Thread: A SoLid Core in the i7

INTEL'S HIGH END Core 2 Duo CPUs have always been at the top of the performance charts right from their launch. And Intel have just bettered themselves with their all new CPU line up, the Core i7 (codenamed Nehalem), which raises the performance bar even higher.

The Platform

The Core i7 CPUs are based on a completely new archi¬tecture and are not compatible with the socket 775 motherboards. The new socket is referred to as LGA1366 (the 1366 refers to the number of pin connections on the CPU; the current Core 2 Duos are based on LGA775). These CPUs are currently supported by Intel's X58 chip set which itself has something new to offer-it supports both, SLI and CrossFire dual graphics technology. On the memory side, the Core i7 CPUs have the memory controller built in (similar to the AMD CPUs) and they support three channel memory (similar to dual channel but with three RAM sticks) up to DDR3 1600MHz. The memory throughout and overall chipset performance has seen a substantial increase.

Intel has finally let go of the FSB concept and has instead opted for a 'Quick¬Path' interconnect, similar to, but not exactly like the HyperTransport that AMD has been when they switched to 64-bit CPUs. Hyper Threading Technology that allows a single core to run two threads simultaneously (depending on the processing that the two cores need) is back with the Core i7 (Intel discarded it when they introduced dual cores) and this means each of the four cores of the Core i7 have a virtual core. As on the date of this review there are three models of the Core i7 in production 920 (2.66GHz), 940 (2.93GHz) and the 965 Extreme (3.2GHz), which we are reviewing here.



Performance

From all initial reports, we knew the Core i7 965 Extreme would better any earlier desktop CPU; and putting this new CPU and platform to task only confirmed our speculation. As usual, we ran WorldBench 6.0, PC World's own benchmarking suite that consists of real world applications like Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk 3ds MAX, Microsoft Office 2003, etc. The fastest Core 2 Duo (non Extreme series) CPU produced a WorldBench 6.0 score of 130, and the best score managed by the dual CPU Skull trail platform using two Core 2 Duo Extreme QX9775 CPUs was 132. This Core i7 965 Extreme went all way up to 145, a very considerable jump.

Other synthetic benchmarks also demonstrated the sheer computing prowess of Intel's new platform. PC Mark Vantage returned a score of 6,921 with the Q9650 quad core CPU and the figure for the new Core i7 is 7511 (8.5 percent faster). In gaming benchmarks, a 3D Mark 2006 score 19,889 with the new CPU is 7 percent faster then our previous high score. These boosts may seem marginal, but you must bear in mind that the benefit from the four virtual cores (with HT) is largely dependent on the kind of application running. With more taxing tasks like 3D rendering, the performance boost was as high as 20 percent.

Verdict

As much as we are impressed by the performance of this all new platform, we have to say that currently, the cost-benefit ratio just does not make sense for most users. Of course, the prices are sure to fall and more models will be released. The 'eco-system' (RAM, motherboards) will also get common and that'll be the time to shift. Intel's next CPU lineup is not just a makeover and rebranding but will offer much faster computing.