Core i7 Extreme Vs Core 2 Quad Extreme

[Yewen]

Some interesting food for thought for you guys on what gains Core i7 has actually made.

Two systems both with clock speeds of 3.30GHz, one with a Core i7 Extreme 965 coupled with 6GB the other a Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9650 with 8GB.

Both systems used 3x Nvidia GTX 280 graphics cards on benchmarks where the CPU should be the limiting factor.

Have a look at these babies:

QX9650 @ 3.30GHz
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i7 965 @ 3.30GHz
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A good little comparisson, thought it may be interesting to see what a decent clocked Core 2 rig scores with similar hardware and what it would take to match the i7 3.30GHz...

QX9650 @ 4.20GHz
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Even at 4.20GHz the Core 2 is still bottlenecking the graphics cards in Tri-Sli. The Core i7 gear although pricey certainly has Core 2 beaten.

From the results above to get a similar GPU score in Vantage with Core 2 as the i7 rig the Core 2 would have to be clocked at 5.10GHz or beyond.

 

[Yewen]

quite impressive, have you done much overclocking with the I7? 3.3 seems like a fairly low clock speed yet it still looks a great score. And have you done realy life tests with it eg. gaming/Photoshop ect.

We have had them for months, the chip will do 4.00GHz on air when pushed.

The idea of this chip was to show what the 920 can do when clocked as these are hitting above 3.30GHz day in day out.

Lot of chip for the money depending on how you look at it. Have some Devil May Cry 4 benchmarks too:

965 i7 @ 3.30GHz
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QX9650 @ 4.20GHz
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Same sort of results with DMC4 benchmark.
1920x1200 - 16xQ - Vsync off - 60FPS Disable - All on Super High (Maximum Settings)

Keep in mind that the 3.30GHz i7 chip I have here can do 3.93GHz quite easily on a Akasa Nero cooler and 4.00GHz when the volts are really flying.