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Intel's Core i7-980X Six-Core Benchmarked
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."
I believe this is what's been holding up the Mac Pro refresh, with the top or middle Mac Pro slated to get these as an upgrade from the 4 core ones.
I think core number is the new MHz. We're not going any faster, but we can just give you more of them, which makes quite a lot of sense. All those FCP render pipelines and encodes just got a lot shorter with th3 12 core Mac Pro.
Intel always prices their High end around $1000, never mind the fact that price/performance on those chips is horrible.
It is the price you pay for getting the bleeding edge, AMD also has some halo models, but because they cant beat intel in performance, they cant afford to charge $1000 for their high end chips.
As for this comming down, AMD is slated to release six-core phenoms to the desktop before summer iirc, it wont have the raw performance of this thing, but 6 cores for under 200 bucks sounds nice doesnt it?
People, what a bunch of bastards
AMD's flagship chip does indeed cost $195, but then, it's about the same speed (as the benchmarks showed) as the Core i5 750, which costs $199. AMD isn't offering better bang for you're buck, they're offering high energy use CPUs with comparable performance to intel's similarly priced CPUs.
That Phenom II uses 30W more than the Core i5, so it'll cost you about $30 a year more to run, and be less upgradable.