The Core i7 980X Review: Intel's First 6-Core Desktop CPU
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 11, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Roadmap: Sandy Bridge in 2011
Like Bloomfield, Gulftown may end up having a relatively long lifespan at the top of the charts. Below is Intel’s current desktop roadmap through the beginning of 2011. You’ll notice that when Sandy Bridge arrives, it’s going to be limited to two and four core configurations. Performance per core will improve, but it doesn’t look like we’ll see an ultra high end version of Sandy Bridge until at least Q2 or Q3 of next year.
A wafer of Gulftown
The verdict isn’t out on whether or not Sandy Bridge will require a new motherboard. It is possible to make the chip work in existing LGA-1156 motherboards, but that requires additional validation that Intel may not be willing to commit to at this point. The decision isn’t final yet and Intel is telling its partners to expect a new chipset (6-series) and thus new motherboards to support the chip at this point.
The next point of interest is the Core i7 970, which is apparently a cheaper Gulftown due out next quarter. It slots in above the Core i7 960 and 870, meaning it may be priced somewhere in the $600 - $900 range. The very first Extreme Edition carried a $740 price tag. I’d guess that we’d see a 3.2GHz default clock speed on that part.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
That depends on the board I believe. Intel's DX58SO may not post without the BIOS update.Take care,
Anand
Jammrock - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
One small title error. Intel's Xeon X7000-series CPUs are the first hex-core processors from Intel. Those are server only, but they are out there.http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=36947&cod...">http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=36...16M+Cach...
Gulftown is the first desktop hex-core though.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Corrected :)Take care,
Anand
artifex - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
3x cores and threads for less than 2x the TDP of their dual cores? sexy!Isaac the k - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
I must say, I do find this rather exciting.But since I'm running a poorly threaded data-simulation app with extremely high throughput, I'm debating whether the extra latency vs. the larger shared cache could potentially harm performance.
If it wouldn't, I might actually request one for what my office is doing right now...
mikeblas - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Aren't the Xeon E7450, Xeon L7455, and Xeon X7460 all six-core Intel processors that were released before this processor?semo - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
If I understand this right Nahalem is the name of the micro architecture and not any CPU in particular. On page 2, the first die shot is captioned Nehalem. Shouldn't it be Bloomfield?BTW Anand, you are doing a good job demystifying desktop products but the mobile space is even worse
arandale http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?codeNa...">http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?codeNa... vs clarkdale http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?codeNa...">http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?codeNa...
vPro is even more confusing. E.g. AMT KVM is supposed to work on AMT 6.0 + on chip GPU yet the i3 don't apply... or the i5-661 http://communities.intel.com/community/openportit/...">http://communities.intel.com/community/...ote-cont...
it would be useful if we could get some articles on mobile chips and/or vPro
iwodo - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Waiting for Sandy Bridge- which will hopefully be the true successor of Core 2 Duo.PCI - Express 3.0, SATA 3.0, USB 3.0 ( Light Peak will be even better ), Bluetooth 4.0.
AnnonymousCoward - Saturday, March 13, 2010 - link
Light Peak is kinda dumb...I think that's just multi-lane USB3/PCIe, and using light instead of wires is pointless since no one needs really long point-to-point cables. Apple just wants it since they're all about marketing new flashy things. USB3 could just as easily use as many lanes as you want, but it'd be unnecessarily expensive since 1 lane at 5Gbps is much faster than anything.Pessimism - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
This is not intel's first 6 core CPU. The 6 core Xeon 7400 was announced in 2008.