intel core i7 | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Fri, 13 Oct 2023 10:30:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png intel core i7 | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 PCSpecialist Fusion 14 (13700H/RTX 3050) Laptop Review https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/laptops/leo-waldock/pcspecialist-fusion-14-13700h-rtx-3050-laptop-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/laptops/leo-waldock/pcspecialist-fusion-14-13700h-rtx-3050-laptop-review/#respond Fri, 13 Oct 2023 10:00:10 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=633922 It's a 14in thin and light laptop with a UK price of £1200 - and Leo takes it to Malaysia!

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KitGuru recently travelled to Malaysia with Intel and we were keen to avoid checking a hefty piece of luggage. PCSpecialist helped keep our bag nice and light by supplying their 14-inch Fusion laptop which weighs a mere 1.3kg (1.9kg all-up when you include the power supply and mains cable). Once we returned home it was time for a review of this interesting – and surprisingly affordable – laptop…

Key Features

  • Class Leading 99Wh Battery
  • World-Class Bezel Design, 91.6% Screen To Body Ratio
  • 16.6mm Magnesium Alloy Design
  • Backlit Keyboard
  • HDMI 2.1 (4K 60Hz)
  • 2.0 MP FHD Windows Hello Webcam
  • Windows 11 Home

Be sure to check out our sponsors store EKWB here

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Win this RTX 3070 + i7-11700K gaming PC worth £2799! (closed) https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/competitions/dominic-moass/win-this-rtx-3070-i7-11700k-gaming-pc-worth-2799/ https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/competitions/dominic-moass/win-this-rtx-3070-i7-11700k-gaming-pc-worth-2799/#respond Mon, 07 Jun 2021 11:00:00 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=515893 It is competition time again - this time, we have teamed up with Punch Technology to give away a high-end gaming PC worth £2799! Featuring hardware from Patriot, Cougar, Palit, Intel and Gigabyte, this PC will be ready for any game you can throw at it.

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Update: This competition is now closed and we can announce the winner… Trevor K! We have reached out to Trevor and he has claimed this prize. Thanks as always to everyone who entered, and stay tuned for more giveaways – including this one where you could win a NAS system worth almost £1000!

It is competition time again – this time, we have teamed up with Punch Technology to give away a high-end gaming PC worth £2799! Featuring hardware from Patriot, Cougar, Palit, Intel and Gigabyte, with an RTX 3070 and i7-11700K, this PC will be ready for any game you can throw at it.

The full specifications for this PC include:

  • CPU: Intel Core i7-11700K
  • Graphics card: Palit GeForce RTX 3070 GamingPro
  • Motherboard: Gigabyte Z590 VISION D Intel Motherboard
  • SSD: Patriot VPN100 1TB M.2
  • Memory: Patriot Viper Steel RGB 32GB DDR4
  • Case: Cougar Gaming Blazer case
  • Cooling: Cougar Gaming AQUA ARGB 360mm AIO-Cooler
  • Power supply: Cougar Gaming GEX 850W 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular PSU

TO WIN:

This competition is being hosted via Gleam, so all you need to do to enter is follow the instructions below. Alternatively, you can head to the competition directly on Gleam.

KitGuru Giveaway

This competition is open to UK residents only. The competition runs from Monday the 24th of May until the 7th of June. Shortly after closing, a winner will be announced on KitGuru.net. In compliance with GDPR, your entry data will be deleted after the competition is closed and your details will not be shared, we respect your privacy.

KitGuru Says: Good luck to everyone entering! We'll be back in a few weeks to announce a winner.

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MSI’s gaming PC in a can is now ready for sale https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/gaming-rig/matthew-wilson/msis-gaming-pc-in-a-can-is-now-ready-for-sale/ https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/gaming-rig/matthew-wilson/msis-gaming-pc-in-a-can-is-now-ready-for-sale/#comments Wed, 16 Mar 2016 21:32:03 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=287285 Back at CES, MSI impressed us with its new gaming PC known as the Vortex, which uses a similar cylinder shaped design to Apple's 2013 Mac Pro. The Vortex successfully crams a lot of power into a small form factor with a unique thermal design that ensures everything stays cool and quiet. The Vortex measures in …

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Back at CES, MSI impressed us with its new gaming PC known as the Vortex, which uses a similar cylinder shaped design to Apple's 2013 Mac Pro. The Vortex successfully crams a lot of power into a small form factor with a unique thermal design that ensures everything stays cool and quiet.

