Friday, July 31st 2009
Core i9 ''Gulftown'' Comes to Life
Intel's posterboy processor for the 32 nm Westmere architecture, the six-core Gulftown is now living, breathing silicon. The company seems to have already dispatched samples of the chip. Gulftown is based on the LGA-1366 socket. Featuring 6 cores and 12 threads with HyperThreading enabled, it holds 12 MB of L3 cache to support the additional data load over the QuickPath Interconnect.
A noted enthusiast has two Gulftown processors running in a dual-socket setup. This 12 core, 24 thread monstrosity uses 24 GB of DDR3 memory using 4 GB modules (perhaps 2 x 3 modules). The processors are running at 2.40 GHz (18 x 133 MHz). The machine was put through WPrime multi-threaded benchmark. It crunched WPrime 32M in a little over 6 seconds, and 1024M in 145.6 seconds. Going by older information, Gulftown should be implemented in a commercial product in Q1 2010, when Intel plans a host of other important product launches. When released as Core i9, the processor will target the premium enthusiast market.
Source:
XtremeSystems Forums
A noted enthusiast has two Gulftown processors running in a dual-socket setup. This 12 core, 24 thread monstrosity uses 24 GB of DDR3 memory using 4 GB modules (perhaps 2 x 3 modules). The processors are running at 2.40 GHz (18 x 133 MHz). The machine was put through WPrime multi-threaded benchmark. It crunched WPrime 32M in a little over 6 seconds, and 1024M in 145.6 seconds. Going by older information, Gulftown should be implemented in a commercial product in Q1 2010, when Intel plans a host of other important product launches. When released as Core i9, the processor will target the premium enthusiast market.
93 Comments on Core i9 ''Gulftown'' Comes to Life
Im gonna turn my desktop into a htpc.
cpu-z hasnt been updated for i9
as $999. Which I'm pretty sure it will be near.
Would love to get my hands on one of these!
there was a whole thread about intel saying they were not but the next day they said yes no more 920
www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/05/28/intel-to-discontinue-core-i7-920-940-cpus/1
1.) Half the new claimed it was an Oct-core, and now the release this? It is really worth it? If it wasn't for 32nm, it would likely reach low-enough clocks to be just about as powerful as a Quad core.
2.) The price is 1000$? They've never had a completely new product exist only at the highest price segment. They know that no one buys Extreme models but reach people with little tech knowledge. They are going to release only the extreme version first, then we'll see some real models.. just like they are going to release the six-core version, and only later will we see a real eight-core CPU.
3.) Again, the rumors disappoint. I planned on buying an eight-core CPU alongside GTX 380. Now it's pushed forward to 2010. It wouldn't really bother me, but personally my computer is on its hind legs and I desperately want to upgrade.
Actually, according to Intel's road map, the only other Westmere processors (32nm shrink of Nehalem, i.e. This), are going to be Dual-core. So, they're have 150-300$ Dual-core 32nm Nehalem processors, and leave the high-end "Extreme"-only six-core up there. Meaning that either these Duals will be the new i3's, or i3 is going to have a very short lifespan. They couldn't possibly have shrunk 45nm to 32nm just to make Dual-core processors, right? This is quite insane.
I want an affordable six-core Westmere, 500$ or less, in time for a Triple-SLi Dual-socket motherboard, also costing no more than 500$. Then I want GTX 380 to cost 500$ as well, and a 250$ 12GB six-dimm pack of stable RAM, and I'm happy. I'm the consumer.. I am supposed to be happy, right?