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."

Comments

Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU?

[Targon]

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.

Re:Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU?

[Vectormatic]

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?

Re:Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU?

[rotide]

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.

Re:Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU?

[eldavojohn]

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.

Companies? Rendering farms? At this price, I'd imagine they're not really for the average consumer but more so for companies that can consider such a purchase an asset.

That said, you do realize that the i7-975 quad core that they compared it to is also nigh $1000, right? I think showing that the same price will buy you an entirely different beast signals that quad cores are complete. The current quad cores price will come down but why would you make a more expensive quad core at Intel? The specs here show it cannot stand up to the new six core platform.

All these prices will come down, of course. So it's fun to look forward to what I'll be using in two years (I just bought a low range quad core for $140 a week ago, almost right in time for this).

And also, who strayed from the duo- quad- naming methodology?! Are you insane!? Do you have any idea the marketing power that a sexa core chip could have?

Re:Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU?

[ircmaxell]

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.

FUD, pure FUD. AMD has always been cheaper than Intel. Even back before Intel introduced the Core2 series, when the AMD K2 and Athlon series spanked everything that Intel had to offer. Heck, even back to the days when AMD first entered the mass market (80386 days IIRC), they were the less expensive product. And to date, AMD has arguably always held the performance/$$$ award. Sure, Intel has started gaining a lead (Marginal with C2 series, but significant with the i7 series) in recent times, but AMD isn't THAT far behind. And if you consider that most of the true innovations in CPU design have come from AMD (true multi-core (I mean where there are 4 physical cores on die, not 2 dual core cpus on the die), 64bit, shared L3 cache, on-die memory controller, elimination of the north bridge and hence the system bus, etc), I find it VERY funny that "It is the price you pay for getting the bleeding edge" is applied to the more expensive Intel as opposed to the innovator AMD. Now, I'm not saying that Intel hasn't innovated at all. I'm just saying that the major innovations that the i7 used to surpass the C2 series (Namely the elimination of the system bus, on-die memory controller and the tiered cache architecture) were done first by AMD...

Re:Nice, but who has $1000 to pay on a CPU?

[johnw]

but until these come down a long way in terms of price, it is WAY out of my price range

This is your lucky day. I happen to know where I can get you a pallet of really cheap Intel Core i7 processors, retail boxed, complete with heatsink, fan and a booklet.

Chips for the Mac Pro refresh I believe.

[jo_ham]

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.

No thanks

[oodaloop]

Unless it's lead with a solid plastic fan, I'm not interested.

Turbo mode?

[Stenchwarrior]

After 12 years, I finally have a use for that TURBO button on the front of my case again.

Re:Turbo mode?

[Cowclops]

Thats not how it works. What it actually does is shuts power off to cores that aren't in use, and then overclocks the remaining ones. It won't/can't run different cores at different clock speeds. So if you have a 4 core processor, it might shut off 2 of the cores and then boost the clock speed by up to like 50% depending on what CPU it is, up to the thermal limits of the processor. The "breakthrough" in engineering is the part of the circuit that shuts off power to the unused cores better than anything else has in the past. This essentially gets you the best of both worlds in a single CPU - a lower clocked quad and a higher clocked single/dual core.

Re:Cool

[beelsebob]

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.

Reminds me

[gaelfx]

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).

Re:Cool

[Pojut]

True, except for when you already have a AM2/AM2+/AM3 board, or a good supply of ddr2 ram. In that case the phenom is a drop in upgrade, versus a platform upgrade for the i5. Also keep in mind that AMD will be releasing 6-core CPUs this year too, and they will fit in any recent AM2+/AM3 board, while for the intel high end stuff, you are locked into their 'premium' 1366 socket.

This applies to me. I just ordered AMDs 965 Phenom II to replace the Athlon 64 X2 5400+ currently in my AM2+/AM3 Gigabyte board...when the new AMD chipset is widely released with SATA6/USB3 and the price becomes reasonable, I'll order one of those motherboards. Until then, my AMD 785 chipset board will suffice. AMD has always been pretty good about making sure their sockets are versatile, and the AM2+/AM3 boards are the most versatile yet.

plus i like rooting for the underdog

This is also a reason why I stick with AMD. They're the only ones producing CPUs that can remotely compete with Intel in the consumer space, yet they are a MUCH smaller company. I like that.

Parallel apps aren't everything...

[Angst Badger]

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.