Intel Core i7-980X Extreme
are not due to hit store shelves for a few more weeks, Intel is using the always exciting Game Developers Conference currently being held in San Francisco to officially unveil the new Core i7-980X Extreme processor. Intel's Extreme Edition processors have always been targeted at enthusiasts and hardcore-gamers, so what better place to show off the fastest desktop processor for the PC to date? Unless of course you're catching it here on the pages of HotHardware, that is. The new Core i7-980X Extreme is an interesting animal, however, that requires a detailed look. Although its branding implies that it may be just a simple speed-bump over the previous flagship Core i7-975 Extreme, the 980X is actually a totally different beast. And what a beast it is. While the Core i7-975 is based on the 45nm Bloomfield core and features quad execution cores, the new Core i7-980X Extreme is based on the 32nm Gulftown core and sports six execution cores. That's right folks, quad-cores are no longer king of the hill.
There is much more to talk about with regards to Gulftown and the Core i7-980X Extreme specifically, but we're not about to cram it all into a pithy intro. Check out the specs immediately below and perhaps take a few moments to peruse some other recent Intel processor coverage a bit further down the page. Then strap yourself in as we take the killer Intel Core i7-980X Extreme 6-Core processor for a spin...
As for the critics? Just about everyone with a benchmarking license managed to get one of these in-house, and everyone seems to feel (mostly) the same way. There's no denying that this is Intel's speediest consumer chip ever, but you won't find 50 percent boosts just anywhere. Yet. When the software catches up, though, there's no doubt that this chip will make even the other Core i7s look downright sluggish. 50 percent more cores and 50 percent more threads than the prior kings of the line leads to fantastic gains when serious number crunching is involved (audio and video editors, we're staring at you), with some tests showing upticks in the 30 to 50 percent range. As a bonus, the power consumption here is also extremely reasonable, with the shift to 32nm enabling it to even use less power in some circumstances when compared to the Core i7-975 Extreme Edition. Dig into the glut of reviews below if you've got a cool grand with "chip upgrade" written on it -- you'll be glad you did.
Introduction
In May of 2005, both AMD and Intel delivered the world's first desktop dual-core CPU's, and since then, the processor technology and increase in performance from generation to generation has accelerated to mind-boggling levels. I'm not sure if it's a sickness, but when I look back to the landscape just two years ago, I can't help but feel a bit underwhelmed, because the newer models are so much more attractive.
It's true though. The acceleration of technology is incredible, and it's actually a bit hard to believe that just five years ago, we were all sporting single-core processors in our desktops. The first dual-core's came in May of 2005 as mentioned, and a mere year-and-a-half later, Intel launched the first desktop quad-core offering, the QX6700.
So if it only took a year-and-a-half to make the shift from a dual-core to a quad-core, how on earth has it taken another 4.3 years to finally see the industry's first six-core offering? The reason isn't due to the fact that it couldn't be done (I remember Intel talking about Octal-Cores at IDF 2007, and we still don't see those on the desktop side), but rather because they haven't been needed.
Just over two years ago, we took Intel's Skulltrail platform for a spin. For those who may not recall, Skulltrail was Intel's ultra-high-end solution for those who wanted the best in multi-tasking and the best in overall raw horsepower. As we learned in that article, the company certainly delivered. One thing we also learned, though, was that there was a dire need for better multi-threading support in our common applications, since we found it hard to actually push all of the eight cores we were given.
The multi-threaded situation is much improved as it stands today, and it's constantly getting better. As we'll see in our test results, even our real-world benchmarks that we've been using for the past year-and-a-half see good benefits with today's multi-core processors, including the one we'll be taking a look at today.
Allow me to introduce Intel's first six-core desktop processor, the Core i7-980X Extreme Edition:
You might be saying to yourself, "A six-core? I can't even push a quad-core!", and to be honest, that's what makes Gulftown so interesting and fun. I admit that didn't expect much when I first sat down to benchmark the i7-980X, because I already had a good mindset of what I could expect to see. After all, the processor is quite similar to the i7-975, but with +50% the number of cores and threads. But, there's just something about it... something about having so much power at your finger-tips that cause you to let out an evil laugh. Wait, is that just me?
