The new CPU comes in Q1 2011 and it’s based on Gulftown 6 core and as we reported before not on Sandy Bridge new 32nm architecture. Sandy Bridge stops at four cores while Gulftown is six core 32nm CPU.
The clock speed of Core i7 990X is 3.46GHz, some 130MHz faster than Core i7 980X's 3.33GHz. with the help of Turbo Core i7 990X will overclock to 3.73GHz and the CPU still has six cores, twelve hypertreaded cores as well as QPI at 6.4GT/s. The CPU is unlocked and it will allow some further overclocking and it still doesn’t have any integrated graphics core.
The platform packs a 3-channel memory controller and the TDP is quite easy to guess, 130W. Overall we don’t see many reasons to be excited about Core i7 990X as this is just slightly faster version of the 980X.
So the Core i7 has the same old Westmere – Gulftown 32nm core that continues to be the top six core CPU that is set to dominate the top SKU desktop offer as well as top of the Xeon market. The price again easy, $999 when it gets available in Q1 2011.
Let me remind you that before Core i7 990X comes at some point in Q1 2011, there won’t be any new Intel six-core in the meantime, you are simply stuck with Core i7 980X until the 990X comes.