The Vortex measures in at just ten inches tall and there is a lot to like about this design. Inside of the case are several custom PCBs with enough room for SLI GTX 960s, GTX 970s or even GTX 980s alongside a desktop grade Intel Core i7 6700K, DDR4 RAM and a couple of SSDs.

MSI-Vortex-e1452185739345

MSI-Vortex-View-e1452185810937

The 360° Silent Storm Cooling design is set to offer superior cooling performance as well as low noise, running at just 37 dB under full load and as low as 23 dB at idle speeds, meaning this system won’t be a burden on your ears. On the I/O side you will find four USB 3.1 ports, two HDMI ports, two mini DisplayPort connections as well as USB Type-C and Thunderbolt 3. It really is quite an impressive little machine and really shows how far high-performance CPUs and GPUs have come in terms of how much power is required and how much heat they put out.

The final two available configurations come with an Intel Core i7 6700K, 16GB or 32GB of RAM, Super RAID 256GB SSDs with a 1TB HDD and your choice of either SLi GTX 960s or GTX 980s. The GTX 960 model will cost $2200 while the GTX 980 model will set you back $4000.

KitGuru Says: Packing a high-performance gaming PC with two GPUs into that form factor is a true feat of engineering. Sure the systems are expensive, but there is no denying that they are impressive for sure. Hopefully, we will get the opportunity to play with one at some point!

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KitGuru Complete Guide to PC Workstations – Part 3 https://www.kitguru.net/components/james-morris/kitguru-complete-guide-to-pc-workstations-part-3/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/james-morris/kitguru-complete-guide-to-pc-workstations-part-3/#respond Thu, 06 Aug 2015 08:25:14 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=246247 In the second part of this series, we presented some initial tests to illustrate how CPU and graphics can affect different types of performance in a PC workstation. In this third part, we focus down on one particular, industry-standard benchmark that puts a workstation through a range of tests with popular 3D modelling and design …

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In the second part of this series, we presented some initial tests to illustrate how CPU and graphics can affect different types of performance in a PC workstation. In this third part, we focus down on one particular, industry-standard benchmark that puts a workstation through a range of tests with popular 3D modelling and design applications.

SPECviewperf from the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation has been the most popular test of professional 3D graphics for many years. In this article, we put our smorgasbord of CPU and graphics combinations through every single test from SPECviewper 12.02. Some of the results may surprise you.

(see second article HERE).

Complete-Guide-to-Workstations-3-Cards-650
As with our previous article, we will be running our tests on three different workstation specifications using three different Intel processors, with four different NVIDIA Quadro professional 3D accelerators.

Complete-Guide-to-Workstations-PC-Specialist
All of the workstations and cards were kindly supplied by Wakefield-based PC Specialist.

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KitGuru Complete Guide to PC Workstations – Part 2 https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/james-morris/kitguru-complete-guide-to-pc-workstations-part-2/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/james-morris/kitguru-complete-guide-to-pc-workstations-part-2/#comments Fri, 22 May 2015 13:49:47 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=245560 As we explained in our introduction to this series, workstations are considerably more than just powerful PCs. Brute performance may be the basis of a system you intend to use for high-end desktop computing tasks like 3D animation, CAD/CAM, engineering and product design. But there is much more to a workstation than a high-end rig …

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As we explained in our introduction to this series, workstations are considerably more than just powerful PCs. Brute performance may be the basis of a system you intend to use for high-end desktop computing tasks like 3D animation, CAD/CAM, engineering and product design. But there is much more to a workstation than a high-end rig aimed at general work usage or gaming. There are many more variations within the Intel Xeon processor range than Core i7, and whilst the professional graphics cards have a family relationship with their consumer counterparts, the specification of these and driver accreditation make them very different beasts, too.

Read PART 1 first – over HERE.

Over the course of this new series, KitGuru will be guiding you through exactly what to look for in a workstation, depending on the kind of work you would like to perform. We will be using a gruelling suite of benchmarks to separate the wheat from the chaff, and running all of them on three different workstation specifications using three different Intel processors, with four different NVIDIA Quadro professional 3D accelerators.

All of the workstations and cards were kindly supplied by Wakefield-based PC Specialist. In this first article, we introduce the three specifications in detail and provide some initial test results with the Maxon Cinebench R15 benchmark.