It's obvious that the i7-980X has a lot of muscle, but there's more that makes the chip special than just the core/thread boost. For one, like the recently-released Clarkdale desktop processors, Gulftown (based on Westmere) is built upon a 32nm process. One thing that means less heat and less power consumption than previous architectures, and for proof, you don't have to look further than our power consumption page.
In addition, there's also the addition of the AES-NI instruction set, increased L3 Cache (12MB) and also the possibility of improved overclocking.
Before continuing, it's worth taking a look at Intel's current Core i line-up:
Intel CPU | Cores | Threads | Clock | Turbo | Cache | GPU | TDP | |
| Core i7-980X (4) | 6 | 12 | 3.33GHz | 3.60GHz | 12MB | N/A | 130W | |
| Core i7-975 (1) | 4 | 8 | 3.33GHz | 3.60GHz | 8MB | N/A | 130W | |
| Core i7-960 (1) | 4 | 8 | 3.20GHz | 3.46GHz | 8MB | N/A | 130W | |
| Core i7-950 (1) | 4 | 8 | 3.06GHz | 3.33GHz | 8MB | N/A | 130W | |
| Core i7-870 (2) | 4 | 8 | 2.93GHz | 3.60GHz | 8MB | N/A | 95W | |
| Core i7-860S (2) | 4 | 8 | 2.53GHz | 3.46GHz | 8MB | N/A | 82W | |
| Core i7-930 (1) | 4 | 8 | 2.80GHz | 3.06GHz | 8MB | N/A | 130W | |
| Core i7-860 (2) | 4 | 8 | 2.80GHz | 3.46GHz | 8MB | N/A | 95W | |
| Core i7-920 (1) | 4 | 8 | 2.66GHz | 2.93GHz | 8MB | N/A | 130W | |
| Core i5-670 (3) | 2 | 4 | 3.46GHz | 3.73GHz | 4MB | 733MHz | 73W | |
| Core i5-750S (2) | 4 | 4 | 2.40GHz | 3.20GHz | 8MB | N/A | 82W | |
| Core i5-750 (2) | 4 | 4 | 2.66GHz | 3.20GHz | 8MB | N/A | 95W | |
| Core i5-661 (3) | 2 | 4 | 3.33GHz | 3.60GHz | 4MB | 900MHz | 87W | |
| Core i5-660 (3) | 2 | 4 | 3.33GHz | 3.60GHz | 4MB | 733MHz | 73W | |
| Core i5-650 (3) | 2 | 4 | 3.20GHz | 3.46GHz | 4MB | 733MHz | 73W | |
| Core i3-540 (3) | 2 | 4 | 3.06GHz | N/A | 4MB | 733MHz | 73W | |
| Core i3-530 (3) | 2 | 4 | 2.93GHz | N/A | 4MB | 733MHz | 73W | |
| Pentium G6950 (3) | 2 | 2 | 2.80GHz | N/A | 3MB | 533MHz | 73W | |
Microarchitecture: (1) Bloomfield, (2) Lynnfield, (3) Clarkdale, (4) Gulftown |
When I first learned of the Core i7-980X's release, I was a bit worried of what the price could be. After all, it's not unlike Intel to charge a sweet premium on its highest-end and special products. Just take a look at Skulltrail, where each CPU was 200MHz faster and $500 more expensive than the high-end QX9650. But, my skepticism was all for naught, and I couldn't be happier about it.
Like all other top-end launches from Intel in recent memory, the Core i7-980X will give the i7-975 the boot and sell for $999 in sales of 1,000 (the retail price will be a bit more than this). Think about that for a second. Intel just replaced a quad-core with similar architecture with a six-core built on an improved process, is including a robust CPU cooler in the box, and then is selling it for the same price. This might be the first time when I've actually considered a $999 processor to be a deal.
Intel hasn't officially admitted the fate of the i7-975, but it can be assumed that it's simply going to be removed from the line-up in the near-future. As model names go, the company has pretty much painted itself into a corner, so unless it wants to rename it to the i7-967.5, we're just going to see it go away. The i7-970 moniker is currently reserved for the next Gulftown variant, which will appear this fall.
