to know if memory errors are occurring, and 12GB of memory at 1333/1600MHz probably has a single bit event quite often.

      --
      Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
  2. Cool by Pojut · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now to see what AMDs 6-core offering is like. I know that Intel destroys AMD in performance benchmarks and real-world performance, but AMD is FAR less expensive. If I was pushing an Eyefinity setup or something, then sure, I would go all out and drop a few hundred dollars or more on an Intel CPU. Considering that AMDs current flagship costs $195 and is still a heck of a performer...yeah, I'll stick with AMD for now.

    --
    Living With a Nerd
  3. Reminds me by gaelfx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This really reminds me of the recent Ask Slashdot article lamenting the naming schemes being implemented for most pieces of hardware. i7= 4 or 6 cores. Makes sense since the first thing I think when I hear 7 is "must be 4 or 6!" And the '980' really goes a long way towards confirming that initial suspicion. I'm really glad they put the 'extreme' in there, cause I was worried about the numbers being too low. Seriously though, can't they come up with a name that is actually descriptive of the product rather than a bunch of reassurances about the awesome-o amazingness of their processor? It seems to me that most people ask someone who knows something about computers when they need to buy a new one or replacement parts for their old one, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I really hate names that give me no real information about what the heck I'm buying. Yes, I can google the information, but the whole practice seems immature (and sometimes a little insulting).

    1. Re:Reminds me by bdenton42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      i7= 4 or 6 cores. Makes sense since the first thing I think when I hear 7 is "must be 4 or 6!"

      Some of the i7 models for mobile use only have 2 cores, just to confuse things even further.

  4. Re:Parallel apps aren't everything... by 91degrees · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Really the point is that this isn't aimed at a typical desktop user. A lot of the applications that this will be used for will easily use 12 threads. I know our 4 core i7 is great for compiling and our project is relatively small. Probably pretty good for rendering as well.