Intel Core i7 is a family of three Intel desktop x86-64 processors, the first processors released using the Intel Nehalem microarchitecture and the successor to the Intel Core 2 family. With faster, intelligent, multi-core technology that applies processing power where it's needed most, new Intel® Core™ i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in PC performance. They are the best desktop processors on the planet.¹
You'll multitask applications faster and unleash incredible digital media creation. And you'll experience maximum performance for everything you do, thanks to the combination of Intel® Turbo Boost technology² and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology (Intel® HT technology)³, which maximizes performance to match your workload.
The Nehalem microarchitecture has many new features, some of which are present in the Core i7. The ones that represent significant changes from the Core 2 include:
* The new LGA 1366 socket is incompatible with earlier processors.
* On-die memory controller: the memory is directly connected to the processor.
- Three channel memory: each channel can support one or two DDR3 DIMMs. Motherboards for Core i7 have four (3+1) or six DIMM slots instead of two or four, and DIMMs can be installed in sets of three or two.
- Support for DDR3 only.
- No ECC support.
* The front side bus is replaced by QuickPath interface. Motherboards must use a chipset that supports QuickPath.
* The following caches:
- 64 KB L1 instruction and 64 KB L1 data cache per core
- 256 KB L2 cache (combined instruction and data) per core
- 8 MB L3 (combined instruction and data) "inclusive", shared by all cores
* Single-die device: all four cores, the memory controller, and all cache are on a single die.
* "Turbo Boost" technology allows all active cores to intelligently clock themselves up in steps of 133 MHz over the design clock rate as long as the CPU's predetermined thermal and electrical requirements are still met.[11]
* Re-implemented Hyper-threading. Each of the four cores can process up to two threads simultaneously, so the processor appears to the OS as eight CPUs. This feature was present in the older NetBurst microarchitecture but was dropped in Core.
* Only one QuickPath interface: not intended for multi-processor motherboards.
* 45nm process technology.
* 781M transistors for the quad core version.
* 263mm2 Die size.
* Sophisticated power management can place an unused core in a zero-power mode.
* Support for SSE4.2 & SSE4.1 instruction sets.
Intel Core i7
