14 DAY TRIAL // Intel's Skulltrail platform is the only quad-core architecture on the market for regular users and performance enthusiasts. The new platform is especially dedicated to the gaming sector and promise to be quite a performance leap. The two CPU / 8 core overclockable platform comes with x16 PCI-Express slots support to accommodate three of Nvidia's latest G80 series of video cards in a triple SLI link.
Intel has demonstrated their new rocket platform during the Consumer Electronics Show. The "demonstration leader" was Intel's tech legend, Francois Piednoel, that showed off the new platform inside an Alienware Ninja gaming rig. The demonstration consisted of several benchmarks, but the most relevant episode was the "live" test. Piednoel showed the audience the Skulltrail running Microsoft's Flight Simulator, one of the few games currently on the market to be optimized for 8-core environments.
Intel's Skulltrail platform is built using an Intel server-class motherboard dedicated to the enthusiast market. The most important aspect of this motherboard is that it can host two 45-nanometer quad-core processors, that would result in an eight-core "engine". Moreover, the motherboard features Nvidia's latest chips that allow SLI configurations as well.
The motherboard features four PCI Express x16 slots and dual standard PCI slots, so there's plenty of room for Nvidia's latest G80 series of graphics cards. Both processors are accommodated on LGA771 Xeon CPU sockets.
As for the gaming rig, it was made of two 45 nanometer quad-core processors overclocked to a sky-rocket speed of 4 GHz. Both CPU's were cooled by a water-cooling solution. During the demonstration, Piednoel managed to run CineBench in six seconds flat and Cinebench 10 in about 35 seconds.
The Consumer Electronics Show demonstration ensured us once again that Intel's platform and CPUs are very overclockable. Of course, you may complain about the fact that the water-cooling solution's price adds up to the system, which is not true. Piednoel managed to show an identically built system, running at 4GHz, but air-cooled. This system used a pair of Thermalright air coolers on the processors.