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MSI GT80 Titan with mechanical keyboard priced: starts at $3299 https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/anton-shilov/msi-gt80-titan-with-mechanical-keyboard-gets-priced-starts-at-3299/ https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/anton-shilov/msi-gt80-titan-with-mechanical-keyboard-gets-priced-starts-at-3299/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2015 03:52:10 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=228843 When MicroStar International (MSI) introduced its truly monstrous GT80 gaming laptop last year, the company clearly impressed the whole world with a fully-fledged mechanical keyboard as well as with extreme performance such system could deliver. What MSI did not say last November were exact specifications of the system as well as its starting price. At …

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When MicroStar International (MSI) introduced its truly monstrous GT80 gaming laptop last year, the company clearly impressed the whole world with a fully-fledged mechanical keyboard as well as with extreme performance such system could deliver. What MSI did not say last November were exact specifications of the system as well as its starting price. At the CES 2015, MSI finally announced pricing details, without any surprises, the price tag is as extreme as performance.

As reported, the MSI GT80 Titan laptop in its maximum configuration is powered by quad-core Intel Core i7-4980HQ “Haswell” microprocessor as well as two GeForce GTX 980M 8GB in SLI mode. The system is expected to feature up to 24GB of DDR3L memory (up to 32GB possible with 16GB SO-DIMMs), up to four M.2 solid-state drives in RAID 0 mode for maximum performance and a 1TB hard disk drive with 7200rpm spindle speed for maximum amount of storage. The system is also equipped with SteelSeries mechanical keyboard with MX Brown switches, Qualcomm Atheros Killer DoubleShot Pro network solution that supports Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 802.11ас (and gives priority to traffic generated by games), Dynaudio and Creative Sound Blaster Cinema audio system, 1080p webcam and so on. All the modern interfaces like USB 3.0, mini DisplayPort and HDMI are also present. Check out our video preview of the MSI GT80 Titan.

msi_gt_80_gt80_titan

While the system’s internals seem to offer the best what the technology could possibly provide today, MSI could not find a proper ultra-high-definition (4K, 3840*2160) or even a beyond full-high-definition 18.4” display panel. As a consequence, the GT80 Tital will ship with a Samsung’s PLS display with full-HD (1920*1080) resolution, something that is not good enough for an extreme gaming machine nowadays. Over time, MSI can upgrade the monitor of its GT80 Titan, but only when and if appropriate panels become available.

One of the key features of the GT80 Titan is its easy-to-open chassis, something that allows great upgradeability when current top-notch components become outdated. While it is easy to obtain new SO-DIMM memory modules, M.2 solid-state drives or 2.5” hard disk drives and upgrade them at home, it is relatively hard to get graphics processing units in MXM form-factor. To actually enable its customers to upgrade the key component of any gaming PC, MSI teamed up with its system integrator partners – such as iBuyPower, XoticPC, GentechPC, and PowerNotebook in the U.S. – who agreed to upgrade systems eventually. Owners will have to ship their machines to the aforementioned companies and pay for the upgrades, after completing the job, they will ship the machines back to the owners along with old GPUs, reports AnandTech. It remains to be seen how everything will work in other parts of the world, but, at least, it is clear that MSI wants its system to be upgradeable.

Since mechanical keyboard requires a lot of space for switches, the GT80 Titan is 49.1mm thick and weighs 4.7 kilograms. Due to its dimensions, weight and minimal battery life, it is unlikely that the system will ever be used as a laptop to work on the road. Still, it is remarkable how much performance MSI has managed to squeeze into a mobile form-factor.

msi_gt80_titan

While MSI’s GT80 Titan laptop will offer remarkable performance, especially for a PC in clamshell form-factor, its price will also be one of the highest in the industry. The GT80 Titan will be commercially available next week with the starting price of $3299, reports PCPerspective; a version for $3499 includes the faster Core i7-4940MX processor. Default configuration is unknown, but it is unlikely that they sport the best memory, storage and graphics options.

You can see our coverage on a Pre-retail version of this laptop over HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Looks like PC gaming hardware is getting more and more expensive. Last year AMD and Nvidia rolled-out $1500 and $2999 graphics cards, respectively. Looks like MSI wants to test how high it can go with a gaming laptop.

