Intel's Core i7 970 Reviewed, (Slightly) More Affordable 6-core
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 29, 2010 3:23 AM ESTFinal Words
In March I called the Core i7 980X the first Extreme Edition CPU that I was excited about. Price aside, you make no tradeoffs with the 980X. You get the absolute best performance in heavily threaded applications and nearly the same in all other workloads. Power consumption was also a non-issue, at least compared to last year's 45nm quad-core. Whether or not the 980X was worth it really depended on what sort of applications you're using. 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.
Recounting an old conclusion is one of the laziest things I can do as a writer, but I'm doing it here because the very same points hold true to today's Core i7 970. You save $100 and give up unlocked multipliers and a very small amount of performance. If you're going to be running at stock clock speeds, the 970 is a fine way to make the Gulftown jump a little more palatable. If you're planning on overclocking, the 980X may be a better option. The unlocked multiplier helps and you may be able to get a little more headroom out of the 980X if the Core i7 970 is truly just a binned 980X.
Thankfully at these price points there's not much deliberating necessary. You either have the budget for it or you don't. And if you're remotely considering splurging, keep in mind that quad-core will get even faster early next year with Sandy Bridge.
Like the 980X, the Core i7 970 isn't something I'd personally buy simply because of the price. It's a great performer however. For some, that's all that matters. And looking at Intel's roadmap, you won't see a significantly faster 6-core replacement until Q4 2011.
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spunlex - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
don't forget cruncherskuwan - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link
If you're a photographer doing image editing then Bibble 5 Pro will fully utilize 6 cores +HT. Bibble actually scales all the way up to 32 cores.Cheers
Golgatha - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
I was all ready to read up until I realized I can't afford it.AstroGuardian - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
How come the 920 scores lower than the 750? Considering they are the same chip but the 920 has HT.ViRGE - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
They're not the same chip. 750 is Lynnfield (1156) while 920 is Bloomfield (1366). They do happen to have the same core and uncore clock speeds, but the 750 can turbo boost to higher clockspeeds than the 920 can. So that's most likely the reason the 750 is winning some tests.jfelano - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Intel and affordable don't belong in the same sentence.afkrotch - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Don't see how they can't be in the same sentence. Who had the cheapest dual cores, when they first hit the market? I'll give you 1 hint. It wasn't AMD. Hell, I went with an Intel dual core, simply cause it was $200 dollars cheaper than anything AMD had to offer during the time.But hey, if all you're looking for is crappy $100 or less processor, then yes. Intel is not meant for you.
medi01 - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link
Yep. Intel had "cheapest" (and crapiest) dual cores, which was an EXCEPTION from Intel's practices. How come it supports your argument?tech6 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
I was really hoping this CPU would fall in the $500-$600 range but the price sort of makes sense as there really is no competition at this performance level from AMD so Intel can pretty much charge whatever it wants.Etern205 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Even AMD's 12 core Operteron is cheaper than Intel's "slightly affordable" hex.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
8-core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...