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Yes, it is finally here...well, almost. Although we have been given a green light to tease you with a review, actual availability of hexa- or six-core Core i7-980X processors is still a few weeks away. Nevertheless, now that the review embargo has ended - and it was another painful embargo for us since Gulftown and the Westmere-EP processors have been freely available in the enthusiast community (or eBay) for months - we can finally reveal (or least confirm) everything you have wanted to know about the soon to be available Core i7-980X Extreme Edition processor, codenamed Gulftown. Although many had earlier suspected that Gulftown would sport the Core i9 moniker to distinguish it from the quad-core parts, Intel have stuck to the tried & true Core i7 brand. Being a Core i7 model, this processor supports both Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost, which are the two features that Intel is using to differentiate between their Core i3/i5/i7 product lines. As we all knew it would be, this is a Socket LGA1366 processor and it will work on any Intel X58-based motherboard. At worst, a new BIOS will be needed on some motherboards, but if you have updated your BIOS anytime in the last 3-4 months chances are that you are ready to go with regard to Gulftown support. The condensed specifics of the Core i7-980X are as follows and they read like a litany of must-haves for enthusiasts: a 32nm manufacturing process, fully unlocked multipliers, 3.33Ghz core clock, Turbo Boost up to 3.6Ghz, six cores plus Hyper-Threading, 12MB of L3 cache, triple-channel DDR3-1066 memory interface, 130W TDP, and a $999 USD price tag. The retail Core i7-980X package will also come with an impressive new stock CPU cooler; the DBX-B Thermal Solution. This chip isn't targeted at your average computer user, not even your average enthusiast, who can barely take full advantage of the current quad-core/eight-threaded Core i7's potential. With six cores and twelve threads this is part for those who take their multi-tasking or benchmarking seriously. To make full use of this processor's capabilities you need to have software that supports more than eight threads, and they are few and far between right now. As you will see in the coming pages, Gulftown will particularly appeal to those who are obsessed with multi-threading performance but are also very conscious about power consumption, Folding@home -bigadv crunchers come to mind. Even if you can't fathom a thousand dollar piece of hardware in your future this is still a review worth reading since Gulftown models will trickle down to reasonable price points in due time.
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Lately, there is no hiding the fact that ATI’s latest releases are hogging the limelight and have been able to capture the public’s attention with a near-perfect mix of performance, efficiency and pricing. NVIDIA does have competing DX11 cards on the way but until that time, their offerings are few and far between. There are still a few GTX 260s and GTX 285s bumming around but the only area where there is still any meaningful NVIDIA presence is in the mid to low range market with the GTS 250, GT 240, GT 220 and GT 210 series of cards. While these products may not represent the best of the best at first glance, they still hold their own and with some recent price cuts, have become much more appealing for the budget gamers out there. The release of the GT 240 went virtually unnoticed but it is now aimed right at the one market segment where ATI’s products are showing their vulnerable underbelly. The 5000-series hit the nail straight on the head in every price category over $150 but the offerings in the sub-$100 market are lacking. This provides the perfect opportunity for NVIDIA to whittle away at some of ATI’s convincing lead while testing out a 40nm manufacturing process that has been anything but consistent. Beyond testing the 40nm manufacturing process, NVIDIA’s plan for the GT 240 was to offer gamers a card that would allow them to play games at reasonable settings while offering a giant leap in efficiency over past cards. Granted, DX11 is quite obviously the next big thing but for the vast majority of the GT 240’s life cycle, this new API will only be used in a few games. We have also seen in the not too distant past that sub-$100 cards just don’t provide the horsepower needed to enable DX11 features anyways. One way or another, NVIDIA aimed the GT 240 to replace the 9600 GT while being the first card in the green camp to offer DX10.1 functionality. Budget gaming superiority isn’t the only target of the GT 240. It also does away with the somewhat archaic S/PDIF connector on G92-series cards and incorporates all audio pass-through onto the PCI-E interface which in addition to HDMI 1.3a compatibility and PureVideo HD could make it an excellent HTPC card. NVIDIA also has their CUDA technology that will allow the GT 240 to perform GPU compute tasks such as PhysX processing and video transcoding on a level unseen by even the fastest CPUs around. In this review we will be looking at six GT 240 cards from four different manufacturers and while you won’t see any highly overclocked cards among the bunch, all of them are unique in some way or another. EVGA is represented by their Superclocked version that uses higher than reference clock speeds, MSI sent in their MD512/D5 OC Edition that has an interesting looking heatsink in addition to receiving an overclock. Meanwhile, Gigabyte’s two cards come from two totally different price ranges: the stock 512MB GDDR5 card and a slightly higher clocked 1GB DDR3 product that uses a unique heatsink design. Finally there are Sparkle’s two competitors and like the Gigabyte cards they represent both the 512MB and 1GB models. All in all, this combination of cards should give you a pretty accurate cross section of today’s GT 240 market and how these cards stand in relation to the competition.
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ASUS and hard-core enthusiasts have long been partners in crime and with the Republic of Gamers series of boards; ASUS has attacked this lucrative nice market with both guns blazing. Names like Rampage and Maximus have come to the forefront of the motherboard world to compete with the likes of EVGA’s ultra high-end Classified boards and have done quite well. However, while the boards may be marketed towards “gamers”, they are also of particular interest to overclockers who want the most capable and tweakable products available. As you probably already know, the ASUS RoG series is marketed as the best of the best while offering a bevy of features and has a price to match. Naturally, once Intel released their slightly more value-oriented P55 lineup of motherboards, manufacturers were quick to jump on the bandwagon. In short order the market saw motherboards which spanned nearly every price category from $130 mATX value boards to $300 bruisers; there was something to fit everyone’s budget. During this flurry of announcements, we previewed the Maximus III Formula which (at the time) was one of the most expensive P55 boards prior to the introduction of the EVGA P55 Classified. Now things are being taken to the next level as ASUS is set to release their exclusive Maximus III Extreme. With the Maximus III Extreme ASUS is looking to build upon the lessons they learned from feedback received throughout the BIOS and board development of the Formula edition and add new features and capabilities. This is a tall order considering the competition already has some impressive sharks circling in the guise of Gigabyte’s UD6 and forthcoming UD7 boards along with MSI’s Big Bang products and of course EVGA’s Classified series. Nonetheless, ASUS is not only offering a laundry list of features here but rather a board and BIOS which promises to take Lynnfield and Clarkdale chips to unheard of speeds…when in the hands of the right people. In this preview we will be taking an in-depth look at the Maximus III Extreme’s features since our review is still some time off. Basically, ASUS has several interesting and unique features here and we believe some of them are forward-looking enough that they should be put under the microscope. While a $300+ P55 board may seem counter intuitive for a platform that Intel envisioned as retailing for less than an X58-based one, there are many out there who are more than happy to pay the price premium for the looks and features of these boards provide. To view the Complete review click here
