Intel rolls out double-quad-core platform for gamers

Somehow, Intel has skillfully avoided use of the metaphor "two-by-four" to represent its latest ultra-high-end CPU platform rollout this morning at GDC in San Francisco. But AMD might be feeling like it's been hit by one.

It is probably analogous to the Ford GT compared to the Ford Mustang, and thus serves a purpose more as a platform designed for more consumers to envy than for them to actually buy. But Intel's new enthusiast platform, previously code-named "Skulltrail," looks like it will produce plenty of envy, along with the requisite smoke and energy burning that also come from top-tier automobiles.

Unlike most Intel components, today's new entries were designed to fit together: A pair of Core 2 Extreme QX9775 quad-core processors are designed to work in tandem, using Intel's D5400XS desktop motherboard with twin sockets. Right now, and probably into the foreseeable future, that's the only way these components will work together. Both CPUs are clocked at 3.2 GHz, and the front-side bus bridging them together and linking them to memory is clocked at 1.6 GHz.

That actually makes for an easy timing issue, as anyone doing the math in his head has already discovered. But as Tom's Hardware learned during a test of Skulltrail two weeks ago, in order to avoid timing becoming a delicate issue in this system, overclocking options are kept to a minimum. Instead, the system BIOS handles the job of setting how fast the twin processors can be allowed to run.

While some would say that's not a problem for a machine that's already fast to begin with, this could actually create a comfort problem among its small niche of core customers. System builders enjoy the ability to make things go faster than they're supposed to, even when those options are actually hard-wired into the motherboard and perfectly safe to enable. Builders don't just share the need for speed, they relish the impression of being turbo-charged. So the lack of turbo-charging options, regardless of speed factor, could be perceived by some as a minus.

This is far from the first time that a processor maker has doubled up on multicore. In fact, AMD paved the way in the fall of 2006, though as consumers soon discovered, double the hardware yielded somewhat less than double the performance.

But initial tests of dual-QX9775 systems show some pleasing results. Intel's own tests show its hardware cranking out the standard 3DMark06 CPU benchmark test with a score of 6481. Tom's independent numbers for the same test yielded 6392, which is very close to verification for Intel.

What do those numbers really mean? Right now, I'm entering this article using a system I built based on a single Core 2 Duo E6600, circa late 2006. Its Tom's score on the same test is 2094. Mind you, that's with a single processor, but it showed less than one-third the speed.

On the other hand, though I did get a little lithium grease on my sleeve, I spent less than one third the total price. Each processor has an MSRP of $1,499 (its street price may be a little less in a few months' time), and remember, you can't do with just one. And the D5400XS motherboard will sell for $649.

And in an unusual test for Tom's -- which could be a sign of the times -- reviewer Bert Toepelt estimated that, if you were to run Skulltrail's CPUs at 4.0 GHz (which is one of the few options), and leave your system on just eight hours per day for a whole year, you would rack up about $400 in energy costs alone. That's because overclocking boosts Skulltrail's power consumption to a blistering 351 watts, compared to 227 watts at speed...and a mere 66 watts for my category of Intel CPU.