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KitGuru first to get hands-on to the MSI GT80 gaming laptop https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/laptops/andrzej/kitguru-first-to-get-hands-on-to-the-msi-gt80-gaming-laptop/ Sun, 02 Nov 2014 05:02:37 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=219731 While the world will need to wait a while for the actual review, it's fair to say that we have had hands-on with the latest gaming laptop from MSI. At the Beat It 2014 gaming event in Taipei, we managed to convince the guards to remove the protective perspex just for us. From time to …

The post KitGuru first to get hands-on to the MSI GT80 gaming laptop first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
While the world will need to wait a while for the actual review, it's fair to say that we have had hands-on with the latest gaming laptop from MSI. At the Beat It 2014 gaming event in Taipei, we managed to convince the guards to remove the protective perspex just for us.

From time to time, you will have various media around the world claiming to have been the first to get hands-on with a new technology. That's when a picture speaks a thousand words.

At the Beat IT 2014 global gaming finals in Taipei, KitGuru was definitely ahead of the pack when it comes to getting hands on with the world's first GTX980 gaming laptop – complete with mechanical keyboard to boot. And we have the pictures to prove it.

With an 18.4″ screen that promises serious high resolution gaming, the real star of the show – according to MSI – is the built in SteelSeries mechanical keyboard with brown Cherry switches.

Given that the present GT72 has a serious specification, but weighs around 3.9Kg, any increase in weight is likely to indicate ‘something very special' inside.

According to MSI gaming notebook guru, Sam Chern, the GT80 will be closer to 5Kg.

That makes you wonder where the extra ~1Kg has gone. It's hard to say without opening the box with a screwdriver, but our money is on SLi and a wad of SSD technology.

MSI-GT80-Gaming-Laptop-Hands-On-KitGuru

MSI-GT80-Specification-Card-Beat-it-2014-KitGuru

KitGuru says: According to the MSI folks a the event, this baby is scheduled for mass production in January. We'll bring you the full SP once we get a review sample.

Is it overkill to have so much tech in a portable unit?  How much would you lug around?  Let us know over on Facebook.

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Aria list preorders for C2 Intel Core i7 processors https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/simon/aria-list-preorders-for-c2-core-i7-processors/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/simon/aria-list-preorders-for-c2-core-i7-processors/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:38:30 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=77048 Aria are certainly on the ball for all you Intel lovers this week. Today they listed the new C2 stepping version 2011 processors. They are available now for pre-order. ARIA informed us that they will be getting in stock soon, hopefully within the next couple of weeks. Kitguru rate ARIA as one of the best …

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Aria are certainly on the ball for all you Intel lovers this week. Today they listed the new C2 stepping version 2011 processors. They are available now for pre-order.

ARIA informed us that they will be getting in stock soon, hopefully within the next couple of weeks. Kitguru rate ARIA as one of the best UK stores, especially when it comes to customer support.

The 3960X-C2 stepping CPU, turned up in Japan first. Not a shock really, but heading to UK stores very shortly.

ARIA forums are staffed all day and have technical support people at hand to even help you build the system. I have been a member there for years and they really know how to help their customers, thats why ive stuck around so long.

They are listing the 3960X, 3930K at various price points, from £443.99 inc vat.

You can place your pre-order over here now. First come, first served. The OC on these chips is said to be better and Intel has now fixed the VT-d errata present in the C1 stepping, which is good news for workstation clients.

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Intel Core i7 2700k Review https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/zardon/intel-core-i7-2700k-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/zardon/intel-core-i7-2700k-review/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:33:33 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=64834 Intel have had a hell of a year, with little competition offered in the enthusiast sector. AMD's Bulldozer chip looked promising, but sadly fell short of the mark, even with double the physical cores. The Core i7 2500k and 2600k have remained the enthusiast number 1 choice, and today we are looking at the 2600k …

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Intel have had a hell of a year, with little competition offered in the enthusiast sector. AMD's Bulldozer chip looked promising, but sadly fell short of the mark, even with double the physical cores. The Core i7 2500k and 2600k have remained the enthusiast number 1 choice, and today we are looking at the 2600k update, the aptly named 2700k.

We have to admit, it is hard to get excited about the 2700k, because it only offers a modest clock bump, to 3.5ghz. In Turbo mode, the 2700k will hit 3.9ghz. It is still the same four physical and four logical design (Hyper Threading), with 8MB of cache.

The ‘K' series has been a popular choice for the enthusiast user, as these processors are unlocked and extremely easy to overclock. I have three or four of each, and they all hit 4.6ghz-4.8ghz without much of a problem. As with all processors, the overclocking capabilities will vary between steppings.