That leads me to the next major point about Gulftown. When the i7-980X is officially released to market in the coming weeks, there will be a wide spread before the next follow-up model is released. As mentioned, that will be the i7-970, and we'll see it this fall. Past that, I'm not quite sure when the next six-core model will hit. One would assume that Intel may release a lesser-expensive model early next year, but it's really too early to speculate.
For those who are purchasing a Gulftown, the long stretch in the launch schedule is actually a good thing, because for the first time in a while, you can purchase one and have confidence that even later this year, your i7-980X will still rightfully be at the top of Intel's food chain. It's all made even more interesting because it's also the first time in a while where a new processor model can't simply be matched by an overclocker with a lesser model. Theoretically, for a quad-core to match the multi-threaded performance of this Gulftown at stock speeds, it would have to be overclocked to 5.0GHz. And that's not even taking the other microarchitecture enhancements into consideration.
Yes, I think Gulftown owners will be pretty pleased about that
Taking a Deeper Look at Gulftown
Before we dive in too deep, I wanted to clarify a minor detail. You might have noticed that up to this point, I've been calling the i7-980X a "six-core" processor, rather than something like a Sex-Core or Hex-Core. I queried Intel as to the reason for this, and we were told that it's not even calling Gulftown a "six-core" processor. In fact, it seems to be avoiding the core talk altogether, and it might not be a bad idea given the regular consumer probably isn't going to care about the number of cores, but would rather just know how kick-ass one model is compared to the next.
As far as AMD is concerned, I'm not quite sure if it shares the same idea, but at least there, it takes no effort to understand the number of cores in its processors, thanks to the simple naming scheme (X2, X3, X4, X6, X12). I might have made the last one up.
So that said, what makes Gulftown what it is, and what's its positioning? Those questions will be tackled here, beginning with a look into the actual Gulftown die. As you can see in the image below, the layout of the chip isn't much different from Bloomfield's. The memory controller still lines the top, and the miscellaneous I/O and QPI accesses are found on each side. Likewise, the L3 cache is placed directly underneath each core (2MB each), while the Queue and Uncore neatly divide up the two sections.
Like Bloomfield, Gulftown is a native six-core processor, not simply two tri-cores fused together. AMD's upcoming Phenom X6's will also have a native design, so hopefully we are completely done with the hacked designs we've seen in the past, such as with Intel's own Core 2 Quad line-up.
As a quick recap to Intel's method of doing things, Gulftown is based on the Westmere architecture, which was first seen with the Clarkdale and Arrandale chips earlier this year. All Westmere chips are based on the 32nm process, and are officially part of Intel's "Tick" phase. Tock will came later this year with Sandy Bridge, which will also be based on a 32nm process, but will feature a new microarchitecture.
The target audience of Gulftown, or at least the Core i7-980X in particular, is the same audience that all Extreme Edition's target. It's for those who want nothing but the best... a chip that delivers unparalleled multi-tasking, incredible performance in multi-threaded applications, and of course, overall flexibility. In previous discussions, I compared moving to a six-core from a quad-core being similar to moving from a large hallway to a living room. The hallway may have allowed a fair amount to get done, but the living room is obviously going to provide you with more breathing-room.
And believe it or not, as we'll see in some of our tests later, there are many applications that are able to take advantage of a six-core processor. As our current test suite was finalized in late 2008 (we're in the process of revising the entire thing), not all of our tests are as multi-threaded as others, but even with what we do have, the differences are easily seen.
Another major benefit of Gulftown, as if we needed another one, is that it's backwards-compatible with the X58 chipset. So if you happened to have purchased an X58 board at launch for the Core i7-965 or any other Bloomfield-based chip, you could go and grab a BIOS update to open up Gulftown support. The support is of course based on a vendor basis, though, so I do recommend double-checking to make sure that your particular board does indeed have a BIOS for Gulftown support.
One of the more interesting features that launched with Bloomfield in late 2008 was the "Turbo" feature. This of course is what allows the processor to boost its clock just a wee bit when it's being stressed, for improved performance. The method in which it operates can be seen below, but there's something a bit interesting that caught me off-guard. Can you see it?
