Intel is showing off its new high-end “Gulftown” gaming chip, the
six-core Core i7-980X Extreme Edition, at the Game Developers
Conference in San Francisco.
Intel officials previewed the chip March 10.
The chip, the first six-core Intel chip for
consumers, is built on the company’s 32-nanometer manufacturing
process, and brings with it such features as Hyper-Threading and
TurboBoost.
The Core i7-980X Extreme Edition will replace the
current Core i7-975 at the top of Intel’s processor list. It offers two
more cores than the i7-975, and with Hyper-Threading, will run 12
computing threads. The i7-980X also will come in a the same price--$999
per 1,000 units—as the i7-975, which means that for the same price,
gamers and multimedia professionals will get more cores and more
threads.
It also offers 12MB of L3 cache, a bump up from the 8MB in the i7-795, which will help ramp up the new chip’s performance.
In addition, the i7-980X uses the same LGA-1366
socket as the i7-975, which means that users can easily switch out the
old chip for the new one.
The TurboBoost feature, which is found in other Intel
processors in both the Core i7 families and other chip lines, allows
for individual cores to be powered up or down, depending on the demand.
In addition, all six cores can be overclocked—essentially powered up
above the 3.33GHz level.
The Core i7-980X reportedly will first show up on
gaming PCs, such as the Maingear Shift and Falcon Northwest Mach V
(Core i-980X).
Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices earlier this month
rolled out the 890GX chipset for high-end desktop motherboards, which
reportedly set the stage for the chip maker’s upcoming six-core Phenom
II X6 desktop CPU codenamed “Thuban.” which is due out later this year.
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