The world’s largest processor manufacturer has now announced its latest family of desktop processors and earlier announced it is called Core i7. Even if Intel may not have spent that much time coming up with the name of its new processors, sure it is the seventh generation, but that isn’t entirely obvious, it spent a lot more time in the lab perfecting its latest piece of hardware, which is really all that counts.
Most superficial details have been known for a while now, even the Core i7 name was released long ago. It’s a brand new architecture, although it has a lot in common with Core, where we see some new things from Intel. The perhaps most talked about is the integrated memory controller that supports up to three channels with the top models, but also the new QPI system interface and the revival of HyperThreading.
Since the details have been known, the most interesting is the actual performance, as always for the consumers. Intel has announced three models and Intel as tried to make sure that most review sites will get the lower-end of the three since this is the model most people will be targeting. The three models are as follows;
:: Core i7-965 Extreme /3.2GHz/ 6.4GHz QPI bus – Price: $999
:: Core i7-960 /2.93GHz/ 4.8GHz QPI buss – Price: $562
:: Core i7-940 /2.66GHz/ 4.8GHz QPI buss – Price: $284
“Even so, one has to appreciate what Intel has accomplished here. The Core i7 is another solid step beyond its last two product generations, the 45nm and 65nm versions of Core 2. As our power testing showed, the larger Core i7’s power draw at idle is similar to a quad-core Penryn’s. Although its peak power draw is higher, the Core i7 can use less energy to complete a given task, as it did in our Cinebench rendering example. And the new system architecture established by the Core i7 will likely be the basis for Intel systems for the next five years, at least. On all fronts, progress.” – TechReport
A heap of Core i7 reviews have been posted during the day and they all speak the same language. Core i7 offers considerably better performance in multithreaded environments that today’s Core 2 processors and if there is anything that may seem a bit unclear it is the overclocking potential of the processor. This is something will present to your shortly in a rather extensive article.
Until then we have a selection of Core i7 reviews below;
:: TechReport :: HotHardware :: Guru3D :: TomsHardware :: ExtremeTech :: PC Perspective :: TweakTown ::
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