With the Lynnfield launch this past fall, and likewise with Clarkdale's launch this past January, we saw what was essentially a boost to Turbo, where the Turbo on these CPU's are much more effective than the Turbo on Bloomfield. As we're dealing with the Westmere microarchitecture here, I half-expected the same kind of robust Turbo performance, but as you can see in the chart above, the height of Turbo will be two extra steps on one core. Compare that to five steps on a Lynnfield chip.
So what's the reason for the throttling down? My theory is that Intel doesn't want to exceed the 3.60GHz mark on any of its current CPU's, and to back me up, just take a look at our table on the previous page. There's only one CPU that has a Turbo to exceed 3.60GHz, and that's the Core i5-670, which can go to 3.73GHz. My reasoning there is that it's a lot safer to hit a higher clock on a dual-core than it is a quad-core, much less a six-core. Intel seems to be playing it safe, and I can't fault it for that.
Before I wrap up here, there's just one more thing Gulftown has brought to the table worth mentioning. This if course has been rumored for a while, and it's absolutely true. Intel has upped the ante and delivered not just a standard CPU cooler we're used to seeing, but rather a custom-designed enthusiast's cooler designed for overclocking and overall excellent performance.
It's not the prettiest cooler out there, but it's not meant to be. Rather, it's meant to be effective and if desired, quiet. It's important to note that this is an Intel-designed cooler, not one the company simply ordered en masse and re-branded. At this time, it's only going to be included with the Core i7-980X processor and not sold separately. The company could always change its mind based on overall feedback though.
For vendors that sell custom-built PC's and pair them up with the i7-980X, they have the option to change the branding at the top. I assume the "Intel" logo on the fan, and the general design couldn't be altered. But it's definitely a decent option for those companies who want to include the cooler, since it almost comes paired in with the price of the processor alone.
Aside from all that, it's actually quite an effective cooler, and with it, our Gulftown sample ran cooler than our Core i7-975 using a Thermalright Ultra-120. Intel definitely put some legwork into this one, and if you're going to be purchasing the i7-980X, you really don't need to fuss over the CPU cooler, this one is just fine.
Gulftown & Multi-Core Expectations
Today, most people are completely satisfied when using a dual-core processor, and for those who want a bit more oomph, there are countless quad-core models out there to choose from. But as it stands, many people don't believe that even a quad-core is worth the money, because they figure that no application or scenario they deal with could even possibly take advantage of all the cores.
I'm willing to bet that that's not really the case, because even some of our simpler apps we use for testing, performance is better when we increase the cores. The benefits of an increased number of cores comes down to two things... improved multi-tasking, and improved performance where heavily multi-threaded applications are concerned. The bigger and better your CPU, the less you have to worry about processes hanging.
Comparing the Core i7-980X to the quad-core i7-975, Intel touts that performance is increased upwards of 50%. For video effects, we could expect about a 34% increase in overall performance, and then 37% for 3D rendering. For game physics, we'll see the near 50% increase, as those algorithms tend to be very scalable with the number of available cores.
Bringing up our Skulltrail article once gain, one comment I had at the time was that despite 8 physical cores being available in the PC, it was hard to find any process outside of a synthetic benchmark that could take advantage of all 8. At best, we'd see 6 or 7 cores being used, but not 8. The same can be said here, and Intel admits it. Even though we're literally seeing a CPU with 50% more cores, we're not going to see a 50% increase in performance in all areas. For video and 3D, it's more like a ~35% increase. That's still rather impressive, and does do well to set itself apart from any quad-core model.
I mentioned before that multi-threaded support in applications and games is constantly improving, and its proven with a look at Intel's most recent version of a list it develops that gives us a one-stop shop to see which applications and games we should test with. If you are interested in looking at the full list, we have it hosted here.
It its press deck for Gulftown, Intel specifically mentions a couple of applications and games that are either out now, or soon to be out, that take good advantage of multi-core processors. The first mention is of Vegas Pro 9.0c. There, the Vice President of Technology for Sony Creative Software said, "As a result, Vegas Pro 9.0c automatically takes advantage of all 12 CPU threads on the Intel Core i7-980X, resulting in faster rendering of video projects.".
