Intel Core i7-990X Extreme: Crazy Fast Got Faster
Performance Summary and Conclusion
Performance Summary: Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be, this portion of our evaluation is going to be rather dry, tasteless or otherwise devoid of flavor. You see, when you bump a processor's clock speed up by about 3.5% or so, the performance increase usually scales linearly. So yeah, the new Core i7-990X is pretty much faster across the board by somewhere in the neighborhood of 3% or so. No rocket science or quantum mechanics is required to understand the numbers. The Core i7-990X is what it is, just a little bit faster than Intel's previous generation flagship desktop chip.
Faster = goodness so we won't complain but if you were looking for something to get all hot and bothered about, you might want to stick to catching more Charlie-awesomeness on the major news networks. Intel is basically taking their fastest chip at the high-end and dropping in a slightly faster chip that supplants the 980X moving forward. The good news is pricing doesn't change for the top-shelf Core i7 Extreme Edition processor...
Of course, Intel's fastest chip for the desktop never comes cheap and it weighs-in at the tradition $999 1K unit price point. And of course, street prices don't necessarily require you to purchase a thousand chips to hit that $999 mark. Regardless, it's a price premium that seemingly only Intel can command these days and we're sure they'll sell a tray or two of these bad boys along the way.
;)
A neat test bench is the sign of a sick mind... no really.
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