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
Overclocking - Updated!
With six cores and 12MB of L3 cache on a relatively new 32nm process, it's not surprising that we weren't able to push our Core i7 980X too far. At stock voltage I was only able to reach 3.5GHz with turbo mode disabled using the stock cooler. I could get the system into Windows at ~3.7GHz, but not stable without additional voltage.
3.5GHz - Max overclock with stock cooling and stock voltage
Giving the chip extra voltage let me go up to 4.13GHz without sacrificing stability.
4.13GHz - Max overclock with stock cooling at 1.359V
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softdrinkviking - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
it's a 2-p4 mcm at at a lower node with a lotof improvements over the older p4 manufacturing processes.
if i absolutely had to have netburst, that's what i would want.
i think it's really nice that Anand includes it in the comparison, because it gives a sense of history to the article, and it shows how much faster CPUs have gotten in such a short time.
JonnyDough - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Yep. It might be based on P4, but you can't really considered a P4. It was based on two cedar mill cores rather than smithfield with double the cache and a 200mhz bus speed jump.Dadofamunky - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
And exactly the same NetBurst architecture otherwise. And I'm sorry, but seeing that POS coming up with 40% against Gulftown signifies either one of two things: Gulftown isn't that much faster; or, the SysMark software distorts the relative performance results. That isn't a realistic portrayal of 'history.' SysMark 2007 badly needs an update. It isn't a realistic tool for the 4-to-6-core world.danielkza - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Weird, other sites managed to squeeze up to 4.4GHz of the 980X on air, and 4.7GHz on WC. I thought initially of different stability requirements from both parts, but bit-tech ran all their benchmarks at both 4400MHz and 4720MHz. Maybe Anand's DX58 isn't holding up so well after all.http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/03/11/i...">http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2...-core-i7...
DanNeely - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Anand only used a stock cooler to test. The intel coolers never have much head room in them. Luck of the draw in both mobo and CPU might be a factor but so is bit-tech's better cooling.chrisfam - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Tomshardware got a 4.13 Ghz overclock with 1.4v and with Enhanced SpeedStep and Turbo Boost enabled. Neoseeker got a 4.16 Ghz overclock with just 1.35v. And both of these were with the stock heat sink.Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
I've been working on a follow up to go deeper into our overclocked numbers. A motherboard swap later and a little bit of work appears to be paying off...I'm over 4.1GHz already :-)Update soon!
Take care,
Anand
chrisfam - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Updated overclock (4.13 Ghz, 1.359V) is much better. Thanks for the update.Rajinder Gill - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
That's right, 3.7-3.8GHz is the full load limit of Intel's stock cooler with these beasts. We ran out of time to really push, but I'm sure we'll find out what these chips can do in due course.regards
Raja
strikeback03 - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Is the new tower cooler an improvement in any way over the old one? Is it quieter, as it doesn't seem to offer more OC headroom.Also, how does the CPU power consumption increase by 130W at load over idle, while system consumption only goes up 90W?