A video creation tool that can use all 12 threads? Sounds good to me. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to test out Vegas Pro 9, namely because we didn't have a project to use with it, but it's something we'd like to work on given the fact that it's truly multi-threaded. Aside from that, there's also Maxon's Cinebench R11.5, which is the most recent update to one of our favorite benchmarking tools.
The latest version is a vast improvement over the previous ones, as it brings global illumination and ray tracing into things (which almost assuredly will put Intel ahead of AMD in any comparison, given that Intel's ray tracing performance is currently very tough to beat). The scoring system has also been vastly improved, and we're back to dealing with simpler numbers. No more of these 1,000's, but rather we're down to dealing with single or double digits. The one benefit is that in our quick testing with the software so far, the results are highly repeatable, which makes benchmarking with it all the more enjoyable.
For games, Intel focuses on two real-time strategy titles, R.U.S.E. and Napoleon: Total War. The latter of the two is available right now, and I had hoped to test a bit with it in time for this article, but was unable. The biggest issue is that the style of game is certainly not one to my liking, so I'm more content with waiting for a game to come along that I don't have to study up on in order to play.
But as you can see the foil below, the extra cores on a CPU can actually increase the animation detail. It's difficult to tell the difference from two shots that already vary from one another, but the benefits explained here are going to be similar for all games that can take advantage of a CPU. With the extra cores, the physics can be offloaded, which increases performance and results in a better overall look. We do buy big GPU's for the best graphics, so this is the way the CPU can be used to improve games in other ways.
R.U.S.E. boasts some of the same benefits, but one that caught my eye was the fact that non-important features, such as horses and cows on the landscape, are animated, thanks to the CPU. Also, if you zoom far out of a scene, rather than have a flat texture applied to an object, the extra CPU cores will allow it to remain a real model, albeit a low-res version of it (which is all that's needed, given the detail wouldn't be seen anyway).
The overall thought to take away from this page is that the multi-threading landscape is continually improving, and more and more applications and even games are becoming multi-core aware. I still think we have a long way to go before truly multi-threaded games become commonplace, but we're on the right track.
Test System & Methodology
At Techgage, we strive to make sure our results are as accurate as possible. Our testing is rigorous and time-consuming, but we feel the effort is worth it. In an attempt to leave no question unanswered, this page contains not only our testbed specifications, but also a fully-detailed look at how we conduct our testing.
If there is a bit of information that we've omitted, or you wish to offer thoughts or suggest changes, please feel free to shoot us an e-mail or post in our forums.
Test System
The table below lists the hardware for our two current machines, which remains unchanged throughout all testing, with the exception of the processor. Each CPU used for the sake of comparison is also listed here, along with the BIOS version of the motherboard used. In addition, each one of the URLs in this table can be clicked to view the respective review of that product, or if a review doesn't exist, you will be led to the product on the manufacturer's website.
Please note that for benchmarking the Core i7-980X, we deviated from the Rampage II Extreme that we tested all other Bloomfield's with in favor of taking Gigabyte's X58A-UD5 for a spin. This motherboard change won't effect the performance, but it will change the power consumption just a wee bit. As mentioned before, we're in the process of upgrading our entire CPU test suite, and the X58A-UD5 will become the base of our new LGA1366 test platform.
Component | Intel LGA1366 Test System |
| Processors | Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition - Six-Core, 3.33GHz, 1.30v Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition - Quad-Core, 3.33GHz, 1.30v Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition - Quad-Core, 3.33GHz, 1.30v Intel Core i7-920 - Quad-Core, 2.66GHz, 1.30v |
| Motherboard | ASUS Rampage II Extreme - X58-based, 0705 BIOS (11/21/08) Gigabyte X58A-UD5 - X58-based, F4 BIOS (02/12/10) (Gigabyte's board used only for Core i7-980X) |
| Memory | OCZ Gold 3x2GB - DDR3-1066 7-7-7-20-1T, 1.56v (920/940) OCZ Gold 3x2GB - DDR3-1600 7-7-7-20-1T, 1.56v (965/975/980X) |
| Graphics | Palit Radeon HD 4870 512MB (Catalyst 8.11) |
| Audio | On-Board Audio |
| Storage | |
| Power Supply | |
| Chassis | |
| Display | |
| Cooling | |
| Et cetera |
(Sim) represents models that were tested using a faster, but under-clocked processor. For example, for the Q9550, we used the QX9770, since the specs are identical all-around, except for the clock speeds. Those were adjusted appropriately, effectively giving us a Q9550 to test with.
