Welcome to Core i7

Core i7 is almost here, but that will come as a surprise to no one, as potential release dates have been hovering around rumor-ville for months. The official response came last month, during IDF Taipei. There, Intel told the world that we would see Core i7 before the end of November, although no definitive street date was given.

Today's article will serve as a preview into what to expect from Core i7 from a performance perspective. This will become the first of a few different articles that we'll be posting in the weeks to come, which will target more specific areas of Nehalem and its platform. So, consider today's look as a good way to whet your appetite. There'll be more good stuff en route.

i7, or Nehalem as we've been calling it for the past year, becomes part of Intel's "Tock" step, which denotes a brand-new micro-architecture built on the current process node. "Tick" will come next year in the form of Westmere, a 32-nm shrink of Nehalem. If you are not up to speed on everything that the new micro-architecture brings to the table, the next page in this article was made for you.
When Core i7 hits the street, three models will become immediately available. This is a little different than most other Intel launches, which normally see the highest-end part released first. Instead, this launch will also see the release of both the mainstream and mid-range parts. This is a great thing for obvious reasons, so now the only thing to worry about is stock.
Processor Name
Cores
Clock
Cache
QPI/FSB
TDP
1Ku Price
Intel Core i7 Extreme 965
4
3.20GHz
8MB
3200MHz
150W
$999
Intel Core i7 940
4
2.93GHz
8MB
2400MHz
130W
$562
Intel Core i7 920
4
2.66GHz
8MB
2400MHz
130W
$284
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9775
4
3.20GHz
2 x 6MB
1600MHz
150W
$1,499
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770
4
3.20GHz
2 x 6MB
1600MHz
136W
$1,399
Intel Core 2 Extreme Q9650
4
3.00GHz
2 x 6MB
1333MHz
130W
$530
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
4
2.83GHz
2 x 6MB
1333MHz
95W
$316
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450
4
2.66GHz
2 x 6MB
1333MHz
95W
$316
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400
4
2.66GHz
2 x 3MB
1333MHz
95W
$266
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300
4
2.50GHz
2 x 3MB
1333MHz
95W
$266
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200
4
2.33GHz
2 x 2MB
1333MHz
95W
$193
The top-of-the-line i7 processor will be the Extreme 965, at 3.20GHz. As is typical of all newly-launched Intel Extreme editions, this one will be sold at a price of $999 in quantities of 1,000. This means that you can expect a price of closer to $1,100 if you wish to own one. Moving downwards, the 2.93GHz model will sell for $562, while the mainstream 920 will be sold at $284.
Like previous Extreme products, the 965 will be a fully-unlocked chip with a Turbo multiplier capable of hitting 40x, the default being 24x. The 940 and 920 are capped at their stock multipliers (22x and 20x, respectively) and can only be overclocked by increasing the Base Clock, or BCLK for short. That tells us right away that these processors are going to be more of a challenge to overclock than anything from the Core 2 line-up, and we'll get into the specifics of why later.

We won't be covering overclocking to a great extent in this initial article, but stay tuned as we're preparing a dedicated article about it which will be posted at some point this week. Without getting too far off-track, let's take a look at Intel's latest baby, shall we?