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Core i7: Your essential guide to Intel's new killer

New multi-threaded monster headed for your next PC

October 16th 2008 | Tell us what you think [ 3 comments ]

nobody-has-definitively-worked-out-what-core-i7-actually-means-but-it-ll-be-mightily-impressive-anyway-

Nobody has definitively worked out what Core i7 actually means. But it'll be mightily impressive anyway...

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A new and updated version of this article to coincide with the launch day of Core i7 is available here.

The launch of yet another new CPU architecture from Intel is nearly upon us. But what exactly can you expect when Core i7, the processor formerly known as Nehalem, arrives next month?

First up, Core i7 is the latest installment of Intel's "Tick-Tock" strategy of annual processor updates. Lest you have forgotten, with Tick-Tock Intel has committed for the foreseeable future to rolling out a brand new CPU architecture one year followed by a shrink in transistor size the next.

Core i7 is a "Tick" and therefore represents a new architecture built on Intel's existing (and extremely successful) 45nm high-K silicon process. The big noise with the Nehalem architecture is improved multi -threaded performance scaling.

 

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dascapitolin


November 3rd 2008

3. The first Core i7 reviews are hitting the web: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=229

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stewsofdoom


October 18th 2008

2. "We'll be literally carpet bombing Intel's new platform"

That should be exciting! I'll watch for it on CNN. We haven't seen a good carpet-bombing in decades.

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watcherzero


October 18th 2008

1. Fails to mention the major drawback of i7, it cant support ram operating over 1.5v (in practise 1.6v)because it causes interference, all fast ram operates at 1.8v some even as much as 2.2v, that 1.8v ram would fry an i7 processor, so your going to be stuck with slow ram at least for the initial models.

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