Intel Launches Fastest Processor on the Planet

Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Provides Performance on Demand, Adds 'Turbo Boost' and 'Hyper-
Threading' Technologies

Intel Core i7 is a family of three Intel desktop x86-

64 processors, the first processors released using the Intel
Nehalem micro architecture and the successor to the Intel Core
2 family. All three current models and two upcoming models are
quad-core processors. The Core i7identifier applies to the initial
family of processors codenamed Bloomfield. Intel
representatives state that the moniker Core i7 does not have any deeper
meaning. The name continues the use of the successful Core brand. Core i7, first
assembled in Costa Rica, [9] was officially launched on November 17; 2008.and
is manufactured in Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon, though the Oregon plant is
moving to the next generation 32 nm process. Brilliantly fast
With faster, intelligent, multi-core technology that applies processing power
where it's needed most, new Intel® Core™ i7 processors deliver an incredible
breakthrough in PC performance. They are the best desktop processors on the
planet.
You'll multitask applications faster and unleash incredible digital media creation.
And you'll experience maximum performance for everything you do, thanks to
the combination of Intel Turbo Boost technology and Intel Hyper-Threading
technology (Intel® HT technology), which maximizes performance to match your
workload.

Intel Core i7 processor family

Quad-Core Desktop Desktop
processors Logo
Code-named Core Date released
Core i7 - Core i7
"Bloomfield" (45 nm)
Core i7 Extreme - Core i7
"Bloomfield XE" (45 Bloomfield quad (45nm) Nov 2008
nm)

Product information
• 2.93 GHz and 2.66
GHz core speed Bloomfield XE quad (45nm) Nov 2008
• 8 processing
threads with Intel® HT
technology
• 8 MB of Intel® List of Intel Core i7 microprocessors
Smart Cache
• 3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory
 Processo Intel® Intel®
Intel® Integrated
r Clock QuickPath DDR3 Hyper- Quad-
Smart Memory
Number Speed Interconnect Speed Threading Core
Cache Controller
Δ Speed Technology
45 nm
i7-940 8 MB 2.93 4.8 GT/s 800/1066 3 channels, 8 processing
GHz MHz 2 DIMMs/Ch threads
i7-920 8 MB 2.66 4.8 GT/s 800/1066 3 channels, 8 processing
GHz MHz 2 DIMMs/Ch threads
Features and benefits
Go to the next level of multi-core performance.
Intel Core i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in quad-core
performance and feature the latest innovations in processor technologies:
Intel® Turbo Boost technology maximizes speed for demanding
applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your
workload—more performance when you need it the most.
Intel® Hyper-Threading technology enables highly threaded
applications to get more work done in parallel. With 8 threads available to
the operating system, multi-tasking becomes even easier.
Intel® Smart Cache provides a higher-performance, more efficient
cache subsystem. Optimized for industry leading multi-threaded games.
Intel® QuickPath Interconnect is designed for increased bandwidth
and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6
GB/sec with the Extreme Edition processor.
Integrated memory controller enables three channels of DDR3 1066
MHz memory, resulting in up to 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. This
memory controller's lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers
amazing performance for data-intensive applications.
Intel® HD Boost significantly improves a broad range of multimedia and
compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at
a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of
processing efficiency with SSE4 optimized applications.

Overclocking

The process of overclocking the Core i7 architecture is similar to that of the AMD
architecture due to the on-die MCH.[21]Over-clocking will be possible with the 900
series and a motherboard equipped with the X58 chipset. In early October 2008,
reports surfaced that it will not be possible to use "performance" DDR3 DIMMs
that require voltages higher than 1.65v, because the integrated memory
controller within the Core i7 will be damaged.[22] Some tests, however, have
demonstrated that the voltage limit does not apply, like on a MSI board, and
manufacturers can choose to bond CPU voltage to memory or not. By the end of
the month, performance memory vendors had announced 1.65v DDR3 memory
kits with clock rates up to 2 GT/s.

The Core i7 has three memory channels, and the channel bandwidth can be
selected by setting the memory multiplier. However, in early benchmarks, when
the clock rate is set higher than a threshold (1333 for the 965XE) the processor
will only access two memory channels simultaneously. A 965XE has higher
memory throughput with 3xDDR3-1333 than with 3xDDR3-1600, and 2xDDR3-
1600 has almost identical throughput to 3xDDR3-1600.[16]

FEATURES

The Nehalem microarchitecture

has many new features, some
of which are present in the
Core i7. The ones that
represent significant changes
from the Core 2 include:

 The new LGA 1366 socket

is incompatible with earlier
processors.
 On-die memory
controller: the memory is
directly connected to the
processor.
 Three channel
memory: each channel
can support one or
two DDR3 DIMMs.
Motherboards for Core i7
have four (3+1) or
six DIMM slots instead of two or four, and DIMMs can be installed in
sets of three or two.
 Support for DDR3 only.
 No ECC support.
 The front side bus is replaced by QuickPath interface. Motherboards
must use a chipset that supports QuickPath.
 The following caches:
  64 KB L1 instruction and 64 KB L1 data cache per core
 256 KB L2 cache (combined instruction and data) per core
 8 MB L3 (combined instruction and data) "inclusive", shared
by all cores
 Single-die device: all four cores, the memory controller, and all
cache are on a single die.
 "Turbo Boost" technology allows all active cores to intelligently clock
themselves up in steps of 133 MHz over the design clock rate as long
as the CPU's predetermined thermal and electrical requirements are
still met.[11]
 Re-implemented Hyper-threading. Each of the four cores can
process up to two threads simultaneously, so the processor appears to
the OS as eight CPUs. This feature was present in the
older NetBurst microarchitecture but was dropped in Core.
 Only one QuickPath interface: not intended for multi-processor
motherboards.
 45nm process technology.
 781M transistors for the quad core version.
 263mm2 Die size.
 Sophisticated power management can place an unused core in a
zero-power mode.
 Support for SSE4.2 & SSE4.1 instruction sets.

DRAWBACKS
 The Core i7 does not support error-correcting memory.[2][3][4] Some
high-end motherboards that support the Core i7 advertise support
for ECC memory, for example Supermicro's C7X58 and X8SAX
(see Supermicro's X8SAX page), however, in thesame motherboard
manuals, it is made clear that ECC is only supported if the CPU has
the feature enabled.

 Some early articles suggested that i7's design is not ideal for
gaming performance. In a test performed on leaked hardware, a
Core i7 940 compared to a QX9770 showed the Core i7 to be slower
than Yorkfield clock-for-clock in two trials, while being faster in two
others. The difference in all cases was small, and was due to the
significantly smaller sized L2 cache on the processor cores, with
each core able to access its own 256 kB of L2 cache. In contrast, the
most recent Yorkfields have up to 12 MB of L2 cache. To help
compensate, the Core i7 also has a new L3 cache of 8 MB, shared
among all four cores, similar to AMD's "Barcelona" processors. This
is due to the trend of games making use of more threads, and
with hyper-threading (HT) the Core i7 can scale more than 4x faster,
such as in cinebench tests.[23] However, more recent testing done on
all clock rates of official hardware with final drivers and BIOS
revisions show that Core i7 at the very least beats Yorkfield clock-
for-clock, and in most cases exceeds it by an average of about 17%.
[24]
But when it comes to high-end multi-GPU environments (Nvidia
3-way SLI and ATI Crossfire X), the i7 is revealed to be much faster
than Yorkfield (QX9770) in clock-for-clock