Sites of Tech Report and Tom's Hardware has got hold of their hands the new flagship, tested it and unanimously concluded that the i7-990X EE – world's most powerful processor in the consumer market, but value for money in his best described as very difficult. We give the translation of one of the reviews, describing the trial "the most powerful CPU in the world, we hope it will be interesting to the reader.

Entry

Sandy Bridge architecture left in the "free floating" in the beginning of last month and forced to think about – is there now in the line of desktop processors Intel space for models of the series Core i7-900. The fact is that it was not reasonable to spend thousands of dollars on the latest six-core chip based on the architecture of the past generation, while a new wave of quad-core processors (Sandy Bridge) perfectly optimized and show significant improvements in performance-per-cycle, and are not More than three hundred dollars.

It is felt that if Intel did not get into trouble with defective chipsets H67 and P67, a motherboard with LGA 1155 has already gone to the shelves. Enthusiasts would buy Core i5-2500K, dispersing them to the limit and get incredible performance from the platform are sold at quite reasonable price.

While on the other hand, in the current chipset platform Sandy Bridge (H67/P67) have strange restrictions. In that case, if you buy a P67, you lose access to technology, Quick Sync. When you buy the H67, you lose the ability to overclock Series K. In any case, you lose important pieces of functionality Sandy Bridge. The only thing left to wait for enthusiasts – this exit chipset Z68.

Core i7-9xx: a family in crisis?

But back to the 900-series Core i7. Recently, Intel has revised the rule and somewhat changed its composition. She now has three models: Core i7-990X Extreme Edition, Core i7-970 and Core i7-960. Below is the territory of Sandy Bridge. Thus, processors like the Core i7-950 departed happily "retired".

Of course, the company revised and the prices of new / old model. Price Core i7-2600K has dropped to $ 330 – quality / price ratio has increased by an order. Quad-i7-960 dropped in price to 294 $ and shestiyadernik i7-970 – to 583 $. Along with this is not surprising that the flagship (Core i7-990X) kept the price of the proverbial "thousand".

Industry Motherboard gradually increasing production with the connectorIOM LGA 1155 and question stands is whether has sense fly solutions chipset X58 Express processors series Core i7-900?

If you're going to collect monster gaming machine with two, three or four video cards "in harness" SLI, then definitely pay attention to the platform, Sandy Bridge, chipsets which can provide up to 36 PCI Express lanes of the second generation. However, if on the motherboard with a chipset 50-Series bridge Nvidia NF200, forces become equal and solving the last generation will not lag behind in performance. Thus, players can choose a new platform, and platform of the last generation – it all depends on the specific model matplaty.

When comparing processors Sandy Bridge processor and 900-series, running on the same clock frequency, revealed a significant increase in performance-per-cycle – and this is not to mention the fact that representatives of the ruler Sandy Bridge perfectly dispersed and produced at rates of 32-nm. So it is pointless to recommend these days the purchase of chips based on the Bloomfield – such as the Core i7-960, 950 or 930.

Remained Core i7-970 and Core i7-990X – both have six cores Gulftown, produced based on 32 nm process technology and are designed for very specific niche market – for workstations and uncompromising gaming machines. The calculation should take only one fact, that the performance of the aforementioned processors exceeds the fastest model that may be offered Sandy Bridge (true representatives of this series limited to four cores).

Cost Core i7-970 at the moment is about 580 $, and is somewhat overstated. Price Core i7-990X, standing $ 999, overpriced even more. But, at least, 990X guarantees the highest frequencies and support for the unlocked multiplier.

In any case, there will always be people willing to pay any money to acquire the most cool iron (from the available in stores).

The purpose of this article – to find out, is it really Core i7-990X – world's fastest processor, and so is efficient architecture behind Core i7-2600K?

Test System

Processors:

Intel Core i7-990X (Gulftown) 3,46 GHz (26 * 133 MHz), LGA 1366 and 12 MB of cache L3 Intel Core i7-980X (Gulftown) 3,33 GHz (25 * 133 MHz), LGA 1366 and 12 MB Cache L3 Intel Core i7-960 (Bloomfield) 3,2 GHz (24 * 133 MHz), LGA 1366 and 8 MB of cache L3 Intel Core i7-2600K (Sandy Bridge) 3,4 GHz (34 * 100 MHz), LGA 1155 and 8 MB of cache L3 AMD Phenom II X6 1100T (Thuban) 3,3 GHz (16.5 * 200 MHz), Socket AM3, 6 MB of Sha L3, includes Turbo CORE and power-saving mode

* All Intel processors are included Hyper-Threading, Turbo Boost, as well as power-saving mode.

