Reviews - Intel Core i7 930 CPU review - busting through 4GHz

[HEXUS]

We examine the newest chip in Intel's Core i7 LGA1366 arsenal.

Read more.

[Bloke]

It appears to be a great chip I cant see a lot of numerous i920 users, like myself, switching now. The benefits over 920 are small even with overclocking. Anyone getting a x58 board now should jump on this chip like a shot!

[HW_90]

I hope that's a bad ES, my 920 D0 reaches 4GHz at 1.175v with my crude akasa nero.

although it could also be that newer D0's have lower OC ability

[BTCentral]

I hope that's a bad ES, my 920 D0 reaches 4GHz at 1.175v with my crude akasa nero.

although it could also be that newer D0's have lower OC ability

You might want to bear in mind that these tests were done using a stock Intel HSF.
There are some mixed results for overclocking these already, and there are always going to be good/bad batches. 4.6 stable on air is the highest I've seen so far I beleive (and that's before they were technically publicly available).

Looking forward to Tuesday when mine arrives now (along with a Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R and 6GB Corsair XMS3, DDR3 PC3-12800), as I have been holding off on an upgrade until they got released - nice that the CPU, motherboard & RAM I wanted were also on the "Today Only" deals at Scan. Makes it all of £2 more than a deal they were doing on the 920 about a week ago - seems like good value to me.

[zoomee]

nice review - woulda rocked more if the AMD was clocked to 4Ghz (or close) for comparison

PS - now thats just - wots the phrase: "c-teasing" to say:


"We know of only one processor which is faster; it returns a x264 HD benchmark metric of 46.1fps for the second pass, easily besting a 4GHz Core i7. You'll have to wait a few days to find out what it is."

Seeing as you gots the 890GX, i'm hoping its what I'm waiting for :>

[Terbinator]

Why do I feel like the the only one who's penis isn't falling off over this chip, its had a simple speed boost., that's it.

[Terbinator]

nice review - woulda rocked more if the AMD was clocked to 4Ghz (or close) for comparison

PS - now thats just - wots the phrase: "c-teasing" to say:


"We know of only one processor which is faster; it returns a x264 HD benchmark metric of 46.1fps for the second pass, easily besting a 4GHz Core i7. You'll have to wait a few days to find out what it is."

Seeing as you gots the 890GX, i'm hoping its what I'm waiting for :>

Really ?

[this_is_gav]

Love how it states "estimated price" as £215, just in case the likes of Scan increase prices to fall in line with the other etailers. Sure enough, it's £230.

Yay, pocket lining time.

[Darren]

Love how it states "estimated price" as £215, just in case the likes of Scan increase prices to fall in line with the other etailers. Sure enough, it's £230.

Yay, pocket lining time.

I know the feeling, I should have known before the release, I feel stupid for waiting that extra month to be honest. They had 920s going on aria a while back for just under the £200 mark. Same thing is happening with the DX 11 ATi GPUs

[Tarinder]

nice review - woulda rocked more if the AMD was clocked to 4Ghz (or close) for comparison

PS - now thats just - wots the phrase: "c-teasing" to say:


"We know of only one processor which is faster; it returns a x264 HD benchmark metric of 46.1fps for the second pass, easily besting a 4GHz Core i7. You'll have to wait a few days to find out what it is."

Seeing as you gots the 890GX, i'm hoping its what I'm waiting for :>

Think of a six-core chip that's about to be released soon.

[BTCentral]

Why do I feel like the the only one who's penis isn't falling off over this chip, its had a simple speed boost., that's it.

That's pretty much all it is. It's a simple refresh of the 920 which is getting discontinued.
Perfect for people like me that don't own a S1366 system and are wanting to upgrade - but I see no point in any 920 users upgrading.

I recently saw another large e-tailer say that their 920 prices are actually going to go up as stock level decreases... so see very little reason why people looking for new systems now would want to go for a 920 over a 930 now.

[scaryjim]

Think of a six-core chip that's about to be released soon.

I think there might be a hint on the first page of the article:

Intel has a pre-CeBIT present for the enthusiast. It comes in the form of a new Core i7 chip for the performance-class X58 platform.

Those of you who think it's the much-heralded six-core Core i7 980X CPU will be disappointed - for a short while yet.

Although it would've been nice to have a review of the AMD 800-series chipsets before one turned up randomly in an Intel review...

[mercyground]

AMD's Thuliban is also released soon. Hexacore.

I'd say more likely its AMD's chip rather than a 6 core intel.

[scaryjim]

I'd say more likely its AMD's chip rather than a 6 core intel.

Despite Tarinder saying, in the article, that Intel's 6-Core i7 980X is coming soon? And the fact that this new processor returns 46.1fps for x264 2nd pass, vs 21.9fps for a quad core Phenom II?

Assuming the benchmark scales perfectly with cores & clock speed, a 6 core Phenom II would have to be clocked in the region of 4.7GHz to achieve 46.1fps (either that or Thuliban has managed a *huge* per clock performance increase over Phenom). On the other hand (again, assuming perfect scaling) a 6core i7 would only need to be clocked at about 3.15GHz to manage that result. So which do we think is more likely - an almost 5GHz hexacore Phenom, or a 3.2GHz Hexacore i7? I know which I'd put my money on...

[Terbinator]

Despite Tarinder saying, in the article, that Intel's 6-Core i7 980X is coming soon? And the fact that this new processor returns 46.1fps for x264 2nd pass, vs 21.9fps for a quad core Phenom II?

Assuming the benchmark scales perfectly with cores & clock speed, a 6 core Phenom II would have to be clocked in the region of 4.7GHz to achieve 46.1fps (either that or Thuliban has managed a *huge* per clock performance increase over Phenom). On the other hand (again, assuming perfect scaling) a 6core i7 would only need to be clocked at about 3.15GHz to manage that result. So which do we think is more likely - an almost 5GHz hexacore Phenom, or a 3.2GHz Hexacore i7? I know which I'd put my money on...

GTX 480 with CUDA ?

[zoomee]

Despite Tarinder saying, in the article, that Intel's 6-Core i7 980X is coming soon? And the fact that this new processor returns 46.1fps for x264 2nd pass, vs 21.9fps for a quad core Phenom II?

Assuming the benchmark scales perfectly with cores & clock speed, a 6 core Phenom II would have to be clocked in the region of 4.7GHz to achieve 46.1fps (either that or Thuliban has managed a *huge* per clock performance increase over Phenom). On the other hand (again, assuming perfect scaling) a 6core i7 would only need to be clocked at about 3.15GHz to manage that result. So which do we think is more likely - an almost 5GHz hexacore Phenom, or a 3.2GHz Hexacore i7? I know which I'd put my money on...

Man I REALLY REALLY hope its the AMD chip as I don't want to buy Intel unless I REALLY have to. I'm assuming Hexus are under NDA like allot of other sites with their hands on the 890GX chipset already, hence no review yet. Also bear in mind the Hexcore chips are supposed to have 'Turbo boost' technoloy just like the Core i7's.....

Either way it would have been good to see how an AMD P2 clocked at 3.8Ghz (average oc ) would have taken on the Intel's.... I'm still swaying towards a 980setup with a 965BE, as opposed to intel i930 (which would be like £200 more and not worth the extra for my needs - bit of encoding and loads of gaming)

Can you tell I REALLY don't like Intel? LOL