Intel has finally launched a six-core processor in the consumer segment. Stay tuned for a full review from us at PC World India. For now, here are the most important things you must know. This processor sits in the i7 series, and is named the Intel Core i7 980X (Extreme Edition). Like the Clarkdale processors launched earlier, this one is also fabricated on a 32nm manufacturing process. It is part of the "Westmere" series of processors, and was codenamed "Gulftown".

Like other high-end members of the Intel Core i7 family, the 980X uses an LGA1366 socket which is found in all motherboards based on the Intel X58 chipset. This is a pleasant surprise for those who might have been dreading a change of motherboards yet again. All we had to do was update the BIOS of our Intel DX58SO motherboard to support the processor. As expected, the 980X supports all of the high-end features - TurboBoost, triple-channel memory, and HyperThreading. For proof, take a look at the image to the left of this page! It is a screenshot we took of Windows task manager showing the 6 cores with HT enabled, resulting in 12 threads - that is right, TWELVE threads can be run simultaneously on this processor! Go ahead, click the image to see it at full resolution and drool over what could be enough computing power for a long, long time.

What do we have here? In effect, Intel seems to be replacing their hitherto top-end Core i7 975 processor with the Core i7 980X. The speed remains the same at 3.33 GHz, though the 980X has six cores instead of the older quad-core. The announced price remains the same as the i7-975 as well, at US$999 - which in India might translate to approximately Rupees 60,000 if you take the import duties, taxes and vendor margins into account. The 980X retains an L2 cache of 12MB, and is rated (TDP) to consume 130W although you'll see it consuming over 200 Watts at full load. One thing worth commenting upon is the awesome (and relatively huge) CPU cooler that Intel ships as part of this processor's retail package. This cooler is branded the Intel DBX-B Thermal Solution - and is good enough to not bother buying an after-market cooler to over-clock. Until now, if you wanted to over-clock you had to buy coolers from third-party brands like ThermalTake and CoolerMaster.

* To read on about performance and the impact of this release upon Intel's competitor AMD, click on page 2 below to go to the next page.