T
ick tock? More like ding-dong, mutha—shut your mouth. What baby? We’re talkin’ about Core i7.
Our apologies to Isaac Hayes, but if he were alive, we’re almost certain he would have been
tapped to hammer out a theme song for Intel’s most signifi cant CPU launch in, well, ever.
Why is this CPU more signifi cant than the 8088, Pentium, or Pentium M? As the second new
chip produced aft er a series of embarrassing losses to archrival AMD, the Core i7 will answer for the
world whether Intel is prepared to ride the momentum of its Core 2 launch with another winning
chip or if it’s content to rest on its laurels, as it did with the Pentium 4.
Core i7 also represents a major new direction for Intel, which has stubbornly clung to the
ancient front-side-bus architecture and discrete memory controller for years. Indeed, with its triple-
channel integrated DDR3 memory controller and chip-to-chip interconnect, the block map of a
Core i7 looks more like an Athlon 64 than a Core 2 chip.
Intel actually has three quad-core Core i7 CPUs ready: the top-end 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme
Edition, the performance-oriented 2.93GHz Core i7-940, and the midrange 2.66GHz Core i7-920.
For the most part, all three are exactly the same except for clock speeds, multiplier locking (only the
Extreme is unlocked), and QuickPath Interconnect speed. See the chart on page 42 for details.
The bigger issue is how Core i7 performs. To fi nd out, we ran the Extreme 965 against AMD’s fast-
est proc as well as Intel’s previous top gun in a gauntlet of benchmarks. Read on for the results.http://www.maximumpc.com | HOLIDAY 08 ||MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|)&
Up Close
Does Intel’s next-generation chip
Up Close
Does Intel’s next-generation chip
Up Close
live up to the hype? Hell yeah
BY GORDON MAH UNGi7
CORE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MADEO