If you need raw power in your desktop PC, Intel’s new CPU will be just the ticket. The new Extreme Edition of its regular Core i7 chip has 10 cores, each running at up to 3.5GHz—but it’ll cost you.
PC World reports that the new Broadwell-E gaming chips—or Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition, to give it its full name—usually runs at 3GHz but has a boost mode that ups the speed to 3.5GHz. Elsewhere, this little slab of silicon provides 25MB of onboard cache and Intel’s Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, which means you could probably overclock it to 3.8GHz, too, if you felt so inclined.
But what you really care about is what the specs mean in the real world. Intel claims that the chip will render 4K video and games 25 percent faster than the previous top-line i7-5960X chip, and render 3D content 35 percent faster. It’s essentially the most powerful desktop chip you can buy from Intel right now, so if number crunching is your business, it’s probably for you.
At a price. Because it will cost you $1,700. There are cheaper variants—8 cores will cost you $1,000, 6 cores $600—but they don’t offer the raw power of the 10-core CPU. Better brace the credit card.
[PC World]