Motherboard:

ASUS Rampage III Formula (LGA 1,366) Intel X58 Express, BIOS 0505 Asus Maximus IV Extreme (LGA 1155) Intel P67 Express, BIOS 0901 MSI 890FXA-GD70 (Socket AM3) AMD 890FX/SB850, BIOS 1.85

Memory:

Kingston 8 GB (4 x 2 GB) DDR3-2133, KHX2133C9AD3W1K2/4GX x 2 @ DDR3-1333 7-7-7-20, 1.65V Crucial 12 GB (3 x 4 GB) DDR3-1333, MT16JTF51264AZ-1G4D1 @ DDR3-1333 7-7-7-20, 1.65V

Drive:

OCZ RevoDrive X2 240 GB PCI Express x4

Graphics:

Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 1,5 GB

PSU:

Cooler Master UCP-1000 W

OS / Drivers:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit Edition DirectX 11 driver for a version of Nvidia GeForce 266.58

Testing: PCMark Vantage

Not all applications (and not even all benchmarks) can take advantage of all six cores. This is – another reason why weather the transition to shestiyaderniki and buy an efficient and modern quad-core CPU Sandy Bridge.

As a result of lack of demand for the last two cores, Core i7-990X Extreme Edition for $ 1000 in the first test package was in second place. His beat Core i7-2600K, which costs less than $ 400. Third place at the same time took the predecessor 990X – Core i7-980X.

The only test where shestiyaderniki showed the advantage – is Communications. According to the documentation Futuremark, Communications Test very intensively uses the processor by loading its various tasks, such as encryption / decryption algorithm, AES, data compression, rendering of Web-pages, check files "Defender Windows" and the transcoding of audio. Gulftown and Sandy Bridge noticeably stepped forward with built-in support for the new instruction set AES-NI.

Testing: 3DMark11

In the 3DMark11 CPU at Gulftown won a deserved victory, thanks in part to test Physics, which is actively used in the work of all six cores.

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Graphics test results due to the fact that the benchmark generates a stream of one physical core (of which at Gulftown six), while the test is generated by the flow of Physics at the logical core (of which at Gulftown twelve).

Testing: SiSoftware Sandra 2011

In the synthetic tests SiSoft Sandra CPU Intel Core i7-990X, finally, to reach their potential. In Arithmetic and Multimedia benchmarks both flagship Core i7 Extreme Edition with a sizeable margin took first place. Also, processors have shown the greatest "internuclear" bandwidth.

Intel greatly accelerated the encryption algorithm AES in Sandy Bridge, which is why Quad Core i7-2600K "surpassed" its six-core "brothers" on the architecture of the past generation. Although the encryption algorithm, SHA shestiyadernikam was not equal.

Note that in both disciplines (AES / SHA) six-core Phenom II X6 exceeded performance Intel Core i7-960.

Testing: content creation

The program 3ds Max 2010, armed with a renderer Mental Ray, showed the most important advantage of six-core processors, which consists in the number of logical cores. In this case, "max" to use all 12 threads Core i7-990X. As a result, the flagship 900-series showed an indisputable superiority over the quad 2600K.

Be that as it may be, any difference between the 990X and 980X was not found.

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T, standing $ 240, managed to circumvent the 300-dollar Core i7-960. Mainly due to the use of two additionalPHYSICAL cores.

The speed of implementation of tasks set in Photoshop CS5 efficient CPU Core i7-2600K was also defeated, the flagship 900 series. Again, we did not see much difference in the results shown 990X and 980X.

Obviously, Adobe is not particularly worked on optimizing the product for processors from AMD. As a result shestiyadernik AMD Phenom II X6 1100T has suffered a tremendous defeat in the battle with the Core i7-960, which has in the assets of all four cores.

