CPU

Intel's Skulltrail Quad-Core Chip Gets Listed

The processor is already available in volume

By Bogdan Botezatu, Hardware Editor

28th of March 2008, 15:11 GMT

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Intel's chip alone sells for the price of a high-end PC

Intel's highest-end processor QX9775 has been listed on the company's website, which indicates that it has finally reached mass-availability. Targeted especially at the high-end and enthusiast markets, the

quad-core QX9775 is a tweaked server chip that forms the heart of the high-end gaming Skulltrail platform.

The QX9775 comes with 3.2GHz core clock speeds, 12MB of L2 cache, and full support for 1600MHz front side bus. The chip is one of the most expensive processors on the market, and sells for no less than $1,499 in 1,000-tray units.

Announced in mid-February and thoroughly advertised during this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the Skulltrail platform can deliver unmatched performance while playing the most resource-intensive games on the market. In fact, according to the latest reports, the Skulltrail platform is the only offering that allows users to play Crysis at a decent frame rate.

The high-end enthusiast platform is built using a dual-CPU server motherboard, equipped with Intel's 5400 "Seaburg" workstation chipset. The platform can simultaneously use eight processor cores to deliver incredible performance for the most demanding applications.

The two nForce 100 chips seated on the motherboard allows the platform to support Nvidia's SLI (Scalable Link Interface) technology. Users can connect two dual-GPU cards from Nvidia (the GeForce 9800 HX2), or with up to four AMD graphics cards supporting ATI CrossFireX technology.

The processor sits on a less common LGA 771 CPU socket, which is frequently encountered in the Xeon server environment.

The platform is currently available for purchase from top-tier boutique PC vendors such as Alienware or Puget Systems. However, resellers have also started to list the new QX9775 quad-core offering at incredible prices that top at about $1,809. Still, other online retailers sell the 45-nanometer behemoth at prices between $1,600 and $1,700.

TAGS:

Intel | Quad-core | QX9775 | Skulltrail | gaming

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