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Guide to the latest desktop processors

Need for speed: How fast is fast?

With Intel's Core i7 holding the current processor speed record, AMD is following suit with its own quad-core 45-nanometer processors to be available next year. But until the new AMD processors hit the shelves commercially, there isn't a direct comparison to be made. In the meantime, Intel has released benchmark results for the Core i7 which can give an idea of what kind of processor speed to expect today.

The making of a speed demon
The Intel Core i7 processor claims to hold the title of the "highest performing processor on the planet", but how well does it live up to its reputation?

Officially launched on November 17, 2008, the Core i7 processors were talked about and discussed for months before they were made available to the market. The successor to the Intel Core 2 family, the Core i7 family consists of three quad-core x86-64 processor models--the Core i7-920, Core i7-940 and Core i7-965 Extreme Edition. There are server and mobile product versions to be announced and released later.

The Core i7 processors help speed up popular activities such as video editing, immersive games and other Internet and computer activities by as much as 40 percent, according to Intel. All this without increasing power consumption, and hence making them "green" and more efficient to run.

Technologies at work:

-Intel Hyper-Threading: Using Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, the Core i7 processors are able to run twice the number of threads per core, which results in better performance for applications which makes use of multiple threads to compute.
-Improved memory performance: Core i7 processors all make use of an integrated memory controller which translates into faster access time to memory and less lag time for requests. Applications can feed more data to the processor and results will be generated much more quickly.
-Turbo Boost: This automatically adjusts the clock speed of one or more of the four individual processing cores for single- and multi-threaded applications to boost performance, without increasing power consumption.
-New X58 chipset: Intel's Core i7 has enough architecture changes to require the new X58 chipset. Unfortunately, it will appear in only very high-end boards, which keeps prices relatively high.

How well does the Intel Core i7 perform?
Here's what CNET Labs found out. Using the SPECint_rate_base2006 benchmark tests, the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition holds a new world record of 117, the first time ever for any single processor to exceed a score of 100 points. The SPECint_base_rate2006 benchmark test is used by the computing industry to measure performance of a computer. This is achieved by running multiple copies of the benchmark simultaneously with the number of copies set to the number of logical hardware cores seen by the operating system. Simply put, the test sets a consistent and reliable gauge on which to measure processor performance.

Intel believes it has the fastest processor on the planet, speeding up video editing, immersive games and other popular Internet and computer activities by up to 40 percent without increasing power consumption.

To put the performance of the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition in perspective, CNET Labs compared it with the year-old Core 2 Extreme QX9650. The Core i7 boasts a faster clock speed and an L3 cache shared by the four cores that's four times larger than that of the older chip. With the integrated RAM controller on Core i7 replacing the need for a front side bus, the platforms are quite different from each other, but the performance results (click here) speak for themselves.

In summary: The Core i7 chip is faster than the QX9650 on every test, but the CineBench multicore test results were especially impressive where Intel's new CPU demonstrated a considerable performance advantage. This type of computing power would be greatly attractive to hardcore gamers and digital media editors.

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