Premiere Pro has once again demonstrated the advantage of 12 threads to 8 threads, and the feasibility of using a 1000-dollar monster workstations involved in the processing of multimedia content. On the other hand, the huge acceleration of video editing, you can buy a GeForce with CUDA, then the central processor will not play a significant role.

After Effects CS5 uses parallelization task is not as strong as Premiere Pro. In this test, the quad Core i7-2600K easily beat two six-core giants. In addition, the difference in results between the first and last place was not so much.

The results of the test on the Cinebench OpenGL rendering speed was comparable to the results of the test After Effects, where the Core i7-2600K ahead of both the processor Extreme Edition.

Testing: productivity

The next benchmark was the domestic system OCR ABBYY FineReader 10. The test consisted in the automatic recognition of the 111-page document. And there has never claimed parallelization of tasks.

In recognition of the text, as is evident from the graphs, both flagship Core i7 Extreme Edition series surpassed Core i7-2600K. The difference is not that big, but still, the fact that overtaking is available.

Codec Lame – only single-threaded test, which means that the acceleration of the active nucleus Core 7-2600K to the frequency of 3.8 GHz. Add here nachitelnoe increase performance-per-clock in the Sandy Bridge architecture and you will receive an explanation of such a serious quad superiority over the six-core flagships. The same applies to benchmark WinZip and iTunes.

Even if the Core i7-990X running only one physical core, its frequency will not exceed 3.73 GHz. That's why he won second place.

Unlike WinZip, the latest version of archiver WinRAR (again, the same domestic development) is not optimized for multi-threaded computing. Using all six cores and twelve streams, the processor Intel Core i7-990X take a well deserved first place, do a backup 650 MB file in less than one minute. Core i7-980X, as well as it predecessor, "came in second, and Core i7-960 – the third. Despite all the improvements, Core i7-2600K was in fourth place.

The results of 7-Zip (because of "imprisoned" applications for multithreading) were quite expected. First place went to Core i7-990X, the second – Core i7-980X. The new chip is Intel Sandy Bridge, bypassing the Core i7-960, found himself in third place.

Testing: Media Coding

iTunes, as we mentioned above, also uses only one processor core. In this regard, the schedule came out quite as expected.

MainConcept 2.0 takes into account all six cores and 12 threads, so Core i7-990X won first place, albeit a little, but ahead of its predecessor – Core i7-980X and the holder of third place – Core i7-2600K.

Similar results we can see in HandBrake.

Game tests: Metro 2033

In virtually every test Phenom II X6 trailed at the end. In the first game test, we can observe a similar result, although the gap has become smaller. But most importantly, pay attention to the minimum framerate, which is much higher in chips AMD, than any of the participating in the testing of the CPU from Intel.

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Although, before handing the crown of "King of gaming processors" AMD, is to look at other gaming tests.

Game tests: F1 2010

In the second game Phenom II X6 1100T shows quite the opposite result – here he is very much inferior to any of the processors Intel. Likely to cause a bad optimization (or even lack thereof) for processors AMD. Confirms this hypothesis a simple experiment: if you disable two cores Thuban of the six test results of the AMD will be much better. The irony here is that the graphics division of AMD is the official sponsor of F1.

With Intel processors more or less clear, with increasing resolution of the gap in FPS is quite small – this means that we achieve the "narrow neck" video system.

Game tests: Aliens Vs. Predator

After two previous games, which showed completely opposite results on the part of AMD, Aliens vs. Predator gives us an almost "flat" graphics. With 1680×1050 resolution at 2560×1600 we see virtually flat "ladder" – each of the processors in this game proved to be good.

Conclusions

Test results for the flagship series of processors Core i7-900 suggests that today the use of such chips can be found. Not all the problems of 990X was the best candidate, but he was the first in the majority of benchmarks that are optimized for multithreading. On the other hand, enthusiasts and gamers should wait a little longer, because the platform is Sandy Bridge has excellent potential, and processors under it – an appetizing price. The money saved can be spent on something more meaningful such as the acquisition of memory or another card for SLI.

However, if your workstation forrabatyvaet you money if you do not need an office computer, and a monster who will not hesitate to performance in any Premiere Pro, 3ds Max or MainConcept, it makes sense to acquire the most productive in the world of CPU for the consumer market, Kojima is today Core i7 990X Extreme Edition.