The PC Report

Intel has quietly added two new processors to their desktop line-up. The Core i5-680 is the fastest Clarkdale processor yet, coming loaded with two cores running at 3.6 GHz each which can be scaled up to 3.86 GHz thanks to Turbo Boost technology. The 32nm chip comes with 4 MB of L3 cache, Hyper-Threading support and a 733 MHz integrated graphics core. The Pentium E5500 is also joining the ranks today for those with an LGA 775 socket – it comes with a 45nm, 2.8 GHz dual-core CPU with 2 MB of cache and no HT or Turbo Boost.

Also, news is coming to us today of a second Intel processor to join the Gulftown six-core line-up. The Intel Core i7-970 will come with a 3.2 GHz core clock (slower than the i7-980X’s 3.33 GHz clock), presumably with Turbo Boost and the same 12 MB of L3 cache and will be compatible with LGA 1366 sockets. Prices for the Core i5-680 will start at US$294, the E5500 will cost you around US$75 and when the i7-970 gets released in the coming weeks it should retail for cheaper than the existing Core i7-980X.

Intel’s latest and most powerful processor has been popping up in the news over the past few months, but now it has been finally released and reviewed. The Intel Core i7-908X is Intel’s first six-core desktop processor released into their Nehalem line-up. Codenamed “Gulftown“, the i7-980X is built on the same 32nm process as the Arrandale/Clarkdale desktop CPUs and fits nicely into LGA 1366 motherboards powered by the X58 chipset with a simple BIOS update.

The 6-core beast comes with 1.17 billion transistors but thanks to the 32nm process is smaller than all the previous quad-core Nehalems. It comes loaded at 3.33GHz with a 3.60 GHz Turbo Boost, 12MB of L3 cache, 6 cores and 12 threads and a 130W TDP – the same as the other Bloomfield i7s. The chip also comes in the package with a new tower cooler that is bigger and presumably better than the cooler that came with previous i7s.

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New reports are coming through about when both AMD and Intel will release their new six-core processors into their ranges. According to Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers the Intel six-core “Gulftown” CPUs, starting with the Core i7-980X, will be coming out at the end of March this year and priced at greater than US$1,000.

AMD will be releasing their six-core “Thuban” processors sometime in May of 2010. The CPUs will go under the Phenom II X6 1000T series, and will start with the Phenom II X6 1075T, 1055T and 1035T and will all be based off the 45nm process. A quad-core Phenom II X4 960T will also be released along with the six-core CPUs, and the new 890FX and 890GX chipsets will come a month before.

Not so long ago we saw a preview of the new hexacore Gulftown processor, which we figured would be released into a new line-up of processors branded as Intel’s Core i9 series, but alas, we were wrong. According to the latest leaked slide from Intel, the 6-core beast will be joining the Core i7 range as the Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition (codenamed Gulftown).

The leaked slide also shows us some more information about the processor: it will be made using the 32nm Westmere process, have 12MB of Intel Smart Cache (L3 Cache) and a TDP of 130W. Of course, as it’s joining the other i7-9xx CPUs it will fit into the LGA 1366 socket and will be compatible with the Intel X58 chipset through a BIOS update. The processing speed is said to be around 3.33GHz on all 6 cores and 12 threads, similar to the preview we saw before.

With this revelation, we are now left wondering what will be put into the (assumed) Core i9 line-up that we have seen on several occasions in various roadmaps. No doubt more details of this chip will follow soon, as the release date is planted as Q1 2010.