Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition

Behold, Nehalem

Perhaps you were expecting the next generation of Intel processors to come in a different package; maybe you were hoping for eight cores or something equally huge and were disappointed to see a quadcore clocked at a generous but not extraordinary 3.2GHz. But don't be deceived-the next big thing has indeed arrived.

The Core i7 demonstrates smart engineering; you have to hand it to Intel for making a CPU that uses its power efficiently to get faster performance. Rather than cramming in more cores, they've created a quad-core CPU that's faster because it's better.

First of all, Hyper-Threading is back. By appearing to the system to have twice the actual cores, Hyper-Threading gives the CPU a big performance boost in multithreaded, media, and productivity applications. With the quad-core i7, the technology gives you eight total threads, or eight logical cores.

Turbo Mode is one of th emost direct ways the Core i7 has upped its performance over previous processors. This feature distributes power more efficiently when one or more cores are idle. Because not every core is used all the time, if one core needs a boost, the system can ration power from an idle core to the activeone. It's a sort of automatic overclock for a single core.

Speaking overclocking, one major wrinkle in the Core i& is the way you have to do it. For starters, the frontside bus is gone, replaced by a much faster data path, QuickPath Interconnect. From now on, think of the FSB fondly as you recall computer technologies you once thought were incredible, such as the first time your eyes beheld a Commodore 64.

By moving the memory controler to the CPU itself, it can work much faster as it has its own bus and no longer shares bandwith with I/O. Why it took Intel so long to get around to doing this is a mystery.

Without a FSB, overclocking is quite a different affair. There is much greater flexibility for tweaking individual components, but it's also more complicated. For example, each core has its own multiplier. In any case, there is plentyof headroom on the Core i7-965. I got a score of 0:48 (minutes:seconds)/18266 in Cinebench 10 with an overclock of just under 3.9GHz.

Although it's exciting that Intel has introduced QPI, a much faster and more efficient way to transfer data than the FSB it replaced, the real boost in performance it affods won't be as obvious unless (and until) you're using a multiprocessor setup. (Skulltrail, anyone?) QPI connects the processor to other system functions, but it will also connect CPUs to each other. The result is a high-bandwith data path between multiple CPUs, allow-ing them to communicate efficiently and quickly. Perhaps we may soon see a plethora of enthusiast-class boards with more sockets.

With the release of the Nehalem CPUs, the stage is set for some major developments from Intel: the new Socket 1366 and QPI will no doubt greatly enhance performance in both consumer computers and servers. Stay tuned as these development unfold.
by Seth Colaner





Core i7-965 Extreme Edition
$999
Intel
www.intel.com

Computer Power User January 2009