Core i9 Engineering Sample Shows 6-Core Power
Early Gulftown engineering sample previewed.
Polish computer site PCLab managed to secure an engineering sample of an Intel chip manufactured on the Westmere 32nm process, containing six-cores and 12MB of L3. Yes, it certainly looks like Gulftown – the codename for what likely will end up being marketed as Core i9.
Despite Gulftown not being officially supported yet the testers managed to get Gulftown to work on three boards: Gigabyte EX58-Extreme, ASUS Rampage II Gene and ASUS P6T SE, thanks to the chip using LGA 1366 socket. Of course, the BIOSes for the motherboards weren't optimized for Gulftown just yet, so there were some performance issues – particularly in the memory department.
Overall, test results showed that Gulftown performs as many would hope it would with an extra two Hyperthreaded cores. Multithreaded applications saw impressive gains thanks to the bump in 50 percent greater number of cores.
The early benchmarks show a very impressive chip from the Westmere family that we'll be seeing in 2010. Check out PCLab for the full preview.
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That's just sick. LOL makes my brand new i5 seem tiny.
Will be even more fun to see some solid gaming benchmarks once the final product hits review sites.
Nice graphs
BTW: The "Best Offers" ad box is covering up the second graph in my Firefox browser. Tried reloading the page, still can't view the second graph.
BTW: The "Best Offers" ad box is covering up the second graph in my Firefox browser. Tried reloading the page, still can't view the second graph.
I have the same problem with Chrome, happens whenever they have multiple graphs/charts in a news article.
The graphs for me at stretching across the page (Firefox 3.5.5) is anyone else getting this problem?
Same here... plz
AMD really needs to get a new processor out. Right now it isn't that bad, but I'm worried that there will come a point when Intel simply doesn't have any legitimate mainstream competition.
The graphs for me at stretching across the page (Firefox 3.5.5) is anyone else getting this problem?
Sorry guys, should be all fixed now.
I was having the same problem till i went to the pclab page, and then hit the back bottom now it's all showing properly.
Finally some worth upgrading to.
Use Ad block plus for firefox and everything looks fine. Can't wait to see some benchies!!
I wonder how these polish guys get their hands on the engineering sample!
lots of $$$ perhaps?
That is what I am looking for, one of those, 2 ATI 5790 x2's 6 or 12 displays... eyefinity at its best and 24 or 28gb of ram.... Windows 7 64bit...
Oooh, lower power consumption and lower temps! I'm glad to see such an improvement in efficiency.
Scores double the i5. I would personally cry if I had recently bought an i5 and then see that graph
. I know ill be getting me one of those babies once it out in the market. Dont feel like it will get outperform significantly any time soon after so will be a good time to upgrade again 
The Phenom II X4 is the $140 2.8GHz version running against the $200+ Intel units. Talk about a well thought-out benchmark.
Sweet, faster with lower power consumption. I'm holding on upgrading my system. I'll wait for this baby to come out. I just hope it will not be too expensive.
Has all research gone out the window on clock speeds? I was reading about some new material that could help with the heat dispersion.. Is this super future material I was reading about still in the works? Just wondering?
Sweet.
It's articles like this that remind me of why I have this page bookmarked.
looking good, especially for a non bios optimized engineering sample. The Nehalem architecture seems to scale well from four to six cores, in many cases achieving a nearly 50% performance increase over the i7. I do a lot of video/3D rendering using programs like After Effects and Maya, and fortunately these applications (especially 3D rendering apps) really take advantage of having a processor with more cores/threads. I've been looking forward to its release for a while now, but unfortunately I've heard rumors that the i9 will only be available as an Extreme Edition to start... meaning outside my budget. the 32 nm LGA 1366 processors are looking to be a worthwhile investment for me though, so I might finally be able to put together that long awaited and much needed new system.
I would think a bit before buying this. its like A LOT of money, and if GPGPU took off, you wouldn't need a cpu this powerful.
This will make the upgrade from the q6600 that much better.
50% better performance in synthetics with 50% more cores isn't really impressive though.
No doubt this is a great processor but it's unlikely it'll be worth the premium over i7. Indeed, it could be argued that the best feature of the i9 is that the i7 prices might drop.
Can't wait for the price to be announced.
My guess $2000 because it has 0 competition.
The Phenom II X4 is the $140 2.8GHz version running against the $200+ Intel units. Talk about a well thought-out benchmark.
it seems relatively well thought out to me, seeing how AMD isn't currently selling a desktop processor for over $200. the purpose of the comparison was to compare these processors and AMD/Intel architectures clock for clock, not to do a price to performance comparison.
*Throws 2 month old core 2 out window*
50% better performance in synthetics with 50% more cores isn't really impressive though.No doubt this is a great processor but it's unlikely it'll be worth the premium over i7. Indeed, it could be argued that the best feature of the i9 is that the i7 prices might drop.
50% better performance with an unrefined engineering sample without native chipset support while lowering power consumption is a major improvement for any CPU. Given 3-6 more months of R&D a proper chipset and this CPU may boast 100-150% performance increase.
Like every other Intel release since the Hyper-threading P4 there will be an extreme edition for a cool grand, then a line of 4-6 CPUs that will take the price point of the last CPU series who will drop in price to the next lowest CPU series price points.
Maybe I'll be employed again by then and will be in the market just in time for a new system. Mmmmm the sweet sweet nectar of hardware upgrades.
Good thing I didn't hop on the core i7 band wagon yet. I'll wait for these babies. My Q6600 will just have to last a little bit longer.
ehh im'a wait for da 8 cores
I'm in love with those temps! And the performance definitely warrants a second glance just to drool. As for concerns about pricing--I'm not too worried. Intel can kill off (read maim severely, I think AMD can hold on with it's hold on ATI) AMD pretty easily if it markets these chips in the $200-$300 range (and assuming AMD doesn't show up to the party when these things are released).
awesome