Intel Updates $1,000 CPU
Thursday, June 4, 2009
The great Intel bumped up the speeds of its Core i7 chips Tuesday night, while confirming that the "Clarkdale" chip combining graphics and a CPU was still slated to begin production in the fourth quarter. Intel announced the 3.33-GHz Core i7 975 Extreme Edition, as well as the the 3.06-GHz Core i7 950, which Intel claims are the highest-performance enthusiast processors on the planet. And those chips are priced accordingly: an estimated $560 for the Core i7 950, and a whopping $999 for the Core i7 975. Although the price may faze most consumers, enthusiasts eye the price/performance ratio. And that didn't dissuade ExtremeTech from favorably reviewing the processor, although the site's reviewers recommended a cheaper model.
"In the end, the Core i7 975 Extreme only offers the tiniest increment in CPU performance over the old 965," reviewer Loyd Case wrote. "Of course, it's the same price, so you're not paying more, even if the gain is slight. The Core i7 950 seems like a better deal than the 940, at around $560, but the big gap in price between the 950 and Core i7 920 begs to be filled. "In the end, though, you can build yourself a Core i7 system and not break the bank," Case added. "One reason is the quirk in pricing for 6GB DDR3 kits, which are sometimes the same price, and occasionally cheaper than the 4GB kits with two modules." Intel also looked forward to "Lynnfield," the next-generation platform shipping in the second half of 2009. Lynnfield will be a four-core, eight-thread processor built on the Nehalem architecture, complemented by the Intel P55 chipset. According to Intel, the Lynnfield will deliver 40 percent more integer performance versus the Q9650, or last year's "Penryn"-class chips.
Finally, Intel began showing off "Clarkdale," which integrates the graphics die within the package. By keeping the graphics die inside the package, the combined Clarkdale platform can theoretically offer increased performance and reduced latency versus a standalone chip; on the other hand, Intel's integrated graphics chipsets have usually lagged those of its competitors. Clarkdale will also be on the Intel 5-series chipset platform, the company said, and feature a technology called "Braidwood," which appears to be an improved version of the "Robson" flash cache technology of 2006, which never gained much prominence.
Posted bySaini at 3:26 PM
Labels: News/Information
