Product Details

With faster, intelligent, multi-core technology that applies processing power where it's needed most, new Intel® Core™ i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in PC performance. They are the best desktop processor family on the planet.

You'll multitask applications faster and unleash incredible digital media creation. And you'll experience maximum performance for everything you do, thanks to the combination of Intel® Turbo Boost technology and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology (Intel® HT technology), which maximizes performance to match your workload.




  • 3.06 GHz, 2.93 GHz, and 2.66 GHz core speed
  • 8 processing threads with Intel® HT technology
  • 8 MB of Intel® Smart Cache
  • 3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory








For quite some time now, Intel has been the undisputed leader when it comes to laptop CPU performance. This advantage comes from the fact that Intel has successfully scaled its desktop processor technology for use in the mobile platform. That trend continues with the latest mobile processor platform being unleashed today from Intel: the "Clarksfield"-based Core i7 Mobile processor family and the new PM55 Express Chipset.





This marks the first time that the "Nehalem" Core i7 microarchitecture has been ported over to the mobile side. The fact that the mobile version of Nehalem makes its debut only two weeks following the launch of Intel's Core i5 ("Lynnfield") mainstream desktop CPU and P55 Express chipset is no coincidence. As it turns out, the Core i7 Mobile processor die is identical to the desktop version, but uses mobile packaging--as far as the microarchitecture is concerned, Clarksfield and Lynnfield are essentially the same thing. The lower power demands of Lynnfield (as opposed to the original Nehalem architecture) are in large part what enable it to also be used in notebooks.

What this means is that Core i7 Mobile-based notebooks will see a number of the same benefits that Core i7 desktops already have, such as integrating the memory controller into the processor die, using a three-level cache hierarchy, utilizing Hyper-Threading technology, and taking advantage of Intel Turbo Boost Technology. What Lynnfield/Clarksfield adds to the equation is on-die PCI Express connectivity, getting rid of the Northbridge chip, and improving the Intel Turbo Boost Technology (from the original Nehalem architecture). Additionally, whereas only the previous Intel Core 2 mobile ("Penryn") microarchitecture had primarily dual-core offerings, all of the Core i7 Mobile solutions are quad cores. The three Penryn-based quad-core mobile processors (the 2.53GHz Core 2 Extreme QX9300, 2.26GHz Core 2 Quad Mobile Q9100, and 2.0GHz Core 2 Quad Mobile Q9000) are made from two dual-core chips merged together in a single CPU package, while Clarksfield uses a single-chip (monolithic) design.




Faster memory access
 
The reason for this platform shift has to do in part with a fundamental design change in Intel's CPU architecture. As has long been rumored, Intel has finally adopted an integrated memory controller into its Core i7 CPUs. What this means is that instead of the CPU communicating with a separate controller on the motherboard before it can talk to the system memory, Core i7 can save a step, and essentially receive data from the system RAM directly.

AMD adopted this integrated controller strategy in the early days of its Athlon dual-core processors, and it was one of the factors that led them to dominate the competing Intel Pentium D CPUs of that generation. Through superior design since then, Intel has regained its performance lead over AMD, and we suspect that by adding the on-chip memory controller to Core i7, Intel has only made it more difficult for AMD to find a design advantage moving forward.

A potential complication here is that the new memory controller has three channels to the RAM. That means that unlike most desktop setups, which involve two or four memory sticks, Core i7 systems will want memory sticks in multiples of three. Hence why Intel shipped our test system with only 3GB of RAM (we got creative with a 2x1GB, 1x2GB RAM configuration, for 4GB total for testing), and why in high-end PCs that use the new X58 platform, 3GB, 6GB, and 12GB configurations will be common. X58 will also only support DDR3 RAM, whose prices have thankfully come down over the past year.





Four cores, sometimes eight

If you've followed Intel's chips designs over the years, the term "Hyperthreading" shouldn't be unfamiliar. This technology lets Intel simulate more processing threads on top of its old dual-core Pentium 4 chips. It abandoned that strategy with the Core 2 family, but Intel has resurrected it with Core i7, and it's why you'll see eight processing threads when you bring up Windows' system performance screen. Few day-to-day programs will benefit from Hyperthreading, and it's more of a situational benefit for processing reliability and the scant few applications that can actually support so many threads. Core i7 will eventually hit eight native cores on a single CPU, or 16 processing streams with Hyperthreading, but Intel has not made it clear when that will happen. It may be worth the wait, if you know you'll need that much parallelism, but few consumers will.










Multigraphics agnostic

Another significant change with the Core i7/X58 landscape had to do with graphics cards. Intel's Skulltrail platform of last year supported both standards as well, but the specialized CPUs that made the board worthwhile were prohibitively expensive. With the X58 chipset, yes, it comes on an expensive motherboard, but you can purchase a Core i7 chip to go with it for less than $300. The Core 2 Extreme QX9775 Skulltrail CPU started at $1,500. Gamers who stay current with graphics cards should be especially happy with this flexibility, as changing 3D card vendors will no longer require a wholesale system rebuild.