Intel reveals beastly Core i7 980X Extreme Edition

by Stevie Smith - Mar 11 2010, 05:37

In a move to boost its oomph-appeal with performance-hungry computer gamers everywhere, chipmaker Intel has used the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco to unveil its new Core i7 980X Exteme Edition CPU.

Offered up as part of the new ‘Gulftown’ platform, the Core i7 980X arrives as the first 32nm, six-core processor (with 12 computing threads) to emerge from Intel’s production line specifically aimed at enthusiast gamers and demanding multimedia users.

And, when combined with Intel’s latest Graphics Performance Analyzers release (also showcased at GDC), the Santa Clara-based company believes the Extreme Edition will aid game developers when it comes to optimising performance.

In terms of muscle, the Core i7 980X pushes a hefty frequency of 3.33GHz and utilises triple-channel DDR3 (1066) and 12MBs of L3 cache. It also uses Intel’s Hyper-threading and TurboBoost technology, which can help push individual cores to upwards of 3.6GHz or drop them to 1.6GHz when idle.

Interested? If so, expect to cough up $999 USD for the pleasure of dropping a Core i7 980X into your rig in order to watch it devour even the most testing of processor-intensive tasks.

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