Intel® Core™ i7 Processor

Brilliantly fast

With faster, intelligent, multi-core technology that applies processing power where it's needed most, new Intel® Core™ i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in PC performance. They are the best desktop processors on the planet.¹

You'll multitask applications faster and unleash incredible digital media creation. And you'll experience maximum performance for everything you do, thanks to the combination of Intel® Turbo Boost technology² and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology (Intel® HT technology)³, which maximizes performance to match your workload.

Product information

• 2.93 GHz and 2.66 GHz core speed
• 8 processing threads with Intel® HT technology
• 8 MB of Intel® Smart Cache
• 3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory

Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Extreme Edition

Wield the ultimate gaming weapon

Conquer the world of extreme gaming with the fastest performing processor on the planet: the Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition.¹ With faster, intelligent multi-core technology that accelerates performance to match your workload, it delivers an incredible breakthrough in gaming performance.

But performance doesn't stop at gaming. You'll multitask 25 percent faster and unleash incredible digital media creation with up to 79 percent faster video encoding and up to 46 percent faster image rendering, plus incredible performance for photo retouching and editing.¹

In fact, you'll experience maximum performance for whatever you do, thanks to the combination of Intel® Turbo Boost technology² and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology (Intel® HT technology)³, which activates full processing power exactly where and when you need it most.

Product information

• 3.20 GHz core speed
• 8 processing threads with Intel® HT technology
• 8 MB of Intel® Smart Cache
• 3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory

• View Intel Core i7 processor Extreme Edition performance benchmarks
• Download the product brief

  File Type/Size: PDF 822KB

• See product image
• Learn about processor numbersΔ

Compare products

• Compare desktop processors
• Compare motherboards and barebones
• Compare desktop chipset components

Features and benefits

Get extreme with your gaming and advanced multimedia.

Intel Core i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in quad-core performance and feature the latest innovations in processor technologies:

• Intel® Turbo Boost technology maximizes speed for demanding applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your workload-more performance when you need it the most.²
• Intel® Hyper-Threading technology enables highly threaded applications to get more work done in parallel. With 8 threads available to the operating system, multi-tasking becomes even easier.³
• Intel® Smart Cache provides a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem. Optimized for industry leading multi-threaded games.
• Intel® QuickPath Interconnect is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec with the Extreme Edition processor.
• Integrated memory controller enables three channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, resulting in up to 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. This memory controller's lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for data-intensive applications.
• Intel® HD Boost significantly improves a broad range of multimedia and compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4 optimized applications.

• Buy an Intel Core i7 processor Extreme Edition based PC today and learn what it means to really get your game on

Under Core i7's Hood: Comparing The C0 And D0 Steppings

Whether you're looking at the IT hardware business or automobile industry, products often receive bug fixes, improvements, or upgrades during their active life cycle. Cars get face-lifted once they’ve been on the market for a while, usually at that halfway point between launch and the introduction of a successor.

In terms of silicon devices, we’re talking about steppings, which often incorporate a number of different improvements. When Intel introduced its Core i7-975 Extreme, it started to replace the 965 Extreme's C0 stepping with the more advanced D0 silicon. We found some significant differences between the two.

Zoom

New Steppings Don’t Mean More Performance

First of all, we’d like to make clear that modified processor steppings eliminate known bugs, while also improving the production process. Typically, this includes optimization on a transistor level, which may result in extended clock speed margins, lower voltage requirements for standard operation, or even the addition of features.

As a result, the latest processors normally show better energy efficiency, as they may require slightly less power than previous steppings to deliver the same performance results. However, stepping updates usually do not introduce any performance increase, as the processor vendor would rather have you pay for that.

New Stepping Mean More Possibilities

Other publications, such as AnandTech (Core i7-920 D0 Preview) and X-bit labs (D0 Processor Stepping in Action), already reported impressive results with D0 parts over the previous, first-generation Core i7 C0 stepping. Anand looked at a model 920 while X-bit labs tested a 965-Extreme.

We decided to do an apples-to-apples comparison with both Core i7 Extreme editions: the 3.2 GHz 965 and the 3.33 GHz 975. We set both to run at 3.33 GHz in order to compare performance and, surprisingly, we did find differences. Then we tried to overclock as far as possible on air cooling using a Zalman CPNS 10X cooler. Finally, we performed power comparison measurements at the highest clock speed, which both the C0-based 965 and the D0-based 975 processor would support reliably

AMD Claims Twelve-Core Microprocessors to Retain Similar Thermal Envelope.