When preparing our testbeds for any type of performance testing, we follow these guidelines:
- General Guidelines
- No power-saving options are enabled in the motherboard's BIOS.
- Internet is disabled.
- No Virus Scanner or Firewall is installed.
- The OS is kept clean; no scrap files are left in between runs.
- Hard drives affected are defragged with Diskeeper 2008 prior to a fresh benchmarking run.
- Machine has proper airflow and the room temperature is 80°F (27°C) or less.
- Windows Vista Optimizations
- User Account Control (UAC) and screen saver are disabled.
- Windows Defender, Firewall, Security Center, Search, Sidebar and Updates are disabled.
To aide with the goal of keeping accurate and repeatable results, we alter certain services in Windows Vista from starting up at boot. This is due to the fact that these services have the tendency to start up in the background without notice, potentially causing slightly inaccurate results. Disabling "Windows Search" turns off the OS' indexing which can at times utilize the hard drive and memory more than we'd like.
Application Benchmarks
To help test out the real performance benefits of a given processor, we run a large collection of both real-world and synthetic benchmarks, including 3ds Max, Adobe Lightroom, TMPGEnc Xpress, Sandra 2009 and many more.
Our ultimate goal is always to find out which processor excels in a given scenario and why. Running all of the applications in our carefully-chosen suite can help better give us answers to those questions. Aside from application data, we also run two common games to see how performance scales there, including Call of Duty 4 and Half-Life 2: Episode Two.
Game Benchmarks
In an attempt to offer "real-world" results, we do not utilize timedemos in any of our reviews. Each game in our test suite is benchmarked manually, with the minimum and average frames-per-second (FPS) captured with the help of FRAPS 2.9.5.
To deliver the best overall results, each title we use is exhaustively explored in order to find the best possible level in terms of intensiveness and replayability. Once a level is chosen, we play through repeatedly to find the best possible route and then in our official benchmarking, we stick to that route as close as possible. Since we are not robots and the game can throw in minor twists with each run, no run can be identical to the pixel.
Each game and setting combination is tested twice, and if there is a discrepancy between the initial results, the testing is repeated until we see results we are confident with.
The two games we currently use for our motherboard reviews are listed below, with direct screenshots of the game's setting screens and explanations of why we chose what we did.
Call of Duty: World at War
1680x1050 | 2560x1600 |
  |   |
Crysis Warhead
1680x1050 | 2560x1600 |
  |   |
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
1680x1050 | 2560x1600 |
 |  |
Overclocking Intel's Core i7-980X Extreme Edition
Before discussing results, let's take a minute to briefly discuss what I consider to be a worthwhile overclock. As I've mentioned in past content, I'm not as interested in finding the highest overclock possible as much as I am interested in finding the highest stable overclock. To me, if an overclock crashes the computer after a few minutes of running a stress-test, it has little value except for competition.
How we declare an overclock stable is simple... we stress it as hard as possible for a certain period of time, both with CPU-related tests and also GPU-related, to conclude on what we'll be confident is 100% stability throughout all possible computing scenarios.
For the sake of CPU stress-testing, we use LinX. Compared to other popular CPU stress-testers, LinX's tests are far more gruelling, and proof of that is seen by the fact that it manages to heat the CPU up to 20°C hotter than competing applications, like SP2004. Also, LinX is just as effective on AMD processors. Generally, if the CPU survives the first half-hour of this stress, there's a good chance that it's mostly stable, but I strive for a 12 hour stress as long as time permits.
If the CPU stress passes without error, then GPU stress-testing begins, in order to assure a system-wide stable overclock. To test for this, 3DMark Vantage's Extreme test is used, with the increased resolution of 2560x1600, looped nine times. If this passes, some time is dedicated to real-world game testing, to make sure that gaming is just as stable as it would be if the CPU were at stock. If both these CPU and GPU tests pass without issue, we can confidently declare a stable overclock.
