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Intel Core i7 970 CPU review: six cores for £680

by Tarinder Sandhu on 5 August 2010, 08:39 3.0

Tags: Core i7 970, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qazgm

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How we test

Hardware

CPU AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition AMD Phenom II X6 1055T* AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition AMD Athlon II X4 635 Intel Core i7 980X EE Intel Core i7 970 Intel Core i7 920 Intel Core i7 870 Intel Core i5 750 Intel Core i5 661
Price £225 £150 £145 £80 £795 £680 £190 £230 £150 £160
Frequency 3.20GHz (16x 200MHz) 2.80GHz (14x 200MHz) 3.40GHz (17x 200MHz) 2.90GHz (14.5x 200MHz) 3.33GHz (25x 133MHz) 3.20GHz (24 x 133MHz) 2.66GHz (20 x 133MHz) 2.93GHz (22 x 133MHz) 2.66GHz (20 x 133MHz) 3.33GHz (25 x 133MHz)
Max turbo frequency 3.60GHz 3.30GHz N/A N/A 3.60GHz 3.46GHz 2.93GHz 3.60GHz 3.20GHz 3.60GHz
Cache 3MB L2, 6MB L3 3MB L2, 6MB L3 2MB L2, 6MB L3 2MB L2 1.5MB L2, 12MB L3 1MB L2, 8MB L3 1MB L2, 8MB L3 1MB L2, 8MB L3 1MB L2, 8MB L3 0.5MB L2, 4MB L3
Cores/threads 6/6 6/6 4/4 4/4 6/12 6/12 4/8 4/8 4/4 2/4
Process 45nm 45nm 45nm 45nm 32nm 32nm 45nm 45nm 45nm 32nm
Form factor AM3 AM3 AM3 AM3 LGA1366 LGA1366 LGA1366 LGA1156 LGA1156 LGA1156
TDP 125W 125W 125W 95W 130W 130W 130W 95W 95W 87W
Motherboard ASUS Crosshair IV Formula (890FX) ASUS P6X58D Premium  (X58)
 Gigabyte H55M-UD2H (H55)
BIOS revision 0502 (26/03/10) 0808 (09/04/2010)
 F7 (12/02/2010)
Memory 4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3-1,600 6GB (3 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3-1,600 4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3-1,600
Memory timings and speed 9-9-9-24-1T @ DDR3-1,600 9-9-9-24 1T @ DDR3 1,600 9-9-9-24 2T @ DDR3 1,333
Graphics card Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1,024MB
Graphics driver Catalyst 10.2
Disk drive Corsair Nova V128GB
Operating system Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
PSU Corsair HX1000W
*replicated from AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition

Software

Benchmarks

HEXUS.PiFast to 10m places
CINEBENCH R11.5 multi-CPU, 64-bit
POV-ray 3.7.0 beta 35a
wPrime v2.03
x264 HD v3.0 media-encoding benchmark - both pass noted
7zip v4.65 built-in file-compression benchmark

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - 1,680x1,050 - 4xAA max quality 

Power-consumption tests - idle and 2D load (wPrime load)
Overclocking tests - Intel Core i7 970 only

Testing notes

10 chips - four from AMD and six from Intel - and it doesn't pass us by that, for the same price as the Core i7 970, you could purchase the quartet of AMD chips and still have money left over.


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