Why Intel's Core i7 is great for games

Core i7 has blistering benchmark performance - but it isn't so much of an advance over Core 2

As part of our thorough testing of Intel's new Core i7 architecture, we've been able to check out just what the top-end Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition can do for games. Clocked at 3.2GHz in the factory, this £1,000 quad core part means serious performance. And if there's one thing Intel's Extreme Edition chips do well, it's playing games - especially when you crank it up courtesy of the unlocked multiplier.

While compiling our review we put Core i7, alongside the outgoing Core 2 QX9770 Extreme Edition and AMD's top Phenom chip, through possibly the toughest set of tests we've yet conducted. We also gave specific features such HyperThreading a good seeing to and clocked the twangers off the poor thing in our overclocking tests. Finally, just for good measure, we pitted Core i7 against the monstrous Skulltrail, Intel's exotic dual-CPU platform. You can download all the results as a PDF from our benchmarkathon page.

The key message is that Core i7 has stunning multi-threaded performance, but it's not a massive leap forward for single-thread grunt. In key multi-threaded metrics such as video encoding and professional rendering, Core i7 utterly decimates the opposition. Single-threaded performance remains extremely important and Core i7 is strong here too, if not quite as dominant. However, it is more power-hungry than its predecessor. As for how AMD's Phenom compares, it's an absolute massacre. Intel's finest is now often twice as quick as the best AMD can deliver.

There are three Core i7s available at launch. The entry level chip is the 2.66GHz Core i7-920, yours for £200, or perhaps a touch less. Next up is the 2.93GHz 940 processor, likely to sell for £400. Last is the 965 Extreme Edition. It costs a cool £1,000, runs at 3.2GHz and adds a few overclocking-friendly features such as an unlocked multiplier. All three chips have 8MB of L3 cache and support up to 24GB of 1,066MHz DDR3 memory.

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