Intel have kept this launch rather low key, perhaps conserving all their energy for the upcoming X79 launch. We were shipped an engineering sample for review and have spent several days putting it through its paces with a variety of applications.

When it was launched, the price was said to be around £290 inc vat, which was a £40 premium over the 2600k. In the last couple of days however it has dropped to £258 inc vat which certainly sweetens the deal. It seems like a no brainer for only £10 more, right?

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Intel Core i7 2600K and Core i5 2500K review https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/zardon/intel-core-i7-2600k-and-core-i5-2500k-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/zardon/intel-core-i7-2600k-and-core-i5-2500k-review/#comments Mon, 03 Jan 2011 03:00:59 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=28081 The release of Intel's second generation of Core Processors has been a hot topic of conversion among the enthusiast audience now for many months. They have a total of twenty nine new chips reaching retail and today KitGuru will be looking at the i5-2500k and the i7-2600k, both of which have fully unlocked cores. The …

The post Intel Core i7 2600K and Core i5 2500K review first appeared on KitGuru.]]>

The release of Intel's second generation of Core Processors has been a hot topic of conversion among the enthusiast audience now for many months. They have a total of twenty nine new chips reaching retail and today KitGuru will be looking at the i5-2500k and the i7-2600k, both of which have fully unlocked cores.

The new Sandybridge architecture is a ‘tock' in the tick-tock cycle and its based on the 32nm microarchitecture, new highlights include improved energy efficiency and a new set of Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) for enhanced floating point intensive application performance. With claims of over 30% performance improvements compared to the last generation, there certainly seems to be a lot on offer.

Today, our coverage is slightly condensed, due to the fact that at the last moment Intel brought the NDA forward, a time period we had originally planned to use for overclocking and power analysis. We therefore plan to follow this article up in the future with a more indepth look at certain aspects of the technology, as well as an analysis of the overclocking capabilities (we have a few hours before launch time, so we might get something done in another article before then).

New Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Range (LGA 1155):

Core i7 Extreme Edition Processor
Mobile: i7-2920XM

Core i7 Processors
Mobile: i7-2820QM, i7-2720QM, i7-2630QM, 2635QM, i7-2620M, i7-2649M, i7-2629M (aka LV) , i7-2657M, i7-2617M (aka ULV)
Desktop: i7-2600K, i7-2600S, i7-2600

Core i5 Processors
Mobile: i5-2540M, i5-2520M, i5-2410M, i5-2537M (aka ULV)
Desktop: i5-2500K, i5-2500S, i5-2500T, i5-2500, i5-2400, i5-2400S, i5-2390T, i5-2300

Core i3 Processors
Mobile: i3-2310M
Desktop: i3-2120, i3-2100, i3-2100T

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Dell XPS 15 (L501X): Intel Core i7 840QM/2GB nVidia GT435m Review https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/laptops/zardon/dell-xps-15-l501x-intel-core-i7-840qm2gb-nvidia-gt435m-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/laptops/zardon/dell-xps-15-l501x-intel-core-i7-840qm2gb-nvidia-gt435m-review/#comments Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:37:53 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=27737 Dell have been releasing some great mobile products in 2010, and KitGuru has reviewed many of their range, including the fantastic Dell Streak smartphone which earned our coveted ‘must have' award. While Dell release a plethora of machines over the course of a year, one of their latest releases caught our eye … the new …

The post Dell XPS 15 (L501X): Intel Core i7 840QM/2GB nVidia GT435m Review first appeared on KitGuru.]]>

Dell have been releasing some great mobile products in 2010, and KitGuru has reviewed many of their range, including the fantastic Dell Streak smartphone which earned our coveted ‘must have' award.

While Dell release a plethora of machines over the course of a year, one of their latest releases caught our eye … the new XPS 15 (L501X). While the internal hardware is highly specified, we were actually quite intrigued by the moderate size of the chassis.

Dell offered us the high end Intel Core i7 840QM model with 2GB nVidia GT435m for review today, which is modestly priced at £1,319 (after a £149.00 savings offer).

If you have money left over after Christmas this could well be the high powered workhorse and gaming solution you need in 2011. At KitGuru, we will give it a jolly good thrashing with a variety of synthetic and real world testing. We don't waste our money and we don't expect you to either.

