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Intel's six-core Gulftown processor benchmarked months early
Clocked at 2800MHz, the Core i9 beat the competition in a majority of the tests -- especially those optimized for multi-core chips -- but Gulftown slips behind its predecessors in many benchmarks. Intel's upcoming hexa-core CPU takes the cake when it comes to tasks like video encoding, but those two additional cores make little to no real-world difference in most games and other standard use.
PCLab found that the Core i9 performed rather well in terms of power usage, consuming far less than the Core i7 during maximum load, and only a hair more when idle. It ran cooler than the competing CPUs, with an idle temperature of 30C and 42C under load, which compares to the Core i7 at 32C and 49C. The chip also overclocked well, reaching a core clock frequency beyond 4.3GHz.
Realize that these results could change, as the tested product was only an early engineering sample. The Core i9 is expected to launch at some point during the first quarter of next year, and we will likely write review of our own when the time comes.
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User Comments (42)
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lupinnktp
on November 25, 2009 10:44 AM |
6 cores? is that a bit too much in the time when most of applications can't ultilise more than 2 core? i think it's nice and all having die-shrinks and architecture to reduce heat and such, but more emphasize should be given in bumping clock speed, at least until there is a shifts in the way softwares are made to ultisie more processing cores |
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Doctor_hv
on November 25, 2009 11:59 AM |
well, the technology has to advance through time, and programmers and users alike have to follow the trends. but I have a two year old E8400 Core2duo processor and it serves my needs excellently, with the help of 8800GT it still pushes the new games to the max on 1440x900... that's enough for me, thank you... But if you are the government, than you can order 2100 PS3s to use their cell processors for computing... anyway, this will become mainstream in few years...till then, let's drool over benchmarks... |
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redtigerdragon
on November 25, 2009 2:35 PM |
Kind of bummed I came to the party late and missed all of the fun. But as this article states, the processor doesn't really show any gains in the real world. We're barely catching up to efficiently use dual-core processors, with a flood of quad cores, an soon six cores? I think it's still a little early for this tech. |
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PUTALE
on November 26, 2009 12:47 AM |
very nice temperature and power consumption reasult. It looks like Intel will still be leading AMD. |
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guyfred26
on November 26, 2009 5:39 AM |
CPU's are getting more and more cores nowadays. Increasing the number of core will increase its speed. Also while increasing ng core the price also inceases.Better wait until the prices goes down before I buy one. |
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Guest
on November 30, 2009 9:11 AM |
AMD will remain as Intel frequently ignores the areas they do well in - the low to mid market. For these markets you really can't beat the perfomance AMD gives you at the price. Intel frequently shows that it prefers people with a limited computing budget stick to celerons and the new pentium dual-core, both of which are poor performers. The celerons are easily outmached by netburst p4 cores and the pentium dual-core is outpaced by my single core virtual machine running on a g2 opteron. AMD will survive as long as they continue to price efficiently. |
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claycc
on November 30, 2009 10:05 AM |
AMD has done decent in the mid to low but with the release of the i5 lineup and the upcoming i3's I think AMD is going to be pushed down the low/budget market. I hope they can come up with some new products to compete because as mentioned an Intel monopoly only hurts the consumer. A strong hex-core CPU is interesting, I just wish applications and games would catch up to utilizing multi-core CPUs. Until they do a 6 core CPU seems like a waste for more users. |
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Guest
on December 5, 2009 6:29 PM |
You mean finally my Flight Simulator X will run smoothly? After thousands of dollars down the drain for cpus that i thought that would run it. Hmmm this cpu might be the answer. |
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Guest
on January 16, 2010 10:46 AM |
I think that this is a Great Idea and i will 99% chance end up getting a computer with this. Thank you soo much intel! Please make it work good!!!! |
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Guest
on January 16, 2010 10:47 AM |
Thank you Intel!!! |
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Guest
on February 27, 2010 11:26 AM |
Why do you think that 4, 6, or more cores is overkill for the average consumer? Have you ever tried to burn a DVD, surf the 'net, while Norton does a whole-drive virus scan? That combination will bring a single-core machine to it's knees. What about scanning a folder full of hi-res digital photos? Have you ever watched a single-core machine try to render row after row of thumbs? On my old single-core (Pentium 4) it would sometimes just completely freeze, to the point where I'd have to walk away from it for several minutes. On my new i7, I have yet to see it slow down, no matter what I'm doing. And that's not "power-user" stuff - just perusing large folder of photos, while burning a DVD, and not having to worry if Norton decides it's time to scan the whole hard drive. More cores == you, happier, trust me. |
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Guest
on March 7, 2010 11:05 PM |
more cores for everyday computing means a more responsive user interface, I've been using an intel quad core Q6600 for some time now, and I regularly see 30-75% of the cores in use while not even gaming. However I often play games, while watching video, while surfing the net to look up stuff about the game on flash heavy websites. If I only had a dual core it would max out to 100% under that load. If you add the cpu requirements for a simultaneous - on access real time virus scan (always on) - thumbnail generation for folders - flash based websites (also note flash is going multicore and even GPGPU) - instant messaging with webcam you can quite easily max out 2 cores, and if you only have 2 the pc becomes sluggish, with 4 or 6 cores you have some to spare for the user interface to stay responsive, which provides a much improved perceived performance experience for the user. add additional work tasks such as outlook and several excel spreadsheets with Office 2010's new PowerPivot feature that will directly access SQL server 2008 R2 databases with query execution occuring on the client rather than the server, and that quickly adds up for number crunching requirements. (Note as of office 2007 excel spreadsheets use multiple cores for spreadsheet calculations that use built in functions, user defined functions and single threaded macros are still not executed in parallel) my vote more cores = better |
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bludfist
on March 8, 2010 12:07 AM |
Looks like an awesome CPU, but how many organs must be donated in order to afford it? |
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Guest
on April 28, 2010 11:14 AM |
can it run crysis? |
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Guest
on May 6, 2010 8:02 PM |
Last I Read the chip is going to be on a new board !? AMD's New 6 core is going to be on the same set but Intel is saying the i9 will be a new one! Thats to bad! I was hopeing not to have to change boards agean its getting to exspensive!!! |
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Guest
on October 21, 2010 12:45 PM |
when i9 come out ? i wanna to buy now |
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captaincranky
on October 23, 2010 4:13 PM |
I just saw this, which explains the late post; You mean finally my Flight Simulator X will run smoothly? After thousands of dollars down the drain for cpus that i thought that would run it. Hmmm this cpu might be the answer. Why does everybody think that a better CPU is the answer to running this dog better? M$ should have quit while they were ahead with FS-2004. More succinctly stated, FS "X" is problem software.
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