A little over 16 months ago, Intel launched its new Intel Core i7s to great pomp. On the new LGA1366 platform, these quadcore processors manufactured at 45nm were based on a new architecture known as Nehalem.
At the beginning of 2010, with the Core i3 and i5 Clarkdales, Intel rolled out this Nehalem architecture in dualcore version on the 32nm manufacturing process and on the LGA1156 platform. Now we’re seeing a 32nm processor for the LGA1366 platform, the Core i7-980X, which is compatible with existing X58 motherboards via a simple bios update.6 cores!
In contrast to the 32nm Core i3s and i5s, Intel have retained a single die design for the Core i7-980X, code name Gulftown. Within this die there are:
- 6 cores with Hyperthreading (12 logical cores)
- 12 MB of L3 cache
- 1 three-channel DDR3 controller
- 1 QPI 6.4 GT /s link
In comparison to the first Core i7 LGA1366s, the Bloomfields, the main difference lies in the number of cores, up from 4 to 6, and the L3 cache, up from 8 to 12 MB. All this fits onto a 248 mm² die with no less than 1.17 billion transistors manufactured on the 32nm process! The Gulftown is therefore smaller than the Bloomfield, as the Bloomfield’s 731 million transistors take up 263 mm² on a 45nm process.
The TDP is identical, at 130 watts in load, while energy consumption in idle has been announced at just 12 watts. In terms of clocks, like the Core i7-975 Extreme Edition, the Core i7-980X runs at 3.33 GHz. Turbo is of course included with the CPU running at +266 MHz with one or 2 cores activated and +133 MHz above that, this within TDP limits of course. We’re talking Extreme Edition here and you can customise Turbo Boost on the 980X, both in terms of multipliers and TDP.
Intel has made the most of the move to the 32nm engraving to implement an architectural addition with 6 new SIMD instructions known as AES-NI (Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions). 4 of them have been designed to accelerate encrytion and decryption operations and 2 others accelerate the key extensions procedure.
From a historical point of view, remember that x86 hexacore processors are nothing new. In September 2008, Intel launched the Xeon 7400 "Dunningtons", made up of 6 Penryn cores, 3 L2 caches of 3 MB and an L3 cache of 16 MB. And last June, AMD launched its Opteron Istanbuls: 6 K10 cores, 6 L2 caches of 512 KB and an L3 cache of 6 MB. The Core i7-980X is however the first hexacore that runs on a standard desktop platform, in advance of the Phenom II X6s expected next month.