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Just one CPU drops £200 with Intel under little pressure to reduce prices https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/faith/just-one-cpu-drops-200-with-intel-under-little-pressure-to-reduce-prices/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/faith/just-one-cpu-drops-200-with-intel-under-little-pressure-to-reduce-prices/#comments Wed, 11 Aug 2010 07:43:20 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=11806 You can always tell how a company is doing by the price moves it makes on its products. All things being equal, the only time you reduce prices is when you (a) have produced too much or (b) not sold enough. Business 101. KitGuru hears more rumours than most. Fortunately we have enough grey hair …

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You can always tell how a company is doing by the price moves it makes on its products. All things being equal, the only time you reduce prices is when you (a) have produced too much or (b) not sold enough. Business 101.

KitGuru hears more rumours than most. Fortunately we have enough grey hair to filter the grit from the gold. Over the past week there have been a lot of rumours in the channel that Intel was on a slash-n-burn mission with a whole range of products. The last time this happened was at the end of the socket 775 processors, with several hundred pounds being sliced off the Q9650 etc.

Sources close to Otellini have indicated that, this time,  there is only one chip for the chop.

Anyone planning to buy a Core i7 950 should expect to see £200 off the street price before the end of this month.

Slash, slash, slash. Pant, pant. There you go. Well and truly cut.

In truth, this cut will affect very few enthusiasts. The 950 is, more than anything, a speed binned Core i7 930. Since most of the 920/930 processors clock like crazy anyway, having a 950 instead is unlikely to add more than a couple of hundred megahertz to your final assembly.

KitGuru says: With AMD's Phenom II X6 1090T selling between £220 and £250, there is nothing in the market competing with the Core i7 950 processor – expect Intel's own chips. With a whopping 34% increase in sales last quarter, Intel must be selling through almost everything it can make. It will be interesting to see IDC's updated market data shortly to see how the Intel/AMD battle is going. With just the one serious price movement from Intel this summer, there just isn't enough pressure being applied by AMD's processor engineering team.

Heated debate below – considered conversation in the KitGuru forums

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Intel Core i7 970 CPU Review https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/zardon/intel-core-i7-970-cpu-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/zardon/intel-core-i7-970-cpu-review/#comments Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:58:28 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=10879 The Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition is the most powerful CPU we have tested at KitGuru and while it still holds the enthusiast market performance crown, not many can afford the £850+ asking price. I have received quite a few emails recently asking if we were going to review the Core i7 970 processor and …

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The Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition is the most powerful CPU we have tested at KitGuru and while it still holds the enthusiast market performance crown, not many can afford the £850+ asking price. I have received quite a few emails recently asking if we were going to review the Core i7 970 processor and this week we have made time to fit it into our busy schedule.

The Intel Core i7 970 is based on the same 6 core architecture as the 980x Extreme Edition and for most people the differences won't mean a great deal. Extreme Edition processors have unlocked multipliers which means they are much sought after via the hardcore overclocking audience. Extreme Editions are also said to be hand picked from the production line so they can tend to overclock better – this isn't guaranteed mind you, just an observation we have made over the years.

While it shares the same 6 core architecture as the more expensive 980X, the i7 970 runs at 3.2ghz which is 133mhz slower. It is built around the same whopping 12MB of shared Level 3 cache on a 32nm manufacturing process with a 240mm2 die and a 1.17 billion transistor chip count.

Processor Codename Manufacturing Process Transistor Count Cores Die Size
Westmere 6C Gulftown 32nm 1.17B 6 240mm2
Nehalem 4C BloomField 45nm 731M 4 263mm2
Nehalem 4C LynnField 45nm 774M 4 295mm2
Westmere 2C Clarkdale 45nm 384M 6 346mm2
AMD Phenom II X6 Thuban 45nm 904M 6 346mm2
AMD Phenom II X4 Deneb 45nm 758M 4 258mm2

The Core i7 970 can turbo up to 3.46ghz if two or fewer cores are active – with more than two active if the thermal limits are within guidelines then the chip will run at 3.33ghz.

With a £90 saving (i7 970 is £680 inc vat, i7 980x is £770 inc vat), you aren't really losing much in the way of ‘out of the box' performance.

