According to neowin.net and engadget, Intel is ready to release their new Core i7 CPUs this month, on November 17th. These chips are the long-awaited Nahalem chips that have received much hype in the tech press recently. Here’s the key paragraph from neowin:
“The chips come in 3 models, 920, 940, and the higher end model 965 Extreme Edition. All models of the chip feature 4 cores, 256 kb L2 Cache and 8 MB Shared L3 Cache, ranging from 2.66 GHz to 3.2 GHz, with 800-1600 MHz 3xDDR3 memory controllers, in a LGA1366 socket.“
My recommended path for the budget builder would be to get a decent LGA1366 board and throw the 920 on it. Grab some DDR3 RAM and you’re off to the races.
As I looked around the usual suspects (NewEgg etc.) I couldn’t find any legitimate sites that offered the Core i7 nor a LGA1366 motherboard. I can’t wait until they do and we can see what the consumer prices are. Here are the bulk prices per CPU:
Core i7 920 - $284
Core i7 940 - $562
Core i7 965 - $999
Basically, if you’re budget conscious but you want the latest and greatest, go for the 920 chip. It beats the pants of off any other comparable processor from AMD or Intel. All in all they will be badass chips and you’ll enjoy some serious speed.
