Intel's Core i7-980X Extreme Edition - Ready for Sick Scores? ( Some History also )

Techgage ^ | March 10, 2010 | Rob Williams

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

It's official. We're now entering the six-core realm, thanks to Intel's Gulftown. The first model, Core i7-980X, is more than capable of delivering the sick scores that our title suggests, and along with it, we can begin to see some major benefits of the 32nm process. To sweeten the deal further, Intel even includes an effective new CPU cooler.

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.

[Just Another Lurker]

I just picked up a AMD Phenom(TM) X4 965 quad-core processor [3.4GHz, 2MB L2 + 6MB L3 shared, up to 4000MT/s] with 8GB RAM running a 64 operating system and am amazed at the improvement over my old system. I stayed away from the i7’s because I heard some of them had defective motherboards that they are refusing to fix. The speeds working with video and pictures are greatly improved with the quad-core.

[dangerdoc]

One of my favorite utilities doesn’t run under 64 bit, other than that, I too am very happy with the upgrade.

I was going to buy an i5 notebook but sitting next to it was the i7 notebook with the same features for just a little more. I hope I don’t find out about motherboard problems the hard way.

[Big Giant Head]

What’s the point? Game technology is limited to xBox/PS3 capabilities. My 3 yo run of the mill desktop plays the latest games well with all options maxed.

Flight simming is very difficult with the lastest software, addons (airplanes are getting incredibly good from 3rd party vendors), weather, etc. This is why I read these articles to see what would be a step up from what I now own.

I keep a simple installation, and get good smooth flight with my quad-core AMD running stock at 2.5ghz. But there's no "all options maxed" on nearly any machine normally available. Even the high end machines struggle with "max".

[MichiganMan]

“Sick” is the new slang for awesome, great, incredible, etc.

Well, if by "new" you mean since 1990 when  bands like Digital Underground were using it in songs like "The Humpty Dance" then yeah, its new. 

[IDFbunny]

I don’t play that many games anymore but did recently play Bioshock2. I had all the game options maxed and it was silky smooth. Graphics is nVidia 8800, about 2 generations old. Also Call of Duty with all games maxed. Those games were built for xBox/PS3 so any new PC is overkill x8.

[dangerdoc]

Xbox and PS3 do not play the games at full HD. Some are 720p others are even lower and scaled up.

The reason people build gaming rigs is to play these games at full HD or higher resolution.

I mentioned Crysis because it is a game that brought last generation computers and graphics cards to it’s knees. Thus when any new hardware release was followed by the question, does it play Crysis.

[IDFbunny]

Yes I played Crysis. Hasn’t been for awhile I’ll try it out again just to see where the game options were at. Technically I thought it was a great game but the storyline was short and flat. Surprising since it came from the maker of Far Cry one of the best game stories ever (gotta love the jet boat). Kinda follows like the Island of Dr Moreau.

Still I’ll argue that pc hardware performance has advanced far out and ahead of gaming demands or rather that xBox and PS3 have held back the devolopment of software that would challenge today s cutting edge pc.

[zeugma]

I recently built an I7-based desktop. Dude, this thing rocks. (especially compared to the boat-anchor that I've been using for the past 9 years.

$ head -8 /proc/cpuinfo
processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 26
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         930  @ 2.80GHz
stepping	: 5
cpu MHz		: 1600.000
cache size	: 8192 KB

I'm running 2 FAH clients, ripping a DVD, listening to tunes, and running 2 virtual servers in VMWare and still am barely touching the power of this CPU

top - 18:28:16 up 1 day, 19:54,  7 users,  load average: 4.13, 3.65, 2.97
Tasks: 325 total,   4 running, 321 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu0  :  3.0%us,  0.8%sy,  6.7%ni, 89.3%id,  0.3%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Cpu1  :  2.7%us,  0.8%sy, 11.8%ni, 84.2%id,  0.6%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Cpu2  :  1.3%us,  0.3%sy, 54.0%ni, 44.1%id,  0.3%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Cpu3  :  2.0%us,  0.5%sy, 11.8%ni, 85.3%id,  0.4%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Cpu4  :  2.1%us,  0.6%sy,  0.9%ni, 94.8%id,  1.5%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Cpu5  :  2.0%us,  0.6%sy,  0.8%ni, 96.2%id,  0.4%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Cpu6  :  1.3%us,  0.4%sy, 25.4%ni, 72.5%id,  0.2%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.2%si,  0.0%st
Cpu7  :  1.1%us,  0.3%sy, 32.5%ni, 66.0%id,  0.1%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   6118284k total,  6075664k used,    42620k free,  1380904k buffers
Swap:  8224760k total,    20696k used,  8204064k free,  1774584k cached

I've got a WinXP client that I run in VMWare for a few specific tasks, and it boots in 30 seconds from power on. Not bad.

Yeah, I'm bragging, but It's been so long since I've had real horsepower, that I just can't help it. :-)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Man 9 years is a Loooooong time to go without some real power....

Congrats....why did you wait so long?

[zeugma]

Mainly because the thing was working. Yeah, it was slow to do things, but it was just something I dealt with. The hard drive had been reporting fairly serious smartdrv errors for more than a year, and the thing just finally died. I didn't think it was worthwhile to drop more money into it, so it was time to upgrade. There is always something else wanting my money, and I'm not really a gamer, so it just kept getting put off. I'd rather put money into my Harley anyway as I get a heck of a lot more enjoyment out of it these days than I do from even this screaming computer.

The biggest benefit I'll see from this box is really going to come fom the fact that I can now run a lot more stuff simultaneously in VMWare and just leave the stuff up without having to worry about the resources they are consuming.

Of course, the really funny thing IMO is that 8 years from now, I'll be complaining about how slow this PC is.