The Core i7 980X Review: Intel's First 6-Core Desktop CPU
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 11, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Windows 7 Application Performance
We're testing out a few new additions to our Bench database, so what we've got here are some updated application tests run under Windows 7. The CPUs compared are going to be different since we don't have as much historical data, but we'll be building it up over the coming months.
x264 HD Encoding Performance
It's what you've all been asking for - our x264 encoding test with an updated version of x264. In this case we're using TechARP's x264-HD 3.03 bench and x264 version 1342.
7-zip Benchmark & Performance
We use WinRAR for our compression test under Vista, but more and more users are switching to 7-zip. The performance is more CPU dependent so we're going to look at it. First up is the built in 7-zip benchmark:
Here we're taking the same 300MB set of images from our WinRAR test and are compressing them using 7-zip. We divide file size by completion time to get compression speed in KB/s:
The actual 7-zip archive creation process is limited to two threads, and here the 980X actually falls behind the 975 presumably because of its higher latency L3 cache. The built in 7-zip benchmark can run across all 12 threads and thus performs much better on the 980X, serving more as a bandwidth benchmark than anything else.
Sonar 8 Multi-track Audio Export
We've had some requests for digital audio workstation benchmarks so we're adding a multi-track audio export from Sonar 8. Performance is expressed in KB/s:
Again, we see a small gain here thanks to the larger cache but the extra cores aren't doing much.
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LoneWolf15 - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
[QUOTE]With up to 6 cores running at 3.46GHz, Gulftown is not only the fastest CPU in Intel’s lineup, it’s also the fastest quad-core Intel makes.[/QUOTE]I think you meant to say it's also the fastest "single-core" Intel makes.
yacoub - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
And for only one thouuuuusand dollars! What a deal!!
lol yeah, anyone who spent $999 on an X58 CPU can now spend $999 on a new cpu 18 months later. $2000 for two CPUs in the course of 18 months. How you can spin that as being a good thing boggles the mind. What a waste!
strikeback03 - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Well, maybe you spent the ~$280 or so on a 920 in November 08, which you could now upgrade to the 980X if you wanted. Considering Intel's past history of supporting new processors on older motherboards (see, for example, P965 and Penryn) it is nice that this is supported, even if the upgrade is extremely expensive.BelardA - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Kinda sad and funny... when core 2 came out, it destroyed the P4 line and of course kicked AMD down bad.Even todays $65 intels and $45 AMDs (running about 2ghz) are still faster than those older Pentium EE chips. And what was sadder back then was that even AMD's $200 CPUs were still faster than the $1000 intels... unless your were doing 3D work and encoding video.
*sigh*
Thanks to intel's back-room deals with the major PC companies, the illegal activities has hurt competition. AMD is doing better today, but have little to work with. And we see what the lack of competition does such as ATI vs. Nvidia.
andyleung - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Why they keep the CPU frequency so high? All consumer quad cores go higher than 2.5GHz??? I really like Opterons, low frequency with more cores.Seriously I hope Phenom VI (I made it up, they may call it something else) could have a model of 6 cores with each running 1.2GHz.
My own usage is mostly programming in JEE + documentation, so I need more cores but not that fast, so I could save a few bucks on my electricity bill in a year. :)
yuchai - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
You can always underclock/undervolt if you don't need the performance from the extra speed but want the power savings.Note that this is the "Extreme" version, so it makes sense to have the fastest speeds possible. The mainstream versions that are coming will probably have lower clock speeds.
at80eighty - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Maybe I missed it - but would this have any predicted implications on the 920 price over this year span?I'm rebuilding a rig a component at a time and Im wondering if there would be much variance if I picked a 920 now or in Q4
/tard
IntelUser2000 - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
"The first Core i7 did not power gate its L3 cache, Lynnfield added it and Gulftown has it as well."THANK YOU ANAND!!
No wonder this is my #1 favored site. :D
darkhawkff - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
I don't know about anyone else, but I would have liked to have seen how this chip fares to overclocks of Intel's other Core i7 series. While I'm sure many people don't bother overclocking, I would wager that most people who visit this site do, and probably bought into the Core i7 920 series and overclocked it to 4 GHz or more. While I'm sure the Core i7 980X is a beast, I'd be more interested in seeing how it fares when overclocked parts are taken into account, because personally I see very little reason to make the jump from the 920 to the 980 after this review. 2 more cores are nice, but not when they are slower.B3an - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link
Anand, can you please include newer software for some benches. For instance you are still using 3DS Max 9 which was released in 2006.The latest is 3DS MaX 2010 (version 12).
I only ask because i'm sure that anyone who can afford this CPU can ceratinly afford the latest 3D rendering/modelling software. And besides that they might have better support/performance for these type of CPU's.