Intel's 32nm six-core 'Gulftown' desktop processor, once considered the first of a Core i9 series, will ship as a Core i7 Extreme Edition part, leaked presentation slides show.

Gulftown's formal moniker will be the Core i7-980X and it will debut during Q1 2010, probably mid-late February. From then, it will be Intel's sole Extreme Edition CPU through to the end of the year, replacing its current Extreme Edition, the four-core Core i7-975.

As we've reported before, Gulftown contains six cores, each with HyperThreading support so the operating sees the chip as a 12-core part. The cores share 12MB of L3 cache and the on-board memory controller can handle 1066MHz DDR 3 memory.

The leaked Intel slides don't provide a clock speed, but the leaker, Chinese-language site PCOnline says the 980X will run at a base speed of 3.3GHz rising to 3.6GHz when the chip's thermals allow it - thanks to Turbo Mode technology.

Gulftown's power envelope is 130W.

The leaked roadmap also shows the arrival in Q1 2010 of the Core i7-930 as a successor to the current mainstream CPU, the 2.66GHz Core i7-920. Presumably, the 930 will match the 920's clock speed but be fabbed at 32nm rather than 45nm. ®