Intel Core i7 900 Workstations

The Core i7 900 processor series is the first multi-core design from Intel to have its cores joined in a single die rather than to join multiple cores together, potentially speeding up operations with multiple program threads by cutting back on the time spent moving data between cores.

Core i7 sport both the memory controller and system I/O integrated onto the CPU die and therefore eliminates the Intel Front Side Bus (FSB) altogether. In place of the FSB, one or more high speed, point-to-point buses called Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) are used, formerly known as Common Serial Bus or CSI. QPI features higher bandwidth than the traditional FSB and is better suited to system scaling.

The three-channel memory design means that when compared to the previous Core 2 a) more bandwidth is available and b) that more of it can be used.

The performance gains seen in the rendering scenarios specifically were jaw-dropping, although the general 10% - 30% gains seen elsewhere are also going to be appreciated by any 3D artist or video guru, professional or not. Core i7 is faster clock-for-clock than Core 2 Quad achieving up to 50% in certain applications. What helps speeds things up further is the addition of HyperThreading. These applications know how to make good use of all threads available.

Broadberry workstations based on the Intel X58 Express Chipset, combined with the Intel Core i7 processor family, drive breakthrough performance and state-of-the-art technology to performance and mainstream platforms. Overall, these workstations bring a truckload of performance versus fairly decent power consumption levels.