Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition Six Core CPU Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,045 words · ~5 min read
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today we are going to be unboxing the
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fastest desktop processor on the planet
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this is the Intel Core i7
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990x yes this is the very same one that
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an extreme overclocker recently took well no it's not the very same one this
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is a retail sealed box but it's the same CPU model that an overclocker famous One
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recently took to over 7 gigahertz using
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extreme cooling methods so this is Intel's fastest clocked 6 core 2 date it
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is fully unlocked for all the overclocking you could possibly want to
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do and I am breaking the seal on it so that I can open it up and show you guys
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the 990x in all of its Glory so the 990x
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actually doesn't change a whole lot over the older 980x it comes in at the same
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price point so that is about $11,000 distribution cost so it means you'll see
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it marked up however much from your local retail or your uh or your local
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retailer in whatever country you happen to be in okay it includes some thermal
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paste which we'll get to later uh the clock speeds of this processor at stock
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is 3.46 GHz now remember that that also
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support it supports every technology Intel can possibly throw out a CPU so
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you got 12 Megs of cache hyperthreading so that means you've got 12 threaded
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performance okay you've also got support for turbo boost
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and obviously virtualization let me see
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it does does not have Onboard video because this is an lga8 1366 socket CPU
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so that means you do have support for triple Channel memory and it is going to
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run on the x58 express chipset graphics card is
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required yeah see I mentioned that no Graphics I'm surprised they actually have that on the box you're buying
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extreme Edition processor no graphics card very random three-year warranty as
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with all Intel CPUs and I think that's about all that I wanted to cover on the
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box so let's see what we got inside
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here we have some thermal paste okay which you can cut and then apply it's
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probably pretty good stuff from Dow Corning oo thermally conductive compound
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great okay next we have a core i7 processor extreme Edition installation
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instructions threeyear limited warranty and Intel Inside logo label which is
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right there very nice you fix one of those to the outside of your PC and
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everyone knows you have an extreme Edition processor
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inside all right let's have a look at the stock heat sink that is included it
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looks like the stock heat sink hasn't changed since the 980x so it is a tower
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heat sink although the way Intel has designed it is they've put a finger
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guard on it which is good and then they have also designed it you see right here
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how these blades actually go a lot lower than the fins than the cooling fins that
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is so that and you can also see the shape of the blades is not necessarily
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to blow air just that way but also to blow air kind of out the reason for that
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is down here at the bottom the fan is actually going to generate a lot of
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turbulence a lot of sort of random air flow around the CPU socket that ensures
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that even if your CPU or even if your motherboard uses like uh heat pipe
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design to carry all of the heat from the chipsets up to the pwm the power
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delivery you're going to get enough incidental air flow to cool everything
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from this heat sink without using a downward blowing design so it has four
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heat pipes uses a plastic very very rigid back plate does not have
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pre-applied Thal compound so that is why they do include that thermal compound
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and it has a rather ingenious mounting system so you can actually you're using
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screws so you're using a bolt through mounting system you can access these
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ones through here camera man through here and then the ones at the back you
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can see they're covered you can see they're actually covered by the heat sink so that's okay because you can use
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this hole in a long screwdriver in order to screw those in okay so up at the top
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you got an Intel logo you got a quiet mode as well as a performance mode for
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the fan on here this is by the look of things a 92 mm fan although it could be
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could be 100 Mil how big is this 110
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it's a 110 mil fan okay correct me if I'm wrong but I think that's what that
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part number means so uh either way it is a high performance fan it actually spins
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up quite loud if you Max it out I have used it in the past but uh if you put it
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in quiet mode you shouldn't really run into too many problems with that uh here
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we'll go ahead and I guess we'll throw this how do I get the CPU out I haven't
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actually seen this uh this retail box
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before don't think can I pull it out
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this way nope can I pull this out first
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and then get it aha there we go okay so there it is the 990x the
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th000 plus CPU the fastest performing
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desktop CPU on the planet it is as I
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mentioned before an LGA 1366 processor
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with 12 Megs of cache 3.4 GHz stock
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speed and it is 100% overclocking friendly basically if
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you buy one of these and you don't overclock it then I will personally
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write you a very angry letter there's the bottom so there's
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1,336 pads that'll make contact with your motherboard so thank you for
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checking out my unboxing of the core i7
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990x fastest processor for a desktop and
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uh don't worry I won't actually write you an letter if you buy one and don't overclock it