Intel i7 available locally
As of today, the world’s fastest consumer CPU range is available in South Africa.
Currently available i7 CPUs
Core i7 – 920 clocked at 2.66 GHz it retails for around R4 700
Core i7 – 940 clocked at 2.93 GHz it retails for around R8 800
Core i7- 965 Extreme Edition clocked at 3.20 GHz, with an unlocked multiplier it retails for R15 900
Intel’s i7, or “Nehalem” became available in the USA last week, and has since proved to be an excellent performer.
i7 features a host of impressive features such as “Quickpath interconnect” (QPI) which is Intel’s answer to AMD’s HyperTransport. The chip also supports an integrated memory controller and L3 cache, similar to what AMD have been offering for years.
The integrated memory controller along with QPI and triple channel DD3 memory has resulted in greatly improved memory bandwidth. This will make a noticeable difference to a wide range of applications.
i7 makes use of the latest 45nm processing standard, which greatly improves power consumption, heat generation and performance.
“Turbo Mode”
Nehalem also features “Turbo Mode” which allows the CPU to monitor and customize how many cores it uses, as well as how fast the CPU needs to be clocked at, depending on the application.
This means that when playing a game that uses only one core, Nehalem will shut down the three non-operative cores and overclock the one being used. This will allow for maximum performance efficiency, as well as controlled power consumption and heat generation.
X58 motherboard platform
Right now, Intel’s X58 chipset is the only platform supporting i7. This is possibly i7’s biggest drawback at the moment. Although X58 motherboards perform exceptionally well, the platform is very expensive, starting at around R3 500. This makes the i7 only viable to an elite few.
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