Application Performance
In Microsoft Excel 2007 the Core i7 980X showed a significant performance advantage over the 975 EE. Although both processors operate at the same frequency, the Core i7 980XE was capable of completing tasks up to 35% faster. It was also up to 37% faster than the Core i7 960, 40% faster than the 950 and as much as 48% faster than the 920.
As found previously when running the in-built WinRAR performance test, this program can't seem to handle more than four cores and as a result the Core i7 980X Extreme Edition performs very much like the Core i7 975 EE processor.
Photoshop CS4 also shows no real advantage for the six-core processor. In both the HardwareHeaven and Retouchartists tests Intel's Core i7 980X Extreme Edition and 975 EE saw similar performance.