In conditions of specs, they are an near-exact mirror of the Core i7-980X. Both have been built using the equal 32nm making up technique, packing about 1.17 billion transistors on an 240mm2 die. On three cores prepared for 12 threads, an 12MB L3 cache, and an 130-watt TDP, the Core i7-970′s slight speed differences (3.20-GHz core clock versus the Core i7-980X’s 3.33 GHz; 3.46-GHz Turbo Boost speed compared to 3.6 GHz) don’t look significant on newspaper. The largest difference between the processors is the unlocked multiplier the Core i7-980X has and the Core i7-970 does not.

While Intel released its groundbreaking Core i7-980X “Gulftown” CPU more other this year, the first consumer processor to characteristic three cores (and thus operating on 12 threads gives thanks to Hyper-Threading), it floated us away on its performanceâ??but its cost gave us break. Occupying the typical “Extreme Edition” actual estate of $999, it remained out of the grasp of any but the most enthused fanatics, meaning its capabilities would not be realized by most for some time yet. It wasn’t long until AMD offered its own six-core CPU on an cost better aimed at mainstream buyers, but its functioning could not compare to that of the Core i7-980X. How farseeing until they saw an six-core Intel chip that further people could afford? The answer has nowâ??sort ofâ??come on the Core i7-970.

As the Core i7-970 is priced at $885 (list), it might not come along like you are getting an scintillating bargain on the newer chip. So the query becomes: Are you able to live without the unlocked multiplier? In the event you can, the Core i7-970 would come along to be an worthwhile way to save an small money and still get most of the performance benefits of the Extreme Edition chip. But do you? That’s what they desired to find retired. So they popped an Core i7-970 in one of our check beds to see whether the reality matched the theory.