Intel Core i7 920

While the Core i7 965 Extreme was all about power and performance, here comes another mean performer with a lesser price tag

Thursday, January 01, 2009

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In the previous issue, we tested and reviewed the Intel core i7 965 Extreme processor, which was based on the new Nehalem microarchitecture, managed to amaze us with its unbelievable performance. The significant design changes in the processor and the new chipset started to make more sense when it destroyed one of the best available predecessors in one test after the other. The icing on the cake was that it consumed lesser power. So, true to Intel's claims, it can be safely said that the Core i7 965 Extreme is indeed the most powerful desktop processor in production. Though it is impossible to point out a flaw, the only issue that might work against the i7 965 is its steep price. A whooping $999! So for this issue, we got a more modestly priced Core i7 920, another quad core CPU of the same family at a lower clock speed of 2.66 GHz and tested its performance. For comparison, we kept i7 920 against the same Core 2 Quad processor that was battered by the Core i7 Extreme edition last month. The same tests were run on the new processor and for those who missed the last month's battle, we're refreshing you with scores of the i7 965.

Test bed
The bigger chip was run on the Intel Extreme DX58SO motherboard with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, Sapphire Radeon 1950 XTX graphics card and 400 GB HDD at 7200 rpm spindle speed. A similar setup was used to run 2.66 GHz Core 2 Quad 6700 processor. In both cases, 32 bit Windows Vista Ultimate edition was used.

1. PC Mark05: To test the processor's performance, a set of CPU tests were chosen. The score achieved by the older Core 2 Quad was a decent 6415, but when the Core i7 920 was made to execute the same set of tests, its result was much higher. It managed to achieve a score of 9279. That's a straight 50 percent better than the older CPU!
2. POV Ray: This benchmark software checks the system performance by rendering images. The score achieved in this case is the render average in PPS and the simple 'higher the better' rule applies. When attempted by the older Core 2 Quad, the result achieved was a render average of 45010 PPS in a total of 4.37 seconds. The new i7 920 on the other hand surpassed it by 79137 PPS in just 2.48 seconds. Again a significant difference in performance.
3. CineBench R10: The new Core i7 920 performed brilliantly again as compared to the older processor. While using one CPU, the score it achieved was 3214 and when using all four, it was a massive 13205. The Core 2 Quad in the meanwhile, scored only 2163 and 6375 respectively.

Virtualization
Similar to the Core i7 965 Extreme, the i7 920 was also tested for desktop virtualization. Three virtual PCs were made to run Windows Vista and execute PC Mark 05 simultaneously on them. The average score obtained by the Core i7 920 was 2218 as against 1288 obtained by Core 2 Quad. Therefore the performance of the new CPU in terms of virtualization is also almost double.

Bottomline: The same brilliant performance as from Core i7 965 but at a much affordable price.

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