Intel's 6-Core Gulftown Tested, Blows Us Away with Multithread Madness
Intel's 6-Core Gulftown Tested, Blows Us Away with Multithread Madness
Posted 03/11/2010 at 8:33am
| by Gordon Mah Ung
PrintThe venerable chipmaker gambles on multithread madness with its hexa-core Core i7-980X
Meet the world’s fastest CPU. OK, so we just gave away the big reveal to our report before you even flipped one page, and without so much as the common courtesy of a spoiler alert. For that, we do not apologize, because it’s not like you couldn’t have guessed how this one would end up. After all, Intel’s new 3.33GHz Core i7-980X builds on all the goodness of the ass-kicking quad-core 3.33GHz Core i7-975 Extreme Edition, but is smaller, cooler, and has an additional two cores under its heat spreader. With Hyper-Threading enabled, that’s a cool 12 threads at the ready. How could anyone screw that one up?
In fact, Intel’s Core i7-980X seems to be one of the most flawless launches we’ve seen from the company in some time. By flawless, we mean there are no contortionist acts, such as explaining to consumers that a new socket (LGA1156) will have the same CPU branding as an incompatible existing socket. Nor is there the head-scratcher of a very novel, yet very limp, integrated graphics chip in a CPU (Clarkdale), which, by the way, won’t work in boards that lack graphics output ports.
With Core i7-980X, you update your BIOS, drop the chip in, and—voilà—you spend hours rocking a six-core high. Put simply, Core i7-980X is 24-ounces of prime-rib red meat for performance enthusiasts who really haven’t had much to gnaw on since the original 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition came out two years ago.
So we’re done, right? You don’t need to read on? Sorry, there’s still more to learn. If you want to know if your motherboard works with the new chip, what applications can really exploit the six cores, and how this bad boy performs, you’ll have to keep reading.
|
Intel's Top Procs Compared |
Core i7-980X |
Core i7-975 Extreme Edition |
Core i7-870 |
| Code-name | Gulftown | Bloomfield | Lynnfield |
| Clock Speed (on Turbo) | 3.33GHz (3.6GHz) | 3.33GHz (3.6GHz) | 2.93GHz (3.6GHz) |
| Cores / Threads |
6/12 | 4/8 | 4/8 |
| L2 Cache |
1MB | 1MB | 1MB |
| L3 Cache | 12MB | 8MB | 8MB |
| RAM Support | Tri-channel DDR3/1066 | Tri-channel DDR3/1066 | Dual channel DDR3/1333 |
| TDP | 130 watts | 130 watts | 95 watts |
| Process | 32nm | 45nm | 45nm |
| Transistor Count | 1.17 billion | 731 million | 774 million |
| Die Size | 248mm² | 263mm² | 296mm² |
| Socket | LGA1366 | LGA1366 | LGA1156 |
| Price | $999 | $999 | $562 |
What's in a Name?
We know that, by now, enthusiasts should be immune to Intel’s confusing model numbers, but there’s one thing that sticks in our craw about the Core i7-980X: Despite it being the world’s first consumer x86 hexa-core, and despite it using the latest 32nm process, it’s label is a mere five notches greater than the quad-core Core i7-975 Extreme Edition part it ostensibly replaces.
Surely, all the goodness of two more cores and a total 12 threads of computing would warrant a Core i9 designation, or at the very least, a much higher model number, right? No, Intel officials told us. The company said that, despite previous reports that it would call its hexa-core Core i9, Intel backed off when retailers and vendors complained of too many blasted brands. And as to why it isn’t a 999X or 9900X, Intel said such gestures are unnecessary. The part is designed for enthusiasts and the folks who buy it will know that it’s not a mere five clicks more than a Core i7-975.
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delpi98
October 24, 2011 at 1:37pm
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September 06, 2011 at 5:53am
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jamtangan
May 11, 2011 at 8:28pm
@picorosan: I'm jealous already. What a robust system you have there. Cheers, - bisnis online
picorosan
February 23, 2011 at 8:11am
I just built a i7 980x system last week.
Asus Rampage III Extreme
2x XFX HD 6870 900M 1GB DDR5
24GB Ram Corsair Vengeance
256GB SSD Corsair 6.0Gb/s
1TB Black Western Digital HD
H70 Corsair Cooling
Crucial RealSSD 256GB SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX1200 High Performance 1200 Watt Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Sony BD-5300S 12X SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner
Corsair Obsidian Series 800D ATX Gaming Case
Runs extremely fast. I dont' even see the bios it goes straight to the password login screen. When I go to turn it off it instantly turns off. Absolutly no waiting on this computer.
Job Descriptions
January 09, 2011 at 10:08pm
It's amazingly fast. Like wow! But I don't think I can afford something like this. I don't even think I'll ever need something that fast.
job description...
