Intel's Core i7 970 Reviewed, (Slightly) More Affordable 6-core
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 29, 2010 3:23 AM ESTPower Consumption
Power consumption is about the same as the i7 980X. You get better idle power than any other LGA-1366 CPU thanks to the 32nm transistors, and load power consumption equivalent to the original Nehalem. The Core i7 970 is still a 130W chip, it's by no means cool, but compared to other 130W parts it's quite efficient.
Overclocking
Despite a 50% increase in cores and L3 cache, the 32nm Gulftown parts have proven to be excellent overclockers. I had no problems pushing 4.13GHz on my Core i7 980X a few months ago. The Core i7 970 didn't do quite as well unfortunately. With a 1.40V core voltage I was able to hit 3.96GHz but I couldn't get Windows 7 stable at anything higher.
A 24% overclock isn't bad, but it's just not as good as what we're used to. You may have better luck than I did, however it's also possible that the 970 exists to make use of the Gulftowns that couldn't yield at 3.33GHz. In other words, these parts may just not be as overclockable as the 980X.
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dragunover - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
This CPU is a joke until it's getting sold for under four hundred dollars....AstroGuardian - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Why just not take i5-750 and overclock the heck out of it and beat the "crab" out of the i7-970?Taft12 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Does overclocking net you additional cores now?(Sarcasm aside, you CAN net additional cores on an AMD CPU!)
afkrotch - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Cause then you can overlock the i7-970 and beat the "crab" out of anything else, minus the 980X.medi01 - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link
Which still won't justify 5 times higher price.afkrotch - Monday, August 2, 2010 - link
Never said it did. I can't see why anyone would ever pay $500 or more for a processor you'll be using at home. I'd say it's a different story if it's a work related business expense.Me, I will never buy a proc that costs more than $350. I always stay within that budget. I find that the sweet spot. You can get a fast processor and you can usually overclock it to match the $1000 ones.
swaaye - Friday, August 13, 2010 - link
Intel's pricing strategy seems to pay off in the end, historically. :)Will Robinson - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
It's pricey but very quick at pretty much everything.Thanks for the look anyway.
Could AT consider an article highlighting the need for software that really shines on this hardware?
Who's coding 6 core +HT stuff anyway?
Give them a push Anand :)
AstroGuardian - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
"If you're doing a lot of 3D rendering, video encoding or other heavily threaded tasks it makes sense. Otherwise, despite the class leading performance, it's not a good value. "Read the review!!! .... damn it
Taft12 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Server workloads and animation professionals.