Intel's Core i7 family of processor is currently the chip maker's highest-performing line of central processing units. These chips are designed on a 45nm manufacturing technology and are based on the Nehalem microarchitecture. While being capable of achieving impressive results in all of today's benchmarks and high-end applications, these chips might soon meet their worthy competitor. Also designed by Intel, the upcoming Core i9 family will be based on the 'Gulftown' processor and is slated for release sometime in the first quarter of 2010.
As it is with some highly-anticipated products, it appears that early benchmarks of the upcoming processor have already hit the Internet, thanks to our
colleagues over PCLab.pl. They were able to get their hands on a sample of Intel's upcoming processor and ultimately provide us with the details of their experience with the said CPU. In addition, they went into a detailed preview of what the new chip will provide in terms of performance and technical specifications.
According to them, the 6-core 'Gulftown' Core i9 is something to wait for, as this 32nm-based processor will deliver the performance you'll require for running optimized applications on it. Unfortunately, the extra 2 cores that set the Gulftown apart from other LGA 1366-compatible processors won't do you any good when trying to run gaming applications. Nevertheless, for the server and workstation segments, the upcoming Core i9 CPU, clocked at 2.8GHz, will provide a noticeable performance boost.
On the down side, the Core i9 will most likely become Intel's highest-priced processor, when it is going to be released early next year. In addition, all of the improvements and features that have been integrated into the chip's architecture will come at a cost. According to available details, the new CPU will be rated with a 130W power consumption, by comparison to Core i7, which sports just 95W.
Find us on Google+
