Editors' Rating
| Design |  |
8.0 |
| Features |  |
9.0 |
| Performance | |
9.0 |
Published: 03 Nov 2008
A quicker path
Finally, the last major change with Core i7 is the introduction of what Intel is calling the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI). Essentially this is the Intel version of AMD's HyperTransport interface between the CPU and the chipset. The major impact of the QPI for users is that Intel employs different QPI ratings to distinguish the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition from the non-Extreme Core i7 chips. Rated by Gigatransfers per second (Gigatransfers, or GT, refers to a million transfers of data), the Extreme Edition comes in at 6.4GT/sec, where the non-Extreme versions handle only 4.8GT/sec. In addition to that speed advantage, Intel also ships the Extreme version with an unlocked clock multiplier, which means it can be overclocked. The standard Core i7's will have to remain at their shipping speeds.
To put the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition in perspective, we compared it with the year-old Core 2 Extreme QX9650. The Core i7 has a faster clock speed and an L3 cache shared by the four cores that's four times larger than that of the older chip. With the integrated RAM controller on Core i7 replacing the need for a frontside bus, the platforms are quite different from each other, so the specs don't tell the whole story. The performance results speak more clearly.
The Core i7 chip is faster than the QX9650 on every test, but we were most impressed by the Cinebench multicore test and the Far Cry 2 benchmark, where Intel's new CPU established a sizable performance advantage. Gamers and digital media editors may have assumed that Core i7 is worth their attention: as we can see from our testing, any such assumption is clearly justified.
We expect the web will flood with reviews of the entire Core i7 family at the same time that this review launches. We encourage anyone considering a new CPU purchase to read as much coverage as possible to make the most informed buying decision. Any CPU with a $999 (~£637) price tag merits careful consideration.
Power consumption
You'll note from our power consumption tests that the Core i7 and the QX9650 consume almost the exact same amount of energy both at idle and while under load. We didn't expect major gains here, as both chips use the same 45nm process, run at a similar clock speeds and with similar numbers of transistors. Intel typically gains more power efficiency with chips introduced in a 'tock' year, which involves more efficient manufacturing of an existing architecture, than from a 'tick' year such as this. The Core i7-965 Extreme may have improved its relative power usage, in that it uses fewer transistors to do more work and at faster clock speeds than the older Core 2 Extreme chips. But anyone building a system with this new processor should expect to need an equivalently beefy power supply — especially if you intend to add multiple graphics cards and hard drives.
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