Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition

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Legit Reviews says that anyone looking for the baddest processor available for your LGA 1366 based system, should look no further than the Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition. Here's a quote from the review:

When you are looking the build the best performing desktop, there is only one route to go, that's with an Intel chip. If you are looking for the best of the best Intel chip you will be looking at the latest hex-core processer, the Intel Core i7 990X Extreme. There are a number of tests today that the Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition processor excelled at today. Mainly anything that was heavily threaded. Anything that had to do with number crunching like wPrime or video rendering like the x264 HD Video benchmark was dominated by the Core i7 990X Extreme.
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I'm @ 4.8 with hyper threading. I could load windows @ 5.2 and play around but it was not stable on burn-in tests.
 
yeap said:
I'm @ 4.8 with hyper threading. I could load windows @ 5.2 and play around but it was not stable on burn-in tests.
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That's a pretty badass system you have there.

Overall, seems like this would be a beast in threaded applications.
 
Anything that had to do with number crunching like wPrime or video rendering like the x264 HD Video benchmark was dominated by the Core i7 990X Extreme.
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Yes it wins in highly multithreaded tests but only by 25% or so. 25% performance increase in exchange for doubling your system cost doesn't seem that attractive to me.

The only reason I would buy a single socket LGA1366 system at this point is if I really needed the memory and/or PCIe lanes and I couldn't stand to wait for LGA2011.
 
In their conclusion, they say that this is likely going to be the fastest processor ever on the 1366/x58 platform, but isn't it supposed to be alive for one more tick (or tock, whatever)?
 
panfist said:
In their conclusion, they say that this is likely going to be the fastest processor ever on the 1366/x58 platform, but isn't it supposed to be alive for one more tick (or tock, whatever)?
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No. Sandybridge-E on LGA2011 is the replacement for this market segment coming later this year.
 
The comment about the 2X price premium for 25% more performance piqued my interest.

I'm a professional software developer. We have a HUGE code base written in C++.

Compiling our code tree can take a few minutes if the changes are small, or more than an hour on my existing system if the changes require a complete rebuild. Waiting for things to compile is like watching paint dry.

My current system has Dual 3.0GHz Xeon "Irwindale" CPUs - the old Netburst (aka Pentium 4) architecture ones, and 6GB of RAM. Yes, it's practically ancient now.

It's FINALLY my time to get a new system. I'm currently submitting a spec with the 990X. I can run "make" to build our tree in Parallel. It does very well on my home box, which is an AMD Phenom 2 X6, so I can in fact take advantage of the extra cores.

I have to upgrade now, or I lose my turn in a large pool of developers waiting in line to upgrade. I can expect to have this system for 3 years at least. Any reason not to pay the price premium for the 6 core Intel 990X for my work box? I'm also asking for 24GB of RAM. I develop CAE software, and we work with really big models.



Jeff
 
jjmcwill, if you're willing to pay an even bigger premium, then look into the evga sr-2 build with two compatible xeons. that's a total of 12 cores and 24 threads, and it can even take non ECC memory.

anyways, back on topic. are these 990x basically the same as 980x with higher default multipliers? because if so, that's pretty useless because stock multipliers don't matter for unlocked chips. so i'm hoping this refresh means that they're actually binned better
 
If you are willing to spend that much I think the SR-2 setup is a much better buy. With the 1155's OCing so well its more or less nothing huge about.
 
Well, there IS a limit to my budget.

The SR-2 motherboard, and a compatible case, adds a LOT of cost. The SR-2 motherboard alone is > $500, which is $300.00 more than a decent Asus P6X58D-E.

I also don't see what the SR-2 gives me over something like the Asus Z8PE-12, except lots of PCI-E slots and overclocking, which I don't need.
 
if you are looking to get decent amount of computing, editing, etc, i think 2600k will kick ass on most of intel chips. OC'd 980x or 990x or on SR2 board will outperform 2600k but 99% of people wouldn't need that for what they want to do.
 
QuiteSufficient - running a Phenom II X6 at home and love it, and we do have a few older Dual Opterons around the building.

Unfortunately, Intel Parallel Studio don't work correctly on non-Intel chips, so I'm kind of stuck with options for the work PC. Darn Intel and their lock-in tactics!
 
QuiteSufficient said:
FYI jjmcwill you can get the Asus dual socket G34 amd mobo and 2 8-core 2.0ghz magnycours opteron processors for about $1000 all in.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...3131643&cm_re=dual_g34-_-13-131-643-_-Product

It is also quite a bit smaller than the sr-2.

That's a true 32ghz of processing power if your software can take advantage of that core count.
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The problem with these 2Ghz magnycours are quite slow at single threaded tasks due to their very low clocks and also low IPC. Remember an i7 G1 core does 20% more per clock than any current AMD core. As a result, even with 16 cores the 6 core / 8 threaded 3.46 GHz i7 990X will can win even in multithreading loads and it will certainly destroy the magnycours chip when you are not using around 16 threads..

If anyone wants to go the AMD route. I would pass on magnycours wait a month or so and get bulldozer. The per core IPC will be higher and also the frequency will be higher. Although for the Opteron line this will come at a cost since the chips will be more competitive.
 
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obvious result is obvious no? 2600k unless you need threads or memory or pci-x and don't want an nf200.
 
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i hate these 990x vs 2600 reviews who the heck is saying the truth? is the 990x faster or is the 2600 faster?
 
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i hate these 990x vs 2600 reviews who the heck is saying the truth? is the 990x faster or is the 2600 faster?
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The answer is they are both faster but faster at different things.. The 2600K will win at less than 6 threads most of the time at stock speed. The 990x will win at most 6 threaded (or more) loads at stock. The 2600K usually overclocks higher than the 990x. And finally (although unrelated to performance) the 990x costs almost 3 times as much as the 2600K and uses more power (idle and load).
 
limitedaccess said:
No. Sandybridge-E on LGA2011 is the replacement for this market segment coming later this year.
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I knew this was going to happen when Intel split their socket form. LGA775 was too awesome for its own good, now every other evolution is going to disappoint me.

I bought 1366 soon after it was released, and I haven't had a reason to upgrade since then. It's both a good and bad thing, I suppose. I was hoping to get a couple more years out of it, but I have a feeling that I am going to itch for something new very soon.
 
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