November 17, 2010 at 2:29am
worth my time this post...really enjoyed reading your article...great job;)...very informative i should say:)
jcollins
September 01, 2010 at 4:21pm
To be honest, in looking at Sandy Bridge, I'm not really seeing much reason to wait if you've got the urge to update. Unless I'm missing something, the only really interesting things in it is the 4 cores (so slightly cheaper) and slightly better performance. Not necessarily something to wait for if you've got the cash.
Dutchbox
July 03, 2010 at 7:33pm
Hi Gordon, Wow! thats one super fast chip! Is it available already in the market? and how about Athlon? Are they making this kind of chip too?Anyways Intel has been so good in making this upgrate and I think this is not yet the best! Hope to see more from them!-
My Last Blog Post Revitol Stretch Mark Cream Review
dstevens
March 15, 2010 at 9:32am
next up.... multi threading threads for multi threaded threads... heh gl with that one ;)
now. and i have wondered this for some time now.... why dont they take all that useless wasted extra space for those 2 additional cores and readjust the clockspeed, personally i can easily see (and so can anyone reading this) the much more practical use of having4 cores clocked at 6ghz stock or 2 cores at 8 ghz stock instead of 6 cores at 3ish ghz stock and more than 75% of the cpu sits there wasted more than 80% of the time.we stopped oging up cause of heat restrictions... now were going out.. seems like a rich single unpopular guy buys a 460,000 sq ft mansion so he can sit in his room all day and play games and watch tv.his money would be better spent buying a 8,000 sq ft house and having thewhole house modernized and computer controlled lol
hardlecure
March 15, 2010 at 4:20pm
I'm not a physicist but I understand the reason why we don't see 3.5GHz speeds coming stock from Intel/AMD. It's all based on the speed of light. Electricity in theory flows at just under the speed of light and once you reach more than 3.5-4 GHz the information (sent in 1 and 0 as electricity as we all know) can't really go any faster even though the cores are clocked beyond it. So the only solution is to make multiple cores to speed up a computer. 6 cores @ 3.33 = 19.98GHz single core.
I read on a http://www.yale.edu/pclt/PCHW/clockidea.htm that a CPU @ 2GHz calculates information and can send it 6" at about the speed of light. (remember it's all theory) So when you look at an eATX board that's almost 12" long, and you're running a CPU at 4GHz, it's technically overkill but, also, there are bottlenecks all over the board such as the PCIe bus that doesn't operate at 4GHz, and the SATA/SAS header and hard drives etc and so forth. Anyways, making a CPU have a higher clock speed isn't the solution.
DBsantos77
March 16, 2010 at 8:02pm
Very interesting info, now I gotta ask: Should we be instead downclocking and adding more cores?
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hardlecure
March 17, 2010 at 5:27am
i don't think so. the guys at intel and amd set the speeds at just over 3ghz on their high end chips so i'm guessing that 3.33 is the ideal.
K0BALT
March 14, 2010 at 1:06am
i'm ordering a dozen
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i7 920@4.4GHz,Heatkiller 3.0, (2X)GTX295 Quad-SLI, EVGA X58 3X SLI, 6GB DDR3 OCZ Gold
dcblues355
March 12, 2010 at 3:26pm
LewTeNantDan....If you have the money,but I've never paid more than $200. for a processor a stats show that most of your average everyday 'Joe's' don't either.I've built my computers off Max PC recommendations but usually go with the middle of the road as 'most' of us do.
Slugbait
March 11, 2010 at 1:52pm
"...since the original 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition came out two years
ago."More precisely, the 965 came out less than a year and a half ago.
Picky, yeah, but hey, eight to ten months in the proc world is a really long time...
fx2006
March 11, 2010 at 1:51pm
btw i like details on pictures. i would love to have large poster of some of these on my wall :)
Daigham
March 12, 2010 at 10:29am
Guru3d did a couple of over clocking bench marks if you care to check it out.
Devo85x
March 11, 2010 at 3:35pm
It may not have six cores, but my friend just picked up a core i5 cpu and he doesn't even know how to overclock... (I had to do it for him)... not only that, but everyone's chip overclocks a little different, so not everyone will get the same results. And why would you wan't to know that maximum it can do and not know the minimum it WILL do?
EclecticFortune
March 11, 2010 at 10:41am
I would like to see the new 6 core benchmarked with the current version of Premiere... CS4. Or wait till CS5 comes out. Does Adobe usually send a copy or do you guys need to buy it? I think CS5 is due out this month. Supposed to have killer Nvidia GPU acceleration referred to as the "Mercury Playback Engine".
Benchmarking with CS3 makes me feel like Maximum PC is a tad behind in the video editing department.
Signal2Noise
March 11, 2010 at 9:31am
Pricey and I'm not ready to part with my *budget*, yet reliable, LGA1156 mobo.
scott_c
March 11, 2010 at 8:41am
Can anyone post a list of applications that will take full advantage of 6-cores?
