The Register®

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/04/core_i7_975/

Core i7 bumped to 3.33GHz

Still too slow? Overclock it

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco

Posted in Hardware, 4th June 2009 17:54 GMT

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

Intel has speed-bumped its top-of-the-line Core i7 Extreme Edition processor, increasing its lead as the fastest desktop chip that the company has ever offered.

The new 45nm Core i7 975 [1], based on the company's Nehalem [2] architecture, clocks in at 3.33GHz. It includes 8MB of L3 Smart Cache [3] running at its four cores' clock speed.

Dual QuickPath Interconnects (QPI) [4] transfer data at 6.4GT/sec, and such performance-enhancing niceties as Intel's SpeedStep (EIST [5]), Virtualization (VT [6]), and Turbo Boost [7] auto-overclocking technologies are all enabled.

Its core-clock multiplier is set at 25X - but it's unlocked, should you feel the need to experiment with a bit of straightforward overclocking.

The Core i7 975 slots into the now-second-class Core i7 965's price point, which is $999 in lots of 1,000 - although processors at this rarified level are rarely if ever sold in those amounts. You can find it today in retail packaging at sites such as NewEgg for $1,039 [8] and Platinum Micro for $1,078 [9].

But if that's too rich for your Meltdown-melted wallet, you might instead pick up a Core i7 920, which can be found at various outlets for well under $300. It takes well to overclocking [10], and an Intel spokesman told The Reg that it will "most definitely" remain available for the foreseeable future. ®