A bunch of Polish retailers have apparently jumped the gun and started shipping Intel's flagship Core i7-990X Expensive Edition at prices starting about €900. However, we are still not sure when to expect availability in all markets.

The new processor has already been listed by several OEMs in their high-end rigs, but it was not available to the great unwashed in retail. The Gulfton-based six-core is clocked at 3.46GHz and it clocks to 3.6GHz with Turbo Boost. The TDP stands at 130W and it packs 6x256kB of L2 and 12MB of L3 cache.

This is the end of the line for Gulftown. Intel will replace the current generation with new Sandy Bridge E parts by the end of Q3 2011. Hopefully it won't sell them with broken chipsets.