More Details on Intel's 6-Core "Gulftown" Leaked

[Paul Daniel Ash]

According to a leaked Intel product roadmap, the forthcoming 32nm six-core Xeon processors - widely believed to be intended to be used exclusively with a coming upgrade to the Mac Pro line - will be called the Intel Core i7-980X Processor Extreme Edition. Previous reports had suggested it would carry an "Intel Core i9" nameplate.

The French site HardMac reported on the internal Intel slides that had been leaked to the Chinese site PCOnline. As has long been anticipated, each module has six cores and twelve threads each. Thus, a dual processor Mac Pro outfitted with these processors would have twelve physical and twenty-four logical cores, which will allow Apple's touted Grand Central Dispatch multicore code-optimization technology to shine in applications like 3D rendering, video compression and other processor-intense tasks.

The leaked Intel slides don't mention what clock speed the chips will run at, but PCOnline speculates that the i7-980X will run at a base speed of 3.3GHz, increasing to 3.6GHz in Turbo Mode when the chip's thermals allow.

The last significant Mac Pro upgrade took place on March 3, 2009, when Apple introduced new models of their high-end desktop with Intel’s ‘Nehalem’ Xeon processors.

image via HardMac

[rwin84]

Thats prety bada$$

[Poseidon79]

WOW! That's just an insane amount of processing power for a desktop computer.

[supreme-livin]

if its true ill prob upgrade
its bin a year now lol

[kaaroFC]

Whats the best mac for gaming~?
A mac with this specs would be really good right?

[theos0o]

if its true ill prob upgrade
its bin a year now lol

Are you sure you can afford it?
Extreme processor, extreme price (999+ $)

[spazturtle]

WOW! That's just an insane amount of processing power for a desktop computer.

I bet people said that when 500MHz prossesors came out.

[qgshadow]

get a computer with 2 Nnvidia Quatro cards and have a supercomputer for 5 grands instead of 20 grands.

[RyanWS]

So would that make total of 12-cores? Or would it go from 2 quads to one of these?

[santaf]

good thing i decided not to upgrade to a pro yet haha i hope this is true. i just wish they could put blu-ray into the pro's or something

[Tylervalo]

I bet people said that when 500MHz prossesors came out.

I'm guessing you're under the age of 21, correct?

[rhekt]

i cant wait this sounds awesome

[ken273053]

That question is slightly irrelevant. I'm 25, and thought it couldn't get much better than Tyrian on my mom's Acer Pentium 300mhz. We all said "wow" at one point.

A better question, how many mortgage payments do you have to skip for this one, Intel? The i7 975x already fetches a hearty grand....

[hollow0]

good thing i decided not to upgrade to a pro yet haha i hope this is true. i just wish they could put blu-ray into the pro's or something

I don't think this is going to be available on the macbooks only the imacs. There was an article that said Apple wasn't planning on using the new processors on the macbooks. I would still rather have a PC with that processing power and not a mac. I use the 13" macbook pro for my media and such. Macs are too pricey for gaming.

[Peemcgee]

all i can say is wow

[dennder]

Giving the fact, that this is the "Core i7 5xx", not the "XEON 5xxx" i doubt it will be available on a dual-CPU Mac Pro configuration (maybe single CPU), unless there is a XEON version of this monster, which is highly improbable since Intel extreme desktop chips did not have any equal model on a server side ever.

Would apple make a dual-CPU computer out of desktop chips? This remains the main question.

On the other hand, i would be mistaken gladly, because a new server with this two XEON chips will outrun even the new, yet prepared, AMD dual-hexacore processor systems.

[GmAz]

I doubt Intel will make a chip just for apple. And even so, what a super expensive Pile of ****.

[awesomeSlayer]

Holy (insert here)!

[hollow0]

all i can say is wow

That's what she said.

[steve-z17]

That's what she said.

Uh...nice one?....

I feel the need for speed!