Intel Core i7-980 Processor 3.3 Ghz LGA-1366 (BX80613I7980)

I7-980 6-Core 3.33GHZ 12M LGA 1366

Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
*I don't encourage you to overclock and am not responsible for your results if you do overclock. This is the sixth i7-based system I have built. The first i7 920 built 2 and a half years ago acheived stunning performance. When Intel came out with these new 6-core 32 nm processors I was curious about their overclocking potential considering it is an older architecture that has been moved to a smaller manufacturing process. My curiosity was rewarded with this purchase. I am currently running this processor at 4.6 ghz, temps are peaking at 60c and it is a couple hours prime stable so far. This is by far the easiest processor I have ever overclocked. I am using liquid cooling which allows for these low temps but I replaced an i7 960 with this cpu and overclocking is tremendously better. With no voltage changes I acheived a 4.2 ghz overclock. If you have been running an older i7 and have been considering an upgrade, this processor is worth it if you can stomach the price. The only negative part is the price. it's 600 dollars and the core count doesn't double, it only increases to 6 cores, so theoretically you may see a 50% more performance in highly-threaded applications for twice the cost of the 4-core 45 nm i7's. However, it is important to consider also that this is very close performance-wise to a 980x or 990x which are around 1000 USD. The overclocking performance combined with two more cores makes it a worthwhile upgrade. It really is a beast!