We all love speed demon processors eating away tough benchmarks and high end applications without even burping, don’t we? We don’t like the idea of burping processors anyway! Intel has pushed up the ante by unveiling the Core i7 980X “Gulftown” processor which has 6 cores on a single 32-nm fabricated die.
FEATURES
This 6 core monster can handle 12 simultaneous threads. As mentioned earlier, Gulftown has a 32-nm fabrication process, 12 MB L3 cache. Apart from this, 256 KB L2 cache is provided for each core. 1066 MHz triple channel memory controller is thrown in with a maximum memory bandwidth of 32 GB/s. A sigh of relief for x58 chipset owners is that this processor is based on the socket 1366 and all x58 boards will be able to run this processor after a bios update. With 1170 million transistors, packed in, it is a serious number cruncher. Previous generation features like turbo boost are kept in.
POWER CONSUMPTION
The official power rating for the processor (TDP) is 130 Watts. Under full load, the temperature remains around 55-60 degree Celsius.
PERFORMANCE
This beast mauls the previous generation processors by a huge margin.
Some serious performance jumps out there.
VERDICT
This processor is definitely a performance monster but these benchmarks are multithreaded unlike most other applications. Most games support a maximum of 2 cores so it will be an overkill for gamers. For now, most of the quad core i7 owners not bother. Those with unlimited budgets (or have just robbed a bank) looking for the fastest computer on the planet can of course go for it. And the cost… a mere 999$ or Rs 50,000.
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