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3.33GHz
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Intel’s Core i7 processors continue to dominate the desktop world in terms of raw speed. The new quad-core 3.33GHz Core i7-975 Extreme Edition is a few hairs faster than the previous champ, the 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition, and it has the same stratospheric $1,000 price tag. If your pockets are as deep as your desire for bragging rights, or you're a media professional who can really use this much processing muscle, shelling out for the fastest desktop processor money can buy might be worth it. But for everyone else, the Core i7-975 Extreme Edition is all kinds of overkill.
We were certainly impressed with the initial Core i7 CPUs when they debuted late last year. After all, they offered unprecedented performance far above and beyond the capabilities of any CPU from competitor AMD. Now, more than six months later, the 3.33GHz clock speed of the Core i7-975 Extreme Edition is only a notch faster than that of its Core i7 predecessor, but in our benchmark tests, it still dominates the top-end CPU from AMD, the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition. That said, that Phenom II chip can be had for under $250, while Intel’s high-end chip costs four times as much. And much to the dismay of both CPU makers, there still isn’t a whole lot of software around these days that takes full advantage of four processing cores. That's why we think, for most users who want smart, top-value CPU speed, AMD’s dual-core Phenom II X2 550 is such a wise choice at around $100.
If you go with the Core i7-975 Extreme Edition, aside from the grand you’ll have to shell out for the processor, you’ll also have to pony up several hundred additional dollars for a compatible X58 motherboard and triple-channel memory. AMD’s Phenom CPUs, meanwhile, are backward-compatible with last-generation AM2+ motherboards and exceedingly cheap DDR2 RAM. The Core i7-975 Extreme Edition is worth the price for video and graphics professionals who typically spend hours waiting for files to render. But for most users, even hard-core gamers and overclockers, the only way you’ll tax a processor like this today or in the foreseeable future is with a benchmark-testing application or a video-editing suite such as Sony Vegas Pro.
Despite those caveats, there’s no denying the Core i7-975’s impressive, though unsurprising, performance in testing. It left AMD’s top-of-the-line Phenom II X4 955 in the dust and, in most cases, outpaced the Core i7-965 by a not-insignificant amount. In our Sony Vegas 8 test, designed specifically to tax all CPU cores, the Core i7-975 Extreme Edition finished our MP4 rendering trial in an amazing 26 seconds, while the Core i7-965 took 50 seconds to tackle that task, and AMD’s Phenom II X4 955 took 1 minute and 24 seconds. In Cinebench 10, another test that taxes multiple cores, the Core i7-975 scored 19,973 to the Core i7-965’s score of 15,740; the Phenom II X4 955 managed just 10,454.
Our iTunes conversion test didn’t have such disparate results, revealing the real-world limitations of these high-end processors when tackling everyday tasks. The AMD Phenom II X4 955 converted our 11 test tracks in 2 minutes and 58 seconds; the Core i7-965 did so 12 seconds faster, and the new Core i7-975 chopped off another 21 seconds, completing in 2 minutes and 25 seconds.
In all of these tests, the Core i7-975 broke new records, but it wasn’t revolutionary. It’s definitely extremely fast, but there’s no reason that anyone who owns a previous Core i7 chip should feel compelled to upgrade at current prices. Like the previous Core i7 Extreme Edition CPU, and AMD’s Black Edition CPUs, the Core i7-975 features an unlocked multiplier for easy overclocking. But frankly, we can't see many applications that would make it worth the effort and risk to try squeezing more speed out of this CPU. It’s the best there is by a fair amount, and the price matches its performance.
