Test Methodology
The Intel Core i7 990X is essentially a higher-clocked 980X, so we won't dwell on architecture. You can read more about the inner workings of 32nm Westmere chips in a previous article, but for today's review we'll dive right into benchmarks by comparing the 990X with the dozen alternatives detailed in the table below.
Comparison CPUs |
||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i7 990X EE | Core i7 980X EE | Core i7 970 | Core i7 950 | Core i7 2600K | Core i5 2500K | Core i7 870 | Core i5 750 | Core i5 650 | Phenom II X6 1100T BE | Phenom II X6 1055T | Phenom II X4 975 BE | Athlon II X4 645 | ||
| UK Price | £780 | £760 | £440 | £190 | £240 | £165 | £220 | £150 | £140 | £170 | £125 | £145 | £75 | |
| Frequency | 3.46GHz | 3.33GHz | 3.20GHz | 3.06GHz | 3.40GHz | 3.30GHz | 2.93GHz | 2.66GHz | 3.20GHz | 3.30GHz | 2.80GHz | 3.60GHz | 3.10GHz | |
| Max turbo | 3.73GHz | 3.60GHz | 3.46GHz | 3.33GHz | 3.80GHz | 3.70GHz | 3.60GHz | 3.20GHz | 3.46GHz | 3.70GHz | 3.30GHz | N/A | N/A | |
| L2 Cache | 1.5MB | 1.5MB | 1.5MB | 1MB | 1MB | 1MB | 1MB | 1MB | 0.5MB | 3MB | 3MB | 2MB | 2MB | |
| L3 Cache | 12MB | 12MB | 12MB | 8MB | 8MB | 6MB | 8MB | 8MB | 4MB | 6MB | 6MB | 6MB | N/A | |
| Cores / threads | 6/12 | 6/12 | 6/12 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/4 | 4/8 | 4/4 | 2/4 | 6/6 | 6/6 | 4/4 | 4/4 | |
| Process | 32nm | 32nm | 32nm | 45nm | 32nm | 32nm | 45nm | 45nm | 32nm | 45nm | 45nm | 45nm | 45nm | |
| Socket | LGA1366 | LGA1366 | LGA1366 | LGA1366 | LGA1155 | LGA1155 | LGA1156 | LGA1156 | LGA1156 | AM3 | AM3 | AM3 | AM3 | |
| TDP | 130W | 130W | 130W | 130W | 95W | 95W | 95W | 95W | 73W | 125W | 95W | 125W | 95W | |
Test Rig Specification |
||||||||||||||
| Motherboard | ASUS P6X58D Premium (X58) | ASUS P8P67 Deluxe (P67) | ASUS P7P55D (P55) | Gigabyte H57M (H57) | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula (890FX) | |||||||||
| Memory | 6GB (3 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3 | 4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3 | 4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3 | |||||||||||
| Memory speed | 9-9-9-24 2T @ DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24 2T @ DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24 2T @ DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24 2T @ DDR3 1,600 | ||||||||||
| Graphics card | AMD Radeon HD 6950 (2,048MB) | |||||||||||||
| Disk drive | Corsair Nova V128 SSD | |||||||||||||
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) | |||||||||||||
| PSU | Corsair HX1000W | |||||||||||||
Benchmarks |
|---|
| AIDA64 v1.50.1200 memory bandwidth and L3 latency HEXUS.PiFast to 10m places iTunes 10.1 MP3 encoding CINEBENCH R11.5 multi-CPU, 64-bit wPrime v2.04 CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 6 TrueCrypt 7.0a encryption benchmark 7zip v9.20 built-in file-compression benchmark 3DMark Vantage b1.2.0 overall score - performance setting Call of Duty: Black Ops- 1,280x768 low quality and 1,680x1,050 high quality StarCraft II - 1,280x800 low quality and 1,680x1,050 medium quality Power-consumption tests - idle and load (wPrime) Overclocking - Intel Core i7 990X |
