Intel Core i7-980X Extreme: Hello, Six-Core Computing
Features
By
Chris Angelini
published
Add us as a preferred source on Google
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the 3DTested Newsletter
Get 3DTested's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Test Setup And Benchmarks
Swipe to scroll horizontally
| Test Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processors | Intel Core i7-980X (Gulftown) 3.33 GHz, LGA 1366, 12MB L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 1 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i7-975 Extreme (Bloomfield) 3.33 GHz, LGA 1366, 8MB L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i7-920 (Bloomfield) 2.66 GHz, LGA 1366, 8MB L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 3 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i5-750 (Lynnfield) 2.66 GHz, LGA 1156, 8MB L3, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE (Deneb) 3.4 GHz, Socket AM3, 4 GT/s HyperTransport, 6MB L3, Power-savings enabled |
| Motherboards | Gigabyte X58A-UD5 (LGA 1366) X58 Express, BIOS F4 |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | Gigabyte P55A-UD7 (LGA 1156) P55 Express, BIOS F4 |
| Row 7 - Cell 0 | Asus M4A79T Deluxe (Socket AM3) 790FX/SB750, BIOS 2304 |
| Memory | Corsair 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 7-7-7-20 @ DDR3-1333 |
| Row 9 - Cell 0 | Corsair 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3- 1600Â 7-7-7-20 @ DDR3-1333 |
| Hard Drive | Intel SSDSA2M160G2GC 160GB SATA 3 Gb/s |
| Row 11 - Cell 0 | Intel SSDSA2MH080G1GN 80GB SATA 3 Gb/s |
| Graphics | Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master UCP 1100W |
| Heatsink | Intel DBX-B Thermal Solution |
| System Software And Drivers | |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
| Platform Driver | Intel INF Chipset Update Utility 9.1.1.1015 |
| Graphics Driver | Catalyst 10.2 |
Swipe to scroll horizontally
| Benchmarks and Settings | |
|---|---|
| Audio Encoding | |
| iTunes | Version: 9.0.2.25 (64-bit), Audio CD ("Terminator II" SE), 53 min., Default format AAC |
| Video Encoding | |
| TMPGEnc 4.7 | Version: 4.7.3.292, Import File: "Terminator II" SE DVD (5 Minutes), Resolution: 720x576 (PAL) 16:9 |
| DivX 6.8.5 | Encoding mode: Insane Quality, Enhanced Multi-Threading, Enabled using SSE4, Quarter-pixel search |
| Xvid 1.2.2 | Display encoding status=off |
| MainConcept Reference 1.6.1 | MPEG2 to MPEG2 (H.264), MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG2), Audio: MPEG2 (44.1 KHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s), Mode: PAL (25 FPS), Profile: 3DTested Settings for Qct-Core |
| HandBrake 0.9.4 | Version 0.9.4, convert first.vob file from The Last Samurai to.mp4, High Profile |
| Applications | |
| Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 (64-bit) | Version: 2009 Service Pack 1, Rendering Dragon Image at 1920x1080 (HDTV) |
| WinRAR 3.90 | Version 3.90 (64-bit), Benchmark: THG-Workload (334 MB) |
| 7-Zip | Version 4.65, Built-in Benchmark |
| Adobe Photoshop CS4 | Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates filters |
| AVG Anti-Virus 9 | Virus scan of 334MB of compressed files |
| Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings | |
| 3DMark Vantage | Version: 1.02, GPU and CPU scores |
| PCMark Vantage | Version: 1.00, System, Memories, TV and Movies, and Productivity benchmarks, Windows Media Player 10.00.00.3646 |
| SiSoftware Sandra 2010 | CPU Test=CPU Arithmetic/Multimedia, Memory Test=Bandwidth Benchmark, Cryptography |
| Games | |
| Crysis | High Quality Settings, No AA / No AF, 4xAA / No AF, vsync off, 1280x1024 / 1680x1050 / 1900x1200, DirectX 10, Patch 1.2.1, 64-bit executable |
| Left 4 Dead 2 | High Quality Settings, No AA / No AF, 8xAA / 16xAF, vsync off, 1680x1050 / 1920x1200 / 2560x1600, Tomshardware Demo, Steam Version |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | Ultra High Settings, No AA / No AF, 4xAA / No AF, 1680x1050 / 1920x1200 / 2560x1600, The Gulag, 60 second sequence, Fraps |
| DiRT 2 | Ultra High Settings, No AA / No AF, 4xAA / No AF, 1680x1050 / 1920x1200 / 2560x1600, In-Game Benchmark, Steam Version |
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the 3DTested Newsletter
Get 3DTested's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Current page: Test Setup And Benchmarks
Prev Page Platform And Overclocking Next Page Benchmark Results: Synthetics
111 Comments
Comment from the forums
-
one-shot shuffman37First Comment, I'll be staying up to read this review =)Reply
I'm guessing you didn't read this.
Http://www.tomshardware.com/news/toms-hardware-reviews-news-comments,9855.html -
tipmen Hm, not bad at all more cores at the same price as 975. Games don't seem to scale that much but CAD and transcoding is improved overall. Glad to see AMDs 965 hold its own in the game segment.Reply -
one-shotI'm guessing you didn't read this.http://www.tomshardware.com/news/t,9855.htmlNope, Haven't bothered looking at that. The 980x doesn't really make any difference in gaming but I wasn't expecting anything earth shattering. Does look good against the 965 x4 for mutlimedia applications.Reply
-
tipmen shuffman37Nope, Haven't bothered looking at that. The 980x doesn't really make any difference in gaming but I wasn't expecting anything earth shattering. Does looks good against the 965 x4 for mutlimedia applications.Reply
It is a good reminder how to act on toms you should read it when you get the chance. -
gkay09 Lolz...The Crysis benchmark and the Chris's starting line...Am sure he would have been forced to post that so that no one start with the infamous tag line "But can it play Crysis?":PReply -
gkay09 And Chris it would be nice if you could post some benchmarks of games that are CPU taxing like the GTA IV/ FSX...Most of the games used in the above benchmarks dont tax the CPU as much as these...Reply -
cangelini I hear you there gkay...I used to do more with GTA IV (not sure how prolific FS X still is), but it just depends on how many folks still want to see it. As a *general* rule, $1,000 CPUs aren't going to do much for your high-res gaming. However, it's a good point that there are a couple of titles notorious for hitting graphics far less than host processing power!Reply -
pinkfloydminnesota NO GTA IV? Should get great gains as it's notoriously CPU limited by the best quad cores. Unforgivable.Reply
