Thread: Intel Core i7 965 Extreme

It was quite obvious that the Intel Core i7 965 Extreme would walk away with the Best Performance award in its category. This most powerful model from the Core i7 family features a native quad-core design unlike the quad-core models from the Core 2 family that had two dual-core dies. The Core i7 965 is clocked at 3.20 GHz and features three levels of cache. The L3 cache weighs a hefty 8 MB and is a common pool for all the cores. Built on Intel Hyper-Threading technology each core is capable of processing two process threads simultaneously! Run your fingers through the overall scores and you'll see how powerful this beast of a processor is. Apart from the Core i7 940 which ranks second in the roundup, no other CPU managed to score more than 90 points overall.



It took only 15 seconds to transcode a 1 minute MPEG video to x.264 format-nearly twice as fast as all the CPUs in the high-end category. But if you look at the gaming scores, it hardly provides a performance boost. So this processor clearly isn't for a gaming rig, but it will work wonders in demanding tasks such as video editing.

FOR:

Unlocked multiplier, stupendous performance.

Against:

Insane price tag.