Intel Core i7 970
Core Gulftown
Clock Speed 3.2ghz
Cores 6 physical, 6x logical (12)
Cache 1x32kb + 1x32kb (each core), L2: 256kb (each core), L3: 12MB (shared)
Thermal Power 130W
Features SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSSE4, EM64T, EIST, Execute Disable Bit, VT, Hyper-Threading
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Intel Core i7 875k: Worth the wait as we hit 4.8 https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/faith/intel-core-i7-875k-worth-the-wait-as-we-hit-4-8/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/faith/intel-core-i7-875k-worth-the-wait-as-we-hit-4-8/#comments Fri, 28 May 2010 03:45:38 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=3025 Intel’s special ‘K’ edition CPU's were made available to the world’s top technology sites prior to launch and we have been working our samples harder than we’ve ever worked a CPU before. It's been serious business testing the best chip Intel's ever made. And that's what the Core i7 875 ‘Special K' Edition is.  The …

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Intel’s special ‘K’ edition CPU's were made available to the world’s top technology sites prior to launch and we have been working our samples harder than we’ve ever worked a CPU before. It's been serious business testing the best chip Intel's ever made. And that's what the Core i7 875 ‘Special K' Edition is.  The best chip ever.

Today we’re focused on presenting the KitGuru audience with our preliminary findings for Intel’s Core i7 875k and, as the headline tells you, the bottom line is that it held firm at 4.8Ghz on air!

That it ships with a stock clock of 2.93Ghz lets you know just how madly over-engineered these parts are.

Bear in mind that we achieved these clocks with the standard, reference, Intel-manufactured P55 chipset mainboard, where the BIOS had a lot of features – but not every little tweak and trick was exposed the way that us KitGuru’s like it. With a mature board from an aggressive 3rd party, there is a chance that Intel’s Core i7 875 ‘special K’ edition could go even further.

That said, we were feeding in ~1.4v, so be careful as temperatures stabilised around 87 degrees. High, but no cause for panic.

At this stage, we’re going to touch on price points. The whole IT industry has been hit by the ever-strengthening dollar and that’s pushed the price of the Core i7 875 much higher than Intel would have wanted. We’re still expecting a UK street price just over £275, but that could change.

You also need to bear in mind that this processor has been designed around a dual-channel memory system – so the price for mainboard and Ram will be lower than a comparable Core i7 930 system.

Preamble over. Let’s get down to the only thing that matters.

Enthusiasts feel the need. The need for speed. And the 875 delivers speed in BIG buckets.

Our bench test setup used the Austrian sandwich cooler from Noctua as well as some specially selected memory from Crucial’s Ballistics team (lovely Tracer modules). We began slowly and spent a lot of time feeling our way through the processor, its likes/dislikes as far as voltages go and we spent a lot of time making sure the cooling solution was optimised, in terms of clamping pressure, air flow and TIM.

At stock clocks, the 875 punches at exactly the level you would expect for a quad core processor at 2.93Ghz. Then the fun started. In the coming days, we will hand hold you through the detail of our work with the processor, but – for now – let’s cheat completely and skip ahead to the final ‘OC chapter' in the book.

On air, running solid benchmarks for hours, KitGuru had the Intel Core i5-875 Special ‘K’ Edition breezing along at 4.8Ghz.

We'll say that again. FOUR POINT EIGHT GIGAHURTZ.  H-U-R-T-Z.

We’ve spoken with some of the UK’s top system builders and cross-referenced our results. They are telling us that, in the right environment, they get comparable scores to us – but if they were shipping across the country and needed to guarantee the system for 12 months, then they would opt for a shade under 4.2Ghz.

Honestly, With the Intel Core i7 875 running solidly at 4.8Ghz, that is a monster overclock of around 64%.

On air!

Does that impact performance?  Oh yes. Yes indeed.

With applications like Cinebench 11.5, the scores were shown to be absolutely in line with the clock speed:-

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the decent, 6GB, Core i7 930 system against the kind of 4Gb Core i5 875 Special ‘K’ Edition you’d need to achieve up tp 4.8Ghz.

Core i7 930 Rig
Core i7 875 Rig
Core i7
£235
£275
Mainboard
£220
£155
(6gb/4gb)
£150
£100
Total
£605
£530

Based on our preliminary performance figures and the street price shown, Intel has a beast and a half on its hands with the Core i7 875k ‘Special K' Edition.

KitGuru says: We love it. Every day of the week and three times on a Sunday. It's the best chip Intel has ever produced. To start with, the Intel BIOS felt weird and cramped. But, after days coaxing the settings, we got the reaction we were looking for. There’s every chance that we’ll be able to get it a smidgen higher than 4.8GHz with time – and certainly with liquid cooling.   But remember true believers: Salivating is NOT liquid cooling!

Please discuss in our forums over here or just leave a quick comment below!

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