Such as, will Photoshop Elements' latest version utilize them all?
What about the photoshop full version?
Adobe Premier?
I believe most 64-bit Linux distros will take advantage of 6-cores, but it would be nice to see confirmation on that. Practical examples of taking full advantage on a regular basis would be awesome and might spawn more people to make a purchase. Such as someone running a MySQL DB at home to manage a large database, 64-bit OS, 12GB memory, solid state disk, (assuming well designed DB), etc... and at 4-cores getting a response time of X and at 6-cores getting 1.2X response time
The more ways people can see advantages, the better we feel about our purchases. If we spend $999 on something just to know we get a speedier response on 1 thing now, and hoping for many others in the future, is one thing... but to know we can finally do 5 other things without waiting very long now can make it all more satisfying.
Caboose
March 11, 2010 at 9:39am
I've come across one or two games that are multi-threaded. . But I think they only used 2 cores... I don't remember the titles though, sorry.
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
mls067
March 11, 2010 at 12:06pm
If I'm not mistaken, even WoW can now take advantage of more than 2 cores since patch 3.2. Although no noticeable improvements have been seen between a duo core and a quad core (same clock speeds mind you) running the same hardware
gendoikari1
March 11, 2010 at 3:40pm
With a fanmade core optimizer (found at http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=15556&highlight=), Supreme Commander/Supreme Commander Forged Alliance can use up to 12 threads, perfect for Gulftown.
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gothliciouz
March 11, 2010 at 7:09am
too expensive for too little performance gain!... i'll definetely pass on this one.
eleck
March 11, 2010 at 7:02am
so i cant put 2 sockets in unless its a Xeon Vrs T_T /sigh i wish that thay would leave both QPIs in.
Keith E. Whisman
March 11, 2010 at 7:36am
That is one helluva a proc. I used to have one.
What I don't like about over clocking is things are just not as perfectly stable as they are when everything is clocked at stock. I enjoy overclocking but I don't run 24/7 overclocked anymore. I think that is what alot of overclockers will agree with as well. Even a few hundred mhz.
Problem is that your pushing the FSB and everything that is on it out of spec. If you get lucky, you'll have a mother board that has a lot of OC'ing headroom where it's needed but more than likely you won't.
I only ever saw blue screens BSOD's when overclocked. Honest. Adding voltage would help it but for what a few extra frames in Quake 3, for Crysis to play a little less slowely?
K0BALT
March 11, 2010 at 5:31am
If its not P95 stable, it's not worth mentioning.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Keith E. Whisman
March 10, 2010 at 9:50pm
There should have been a Nerd Porn Warning at the beginning of this article because my wife just walked in on me while I was reading this. God how embarrassing.
Will someone give me two of these please?
Caboose
March 10, 2010 at 10:44pm
Do you want a towel too?
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
RtDK
March 10, 2010 at 9:26pm
C'mon AMD--fast-track an octo-core processor. The tech exists already. Don't worry about the profit, just worry about garnering the attention of the computing community! Put Intel on the race to catch up for once!
Wonder what architecture motherboard the X6'll run on....
QuakindudeMod
March 10, 2010 at 8:16pm
I can't wait to see what this CPU will do for the MaximumPC Folding@Home Team!
If you don't know about our Folding@Home team, Team # 11108, hit us up in the forums! We could use your help!
http://www.maximumpc.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=32
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jcollins
March 19, 2010 at 1:35pm
I *am* curious as to how well it folds vs power use. Looks like it sucks down a ton of power though.
Bilbert
March 10, 2010 at 8:15pm
two i7-980X CPUs on an EVGA W555 Motherboard equals Dream Machine 2010 or 2011
( http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/evga’s_w555_motherboard_has_room_seven_gpus )
Spartacus
March 10, 2010 at 8:57pm
That's what I was thinking. That and either two WC'ed and OC'ed 5970s, or if Fermi turns out better, three GTX 480s.
K0BALT
March 10, 2010 at 8:06pm
If I had the money i'd be down for this. However, i'm curious on the differences I would see compared to my 4.4GHz i7 920. Prob not worth the upgrade, but it'll be fun to have one day.
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LatiosXT
March 10, 2010 at 7:41pm
Do you want to spend five times the amount of money for what amounts to say 20% performance at most? Sure there are spikes of 50% more to almost 75% more (in one test that doesn't really prove much). But to each their own I guess.
Still going for a Core i7-860 when I get around to it.
gendoikari1
March 10, 2010 at 7:33pm
I don't think this would do anything big for Intel until the 970 releases at the end of the year (supposedly). Yes, Gulftown is mindblowingly powerful, but still, its $1000. Not many people have $1000 to shell out for a CPU. By the time the 970 releases, Thuban would be out. If they take long enough, Bulldozer. A showdown between Gulftown and Bulldozer would be something I'd like to see.
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