Overclocking Intel's Core i7-980X Extreme Edition
When it comes to overclocking, nothing has been simpler to deal with over the past couple of years than Intel's processors, especially since Conroe. You can always pick up a dual or quad-core and expect a good experience, but for Gulftown, we're dealing with two extra cores and a different die design, so it's hard to just assume that we'll see the same kind of overclocking potential as we've become accustomed to.
There's also the concern that if just one core on the die is less-than-ideal, then it's going to hold back your top-end overclock. To find a "perfect" chip might be rare, but I think generally speaking, it shouldn't be too hard for anyone to achieve at least 4.0GHz on the i7-980X, and that's basically what we accomplished as well, albeit with 50MHz tacked on top of it.
(Click to view LinX stress report)
I've always been rather pleased with a 4.0GHz overclock, and for the i7-980X, things were no different. But the more I thought about it, the less impressive such an overclock is on a chip like this is. The reason simply has to do with the fact that with Turbo, the i7-980X hits about 3.50GHz, so in essence, a 4.0GHz overclock is merely 500MHz above stock. Compare that to the 4.55GHz overclock we saw on our Core i3-530 last week. Now that's an overclock.
In talking to Gigabyte, I was told that 4.2GHz should be possible, but for me, no matter what I tried, I couldn't achieve stability with LinX. I might have been able to attain 4.1GHz and still retain that same stability, but I left it at 4.05GHz as all I had to do was increase the multiplier and voltage (to 1.350v). Because the Core i7-980X has an unlocked multiplier, you don't have to touch the BCLK at all.
I'm still pleased with 4.0GHz, because though it might still be only 500MHz above stock, it's a nice number to see. But do we actually have a reason to go through with it?
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Benchmark | Stock | Overclock | Increase | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 Dog Render Bathroom Render | 143 s 250 s | 124 s 220 s | 13.29% 12.00% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cinebench R10 Single-Thread Multi-Thread | 5032 27831 | 5731 31749 | 13.90% 14.08% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cinebench R11.5 Multi-Thread | 9.02 | 10.31 | 14.30% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| POV-Ray 3.7 Single-Thread Multi-Thread | 883.42 6702.39 | 1020.44 7687.28 | 15.51% 14.69% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Adobe Lightroom 2.0 Convert 100 RAW to JPEG | 80.45 s | 73.35 s | 8.83% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TMPGEnc Xpress HD Video Encode Mobile Video Encode | 125 s 55 s | 111 s 49 s | 11.20% 10.91% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ProShow Gold HD Video Encode DVD Video Encode | 152 s 42 s | 135 s 37 s | 11.18% 11.90% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sandra Arithmetic Dhrystone SSE4.2 Whetstone SSE3 | 127.90 MIPS 109.00 MFLOPS | 147.64 MIPS 125.42 MFLOPS | 15.43% 15.06% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sandra Multi-Media Int x16 Float x8 Double x4 | 264.05 MPixel/s 204.71 MPixel/s 113.00 MPixel/s | 304.75 MPixel/s 236.23 MPixel/s 130.37 MPixel/s | 15.41% 15.40% 15.37% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sandra Cryptography AES256 SHA256 | 11383 1366 | 13115 1583 | 15.22% 15.89% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Microsoft Excel Monte Carlo Big Number Crunch | 8.408 s 2.589 s | 7.379 s 2.277 s | 12.24% 12.05% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| wPrime 32M 1024 | 5.523 s 160.134 s | 4.789 s 138.871 s | 13.29% 13.28% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
If you're running rendering projects or anything heavily math-based that takes hours or even days to complete, then the overclock might be a bit more worthy. After all, 90 hours is a lot better than 100 hours, when it comes to projects of that magnitude.
It goes without saying that power efficiency is at the forefront of many consumers' minds today, and for good reason. Whether you are trying to save money or the environment - or both - it's good to know just how much effort certain vendors are putting into their products to help them excel in this area. Both AMD and Intel have worked hard to develop efficient chips, and that's evident with each new launch. The CPUs are getting faster, and use less power, and hopefully things will stay that way.
To help see what kind of wattage a given processor draws on average, we use a Kill-A-Watt that's plugged into a power bar that's in turn plugged into one of the wall sockets, with the test system plugged directly into that. The monitor and other components are plugged into the other socket and is not connected to the Kill-A-Watt. For our system specifications, please refer to our methodology page.
