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Getting to the Core of Intel's New Core i7 CPUs

22.11.2008
Intel's new "Bloomfield" quad-core Core i7 processors are the company's first to be based on its long-previewed "Nehalem" architecture. You see, the Core i7 family doesn't just mean new CPUs, they use a new chipset, a new system bus, and a new socket structure. In short, it's a whole new ballgame. This is the first major technology jump since mid-2006, when Core 2 CPUs showed up on the scene. Yep, in those two years since, we've seen incremental upgrades stacking on more cores at higher clock speeds while dropping the manufacturing process down to 45nm. But buckle up for what's next.

Core i7 Highlights:

-- 45nm design with 8MB of on-die Level 3 cache

-- Intel's existing Front Side Bus architecture is replaced with its QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) technology that ferries files at a peak rate of 25GB/second to help speed the data's journey. As I understand it, that is the theoretical limit, but not all the new Nehalem CPUs will approach that speed.

-- Hyperthreading makes a come back. The four cores can each process two threads at once so the operating system thinks its dealing with eight CPUs.

-- A "Turbo Burst" feature pushes individual cores into the red zone (133MHz to 266MHz over base clock frequencies) when a program calls for it. But this happens automatically in the background -- pretty much invisible to the user.