Our faithful readers are most likely aware that we do things a bit different here. While it is very common for every review site to have at least some information on the overclocking potential in their reviews, we try to take things to different level. For the last two years we have visited Intel for a world unique event where we not only get to test Intel’s latest processor and motherboards, but do it in the way we enjoy most: with sub-zero cooling, actually far below zero.
We have a couple of articles planned for the now unveiled Nehalem architecture. This first article covers the days we spent at Intel’s office and laboratory in Stockholm. It all started two years ago when Intel decided to invite Robert ‘crotale’ Kihlberg, Marcus ‘Kinc’ Hultin and myself to come and play with Kentsfield, Intel’s first quad-core processor. One year later we were invited back along with friends and colleagues from around the Nordics.
The Nehalem microarchitecture has been known about for more than a year, and specifics have been revealed bit by bit as we approached the launch. Actual performance and exact specifications have of course remained vague until now. Nehalem has been unveiled and Intel has launched the Core i7 series. It’s based on the processor architecture known as Bloomfield that is Intel’s first native quad-core processor architecture for desktops. We will tell you more about these bits in future articles.
While native is good and all, the major improvements are not that Intel has managed to fit two more cores inside the die, but the new interface known as QPI (QuickPath Interconnect) and that Intel can now move a lot of the northbridge functions on-die. This is not as evident today as it will become when the mid-range and low-end Lynnfield and Havendale cores arrive in Q2. What they all have in common though is that the memory controller is now moved inside the CPU. As we will show you here today, that’s not going to be a real issue when overclocking.
As always we start with the journey.
