The Intel I7 Core 975: A Review

Intel launched the i7 Core family of processors in November 2008 and made history. This world saw the fastest processor on Earth that money could buy hit the market once again, and Intel is set to repeat history again! Intel has plans to launch the Intel i7 Core 975 - the 'Big' Brother of Intel i7 Core 965 Extreme Edition - by the End of May 2009. Without a doubt, this will 'steal' the throne of the fastest processor acquired by Intel i7 Core 965 Extreme Edition soon enough.

According to the news confirmed from Intel, the i7 Core 975 will have the following specifications:

It will be built using the 45 nanometer (nm) silicon wafer technology and support modern 64 Bit technology. The main advantage of this technology is lower power consumption and better performance and efficiency. It will be using Intel's New QPI Technology that is much faster than the FSB (Front Side Bus) which is now decade old technology. If we just see the numbers, then with this QPI Technology, Intel i7 Core 965 Extreme Edition can easily deliver a speed of 21 GB/s which is far more than what FSB can provide. i7 Core 975 will be operating at a normal clock speed of 3.33 GHz (obviously more than Intel i7 Core 965 ).

The processor will bring back the days of Intel Pentium 4 'Prescott' by implementing the Hyper Threading (HT) Technology once again. So you will be able to use 8 threads simultaneously and the Task Manager will show 8 screens for the same reason. It will support the DDR3 Series of RAM instead of the DDR2. It will be equipped with LGA 1366 Socket. It will support 1 MB of L1 Cache and 8 MB of shared L3 cache instead of the 12 MB of L2 cache as in the case of Intel Core 2 Quad series of processors. It is expected that the shared cache will be much more efficient as opposed to L2 cache.

This processor is expected to consume 130 watts of power, and when idle it will consume approximately 25% less power. This simply means a cooler operation even in overclocked state and that, in turn, means longer processor life and better stability. This processor when overclocked reaches a peak speed of 5.3 GHz. Though that speed is less stable, it is sizzling fast and it has broken all the records of speed set by it's predecessors.

That said, this processor is not for casual Internet chat or text-based games. This processor would be targeted to professionals related to the multimedia industry as they require the most clock speed for rendering graphics quickly and real-time feedback of multimedia. As always, Intel will be harsh with the processor pricing and this will cost a dear $1000 USD for the processor alone. Presently, the only architecture that can support this processor is the X58 Chipset. This chipset only supports the DDR3 series of RAM and is not backward compatible.

Now it is just a matter of one month before the market is again hit by this monster. In conclusion, if you are considering performance, the new i7 Core series is top of the line in quality, efficiency, and performance.