Hardware Intel Core i7-990X Extreme Edition Review

X68/78 (Patsburg) will be released around Q4 2011 - Q1 2012. Previous CPU releases from Intel usually started in November.

990X is pretty much useless now because of:
- for home there is LGA1155 for those who don't want to wait or are not interested in LGA2011
- price is atrocious even for serious business & industry
- Patsburg will come as standard [probably] with minimum 6 cores (12 HT) and 8/16 for top of the line models - depends on a source

It is better to start saving $$$ now for all-brand-new-spanking-system around December/January than investing in i7 X-series. In truth that 990X BT acquired looks like it is some relatively poor one. On many sites 990X running stable at 5GHz on air.

 

Bargain! Could build an entire gaming PC for the same price as this CPU ^^

 

Best. Review. Ever

 

+2

I wouldn't buy this CPU, but I'm happy that BT review this and similar items.

 

Just kidding - write ES on some random CPU and pretend its real and send it back, maybe they won't notice anything...well, forget it.

 

People who work in video editing and thread intensive programs would probably buy this chip.

I think it's interesting to see how the top chip performs to our 'regular' versions.

Of course we could wait for AMD bulldozer and the 2011 i7 'rumoured' replacement and then whine about that too I mean critically evaluate.

 

6 was a tad low really.
50 pounds isn't much when the chip is as good as 800 pounds.
TBH if had the money to buy this or the 980 for the sake of 50 pounds I would probally go for the 990X just to have the fastest Intel chip.

Bad hu?

 

Nope, There's no proof of a review and so it will lack credibility. As a conclusion, it's near perfect but as a review, it's a fail. Just because we can't buy it, doesn't mean we can't know how it performs, maybe there's 2 or 3 consumers that like to spend money this way.

Let the professionals do their work and who hasn't really something interesting to say, comment or say nothing.

I was thinking it would get a better value but since the SB are taking the world by the nuts, it's understandable. Just looking forward to AMD's bulldozer so I can decided whether to go 1155 i5-2500K or 2012 something-K or Bulldozer value for money product

 

There is always an over-priced chip at the top end to make you feel good inside about buying into the latest products at the mid-range. Instead of wishing that the i7 2600K retailed for £180, you feel great that you only paid £250 for it. Nice bit of marketing

 

This chip is pretty pointless now,the 980x had the lga1366 platform nicely coverd as its flagship cpu.The best thing intel can do for this platform is to drop the price of the I7 970 to around the £300 mark,this would clear out old X58 stock from retailers and keep lga1366 customers happy.

 

I like that BT have reviewed this, but I honestly wonder if Intel's departments ever communicate. There's no reason to buy this for anyone that I can see.
Enterprise? Xeons.
Workstation/rendering? It's actually about the same price (on scan) to buy a dual CPU mobo and slap a pair of 960s in, giving you 8 true cores.
Nobody in their right mind would buy this for a home setup when you can buy TWO full SB systems for the same money.

It's not even a branding exercise, since the i7 name spans 1155, 1156 and 1366

Cake for the person that can justify buying this.
Cheesecake for the person that can explain what Intel's marketing department is up to.

 

From an overclocking point of view if you get a decent one it's still probably the best chip o go for.
It offers better performance when looking at properly multithreaded applications, the top end always demands a crazy premium.

 

I would have like to have seen both the 2600k clock the same speed as the 990x so you can really see the differences. As 4.9ghz vs 4.6hgz is a bit unfair. (Put my 5Ghz 990x against it!).

Anyway, until 6 core processors become more mainstream, and apps and games can benefit from the extra cores, then the 990x will leave the 2600k in the dust.

Cheers,

Simon.

 

IIRC you can't run desktop X58 chips in a dual socket motherboard (I am assuming the SR-2) - well technically you could run one but not two in tandem.

The desktop Bloomfield chips only have one QPI link whereas the Xenon chips have two. The second QPI link is what lets the two CPU's communicate with eachother without having to take the much slower route of through the NB.

EDIT: Just to correct myself a little bit. The Desktop Bloomfield chips technically have 2 QPI links but only one is active. I assume this latter point is how Intel can sell seperate Xenon and I7 chips to different markets.

 

That's right, but the pre-fetchers in Xeon chips are also optimised for different software (server and workstation) than Core i7 chips, which are optmised for consumer apps and games. From the testing we've done before this optimisation does make a small performance difference.

 

LAWL +1 Agreed 2nd that etc

 

9 + 9 + 3 = 21
21/3 = 7 Overall score, not 6.

 

Who said it's 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3?