Even though the forthcoming code-named Magny-Cours microprocessors with twelve cores will feature two times more processing engines than predecessors, its power consumption will remain on approximately the same level compared to currently available six-core AMD Opteron “Istanbul” chip, the company has revealed.

“AMD designed Magny-Cours chips to draw the same power as Istanbul chips,” said Pat Conway, a member of AMD's technical staff, in a presentation at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford University, reports ComputerWorld web-site.

When asked about the ways of retaining power consumption of Magny-Cours on the same level with six-core AMD Opteron, the representative for AMD explained that the new twelve-core chip works at lower clock-speed and also sports new power management features. Even though Mr. Conway declined to reveal the clock-speed of twelve-core AMD Opteron, it is known that six core chips consume about 75W at 2.60GHz clock-speed.

AMD Magny-Cours processor will be the first chip for the AMD G34 “Maranello” platform designed for Opteron processors 6000-series with up to 16 cores, quad-channel memory interface, 2 or 4 sockets, up to 12 memory modules per socket and some server and enterprise-specific functionality. Magny-Cours microprocessors feature two six-core dies on one piece of substrate.

In 2011 AMD plans to release a successor for Magny-Cours code-named Interlagos, which will be based on Bulldozer micro-architecture, built using 32nm process technology and contain up to 16 cores.

Intel Announces Core i7 Mobile (Centrino 2) Availability, Just In Time for Windows 7 Launch

Around the time Windows 7 launches publically, you can expect a new shipment of mobile CPU’s from Intel. Finally, Intel has announced that the Core i7 mobile platform (Calpella) will be shipping in the last part of September. Meaning that when you go to buy a new shiny laptop, you might just find one with Windows 7 and a Centrino Nehalem-based architecture.

MSI will be the first to ship notebooks powered by Intel's new mobile platform. The new line-up consist of the Core i7 7200M, Core i7 8200M, and Core i7 920XM. The Clarksfield version of the new CPU’s will basically be a scaled down version of the desktop CPU. Offering a bit more than just power, the Calpella platform will buff integrated WiMAX as well as entirely gigabit networking (Wireless N). Just like the Core i7 desktop CPU, this mobile CPU will have an integrated DDR3 memory controller.

Around the same time, you can expect Intel’s new dual-core ULV processors. The dual core ULV’s (Ultra Low Voltage) are targeted at ultra mobile notebooks, maybe even netbooks. It’s been suggested that this will all happen around IDF (Intel’s Developer Forum). Perhaps hold off on that next notebook purchase for another month or so, and get the most powerful quad-core processor just in time for Windows 7

Intel's Core i5 and Core i3 mobile (Arrandale) are not slated for release until Q1 2010.

Source: Gizmodo

Intel shows off 80-core processor

Intel has built its 80-core processor as part of a research project, but don't expect it to boost your Doom score just yet.

Chief Technical Officer Justin Rattner demonstrated the processor in San Francisco last week for a group of reporters, and the company will present a paper on the project during the International Solid State Circuits Conference in the city this week.

The chip is capable of producing 1 trillion floating-point operations per second, known as a teraflop. That's a level of performance that required 2,500 square feet of large computers a decade ago.

Intel first disclosed it had built a prototype 80-core processor during last fall's Intel Developer Forum, when CEO Paul Otellini promised to deliver the chip within five years. The company's researchers have several hurdles to overcome before PCs and servers come with 80-core processors--such as how to connect the chip to memory and how to teach software developers to write programs for it--but the research chip is an important step, Rattner said.

A company called ClearSpeed has put 96 cores on a single chip. ClearSpeed's chips are used as co-processors with supercomputers that require a powerful chip for a very specific purpose.

Intel's research chip has 80 cores, or "tiles," Rattner said. Each tile has a computing element and a router, allowing it to crunch data individually and transport that data to neighboring tiles.

Intel used 100 million transistors on the chip, which measures 275 millimeters squared. By comparison, its Core 2 Duo chip uses 291 million transistors and measures 143 millimeters squared. The chip was built using Intel's 65-nanometer manufacturing technology, but any likely product based on the design would probably use a future process based on smaller transistors. A chip the size of the current research chip is likely too large for cost-effective manufacturing.