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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 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.
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.
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.
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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).
"and be less upgradable."
Not true. AMD's platform is much more forward compatible. AMD chips can now run DDR2 or DDR3 depending on what board it's in (Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3). That means that new AMD chips are compatible with 3 socket generations. Intel boards have nowhere near this broad socket and memory compatibility. Even in the same socket, a new chipset is typically required by Intel for new CPUs. This allows Intel to fake that their socket+platform had a compatibility life of 6+ years, when really, it was more like 1 and a half because they released 4 different chipsets with different support in that time frame.
If you're building your own box, or just want to upgrade later, AMD really gives you a much more flexible route. Here's an example of Intel's mess on their _current_ generation lineup: Core i7 runs on Socket 1156, while a different Core i7 runs on Socket 1366. Socket 1156 is not future-proof and will be dropped in the future. People buying those boards and CPUs might not even notice and will be s.o.l. after the very next generation. That's just silly. AMD's platform is the one with the sane upgrade path. And it's cheaper. I don't get all the AMD hate going around.
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Every time this comes up, someone makes the observation that most apps aren't written to take advantage of multiple cores. That is, indeed true, but unless you're running MS-DOS, there's more to it. On the average Windows and Linux desktop installations, there can easily be twenty or so processes running before you start your first end-user application, and most users tend to have more than one app running at a time. While there is no substitute for purpose-built multi-threaded programs, it's not like those six cores will be sitting idle, especially under Windows, where you could throw an entire core or two at the OS and another couple at the two or three resident antivirus/malware programs that you need to have running to compensate for Windows' broken security model.
Granted, a lot of end-user apps spend most of their time sleeping, waiting for user input, but a sleeping process runs just as well on one core as on six. For users whose programs are actually doing something most of the time, multiple applications can take advantage of the additional cores even if they are themselves not multithreaded.
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