March 12, 2010

DIY PC builders, rejoice! If you always need to have the most cutting-edge system—cost be damned—then the news of Intel's latest chip probably has you reaching for your credit card.

The new Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition CPU is a six-core chip that promises crazy-fast performance (and a heft $1,000 price tag), the kind that will have you seriously considering scrapping the Core i7-975 system that you just built. We wanted to put together a system worthy of such power. This system is equally appealing to a casual user who's willing to invest in building a state of the art PC that will last you at least 5 to 7 years and possibly longer.

The aforementioned six cores of the Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition are the most on any commercial CPU right now; and because of Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, the CPU actually functions as if it has 12 cores. Each core is capable of handling two simultaneous data threads so you will be hard-pressed to tax this chip to its limit. On top of that, the Intel's Turbo Boost technology will turn off unused cores and route power to the cores that are actually being used.

So what does this mean in terms of performance? The Core i7-980X Extreme Edition clocks in a 3.33 GHz but as with all of Intel's Extreme CPUs, it is made to be pushed. In fact the early OEM systems that we have in the Labs have been pushed to speeds of 4.1 GHz and 4.3 GHz.

Videos that used to take minutes to render now render in seconds. In real-time strategy games like Napoleon: Total War, which have massive amount of action going on the screen at once, the effects of the chips is immediately visible. What were once blobs of slow moving armies are now individually moving soldiers running together.

Source:-http://www.pcmag.com