The Core i7 980X Review: Intel's First 6-Core CPU

[DarkAngel]

AnandTech: The Core i7 980X Review: Intel’s First 6-Core CPU

Review And the price is equivalent to the Intel Core i7 975. Just $999

I have to say that Intel’s Core i7 980X is the first Extreme Edition CPU that I’ve ever gotten excited about. In the past you used to have to choose between more cores or high clock speeds. Thanks to power gating and Gulftown’s PMU, those days are over. The 980X gives you its best regardless of what you throw at it. Lightly threaded apps benefit from the larger L3 cache and heavily threaded apps take advantage of the extra cores. The performance advantage you get at the low end ranges from 0 - 7%, and on the high end with well threaded code you’re looking at an extra 20 - 50% over the Core i7 975. Even more if you compare to a pedestrian processor. There are a few cases where the 980X does lose out to the Core i7 975 thanks to its higher latency L3 cache, but for the most part it’s smooth sailling for the 6-core beast.

Beats the Intel Core i7 975 by 47% in rendering and for processor heavy apps it has a consistent 20-50% advantage. Not much performance gain for gamers though.
If they release a normal version like the i7 930X for $300-400~ then i guess its RIP Thuban even before its release.

Tom’s Hardware : Intel Core i7-980X Extreme: Hello, Six-Core Computing

[Zloyd]

Rock on Intel !!!

[Happy_Singh]

Good and too expensive but as mention in 1st post not much difference in gaming performance as compare to 4cores. May be games don’t need 6cores results useless for gamer to buy 6core cpu but that 12MB L3 Cache makes some difference(correct me if i am wrong).

[devi691]

utne per pasaariye ,jitni chadar hoy

[draglord]

its true that game doesnt require 6 cores, but still its an improvement over 975 with the same price, so wat’s the harm???

also, i think it might be a better overclocker than 975

[DarkAngel]

This is what ppl thought when the first quads were made. Ppl said who needs a quad for gaming. Now there are many games that uses all 4 cores. Similarly with time games will be optimized for hexa/octa cores.
Plus the performance increase in productivity is amazing. It has a good 20%+ advantage over the quads in rendering. Even in CS4 it has a good 15% lead. Hope they release more affordable hexa cores soon

[desiibond]

I don’t think this proccy is targeted at gamers right now. It’s more of “I am first here” intention. But think about AV encoding tasks using this processor. From the review, I see that some tasks takes 10-30% less time and 2x times faster when compared to AMD’s top of the line CPU. When working on large files or complex tasks, it does make lot of difference I think

[user67]

^^^^It’s coming after 1 quarter, yes 3 months, and that will be priced at 562$…

That’s it, then till 2011, no more six-cores or any price cuts…sheesh fack INTEL..

BTW more reviews:-

Intel Core i7-980X Gulftown Six-Core 32nm Processor Review

Intel Core i7 980X review

Intel Core i7-980X 32nm LGA-1366 Six Core CPU Introduction :: TweakTown

ocaholic - Intel Core i7 980X Performance Comparision - CPUs - Artikel

Intel’s Core i7-980X Extreme processor - The Tech Report - Page 1

Intel Core i7 980X Review - Overclockers Club

Intel’s Core i7-980X Extreme Edition - Ready for Sick Scores?: Introduction - Techgage

Intel Core i7-980X 6-Core CPU BX80613I7980X | Core i7-980X,BX80613I7980X,Gulftown,6-Core,Intel,Processor,CPU,Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Processor BX80613I7980X 6-Core Gulftown CPU 32nm Westmere Benchmark Performance Overclocking Test | Benchm

[mav3r1ck]

Time for AMD to flood the market with its own hexa/octa core without L3 cache (ala Athlon processors) to capture the market with its pricing. just my 2 cents

[Vandal]

@draglord

its true that game doesnt require 6 cores, but still its an improvement over 975 with the same price, so wat’s the harm???
also, i think it might be a better overclocker than 975

I don’t think it’d be a better overclocker. The chip I tested ran pretty hot, not alarmingly so, but hotter than the 975E, lets say a solid 10 degrees hotter on load.
I’d love a 3.66 GHz, 32nm quad core, one that goes upto say 4.2 GHz in Turbo Mode. 6 cores is fun, but I feel the next generation of these monsters will be the real killers - a little too early perhaps?

[rajan1311]

boooooring…

need better products for the masses Intel.

@Vandal, you the 980X already ?

[DarkAngel]

@Vandal

I don’t think it’d be a better overclocker. The chip I tested ran pretty hot, not alarmingly so, but hotter than the 975E, lets say a solid 10 degrees hotter on load.

I’d love a 3.66 GHz, 32nm quad core, one that goes upto say 4.2 GHz in Turbo Mode. 6 cores is fun, but I feel the next generation of these monsters will be the real killers - a little too early perhaps?

It does OC upto 4.2GHz(air cooled) according to the reviews So a 3.8-3.9GHz should be easily achievable(with proper cooling).

The next Tock(SandyBridge) should be very intersting

[xXx_R_a_H_u_L_xXx]

@rajan1311

boooooring…

need better products for the masses Intel.

^+1 very true! wats the fun…if masses cud not afford it…?

[user67]

Sandy Bridge…LOL at that CPU, it hass not one but two INTEL GMA accelerators inside the CPU silicon, for what? TO do and INTEL EYE INFINITY!!! LMAO

I think the BULLDOZER 4c/8t and 8c-16t processors are gonna eat INTEL alive, at least INTEL comes out with a copied and improved design again.

[DevinWolf]

Its like comparing a Phenom II x4 965 to a Core i7 920 … The 920 eats it alive but is a lot more expensive thats going to be the same case with Core 980X and Thuban …

With Bulldozer and sandy bridge the market might turn sides … bulldozer is probably gonna come out in Q1 2010 and so is sandy bridge …

[rajan1311]

@DevinWolf

Its like comparing a Phenom II x4 965 to a Core i7 920 … The 920 eats it alive

I still dont see that dude…at least in gaming…

[DevinWolf]

It overclocks a lot more and turn of the HT for god sake when playing games ( why can’t u people do that , to lazy ) and then see it eat it …

[vishalrao]

I didn’t find anything too impressive about this. Just the single POV Ray bench showed nice numbers:

Oh that? That’s just a 47% peformance boost over the Core i7 975. This is nearly perfect scaling with core count, showing us that we’re not limited by memory bandwidth or anything else. The 980X is a beast.

And quoting from the end of AT own conclusion:

There is of course the higher powered alternative. You could pick up a dual-socket Xeon board and a pair of quad-core Nehalem Xeons for a bit more than a X58 + 980X. You’d end up with more cores, albeit with a higher power budget and higher price tag. The Core i7 980X is such a difficult processor to recommend. It’s something I’d personally never spend the money on. But if I needed more compute in a single chip, it’s really the only thing that could scratch that itch.