To test, the computer is first boot up and left to sit at idle for five minutes, at which point the current wattage is recorded if stable. To test for full CPU load, LinX is run with 2560MB memory usage for a total of five minutes. During that run, the highest point the wattage reaches on the meter is captured and becomes our "Max Load".
On the first page of this article, I mentioned that the i7-980X had better power consumption than the i7-975, and here's proof of that. Unlike most tests up to this point, where all of the Bloomfield processors were tested in a different motherboard, to be more fair here, I popped our i7-975 into the same board we used for Gulftown testing, so the two figures can reliably be compared.
The drop to 32nm has made an obvious improvement here, because both of those CPU's are based on similar architectures, yet the six-core shaved 45W off at load, and about evens out at idle. When a six-core processor drains less power than a quad-core... that's what I call impressive.
Final Thoughts
Where do I begin? When I first received the Core i7-980X, I didn't think too much of it. Given the facts, I had an idea of what I could expect to see performance-wise. To be simple about it, the i7-980X is an i7-975 with +50% the number of cores and threads and is based on the Westmere architecture. From that alone, it's fairly easy to surmise what the performance and experience will be like.
But as I sat down and started goofing around with the chip, I couldn't help but get really excited about what I was dealing with. The experience was similar to the first time I touched a quad-core... it just felt like I had so much breathing room, and couldn't find enough stuff to throw at it. The same can be said about the i7-980X, but maybe even more so. The Core i7-980X is an unbelievably powerful processor, and a total blast to use. It's that simple.
I'm still not willing to buy into the fact that everyone needs a six-core processor, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, there's a lot of fun to be had, and enough power to get your big projects done fast. Although most of our benchmarks that we used for this review aren't entirely designed to the fullest for multi-core processors (especially 4+ cores), I was pleasantly surprised to see that despite that, the Core i7-980X still gave us a nice boost in many areas.
If you deal with either 3D rendering or media encoding on a regular basis, the Core i7-980X is a blessing. You can see the proof in our results tackling those scenarios... the increases can be huge. Plus, I am not even entirely pleased with some of the benchmarks we did run, such as the video encoding, since DivX is seemingly being used a lot less today. I'd like to follow-up in the future, once we get our new CPU suite sorted out, to see if even larger increases can be seen with today's more popular HD codecs, such as WMV, MP4 or even MKV.
I should mention again about the superb power consumption we also saw from the i7-980X. As you can see on the previous page, it actually manages to use 45W less at full load compared to the i7-975, despite having two extra cores to deal with, and being built with a very similar microarchitecture. The shift to 32nm sure does deliver some nice rewards.
Wafer with Intel's Gulftown Dies
One of the more impressive features with the Core i7-980X is the fact that it's set to sell for $999. It's not atypical for Intel to price its high-end models at that same price point, but we've just made a rather sizable leap here, and that's not even considering that the company is even including a great CPU cooler in with the price. For those looking to build that new high-end rig, this is going to be hugely appreciated.
By now, you can probably conclude on whether a six-core processor can make a big difference in your life, and I can honestly say, if you are a power user, it certainly can. But if there is one disappointing thing about Gulftown as it stands today, it's that it's not going to be accessible to the vast majority of people for a while. But, given the beast we're dealing with here, that's not all too surprising.
As mentioned earlier, the fact that Gulftown is off-limits for the cash-conscious consumer works out to the favor for all those who are going to be taking the plunge. It means that they can purchase the Core i7-980X and actually have confidence that it's going to remain Intel's highest-end chip for a while. And also as mentioned, because we're dealing with six-cores here, it means it's pretty well impossible for someone to take a Bloomfield and overclock it high enough to match the performance, at least at 100% stable.
That's where AMD's Phenom X6 chips are going to be very interesting. Chances are good that X6 chips will carry a bit of a premium as well, but you can bet that they're going to be much more affordable than $999. Given AMD's current architecture, its X6 chips aren't going to compete that closely with Intel's Gulftown, but it's certainly going to be an option for those looking for a six-core at an easier-to-stomach price.
Credit : www.techgage.com
