“Intel will be introducing their first Sandy Bridge CPUs in the coming months, which we already know has Linux graphics support well underway, but for now the top-end Intel desktop processors are the Gulftown CPUs that were introduced earlier this year. The Gulftown CPUs boast six physical processing cores with Hyper Threading to put the total thread count per CPU at 12. Besides putting 12 processing threads at your disposal, these CPUs are built upon the 32nm die shrink of Nehalem and boast 12MB of L3 cache. The first Gulftown desktop product to launch was the Intel Core i7 980X, which was quickly followed by the Core i7 970, and we now finally have the chance to test out this incredibly fast but expensive processor under Linux.”Here are some more Processor articles from around the web:
- AMD Phenom II X2 560 @ Rbmods
- NZXT Phantom & Hale90 650W @ techPowerUp
- CPU Performance Comparison Guide Rev. 3.3 @ TechARP
- Mobile CPU Comparison Guide Rev. 6.2 @ TechARP
Linux and the i7 970
There is sometimes an assumption made when talking about Linux boxen that they are for low cost systems; one which is not really correct at all except for some bored and curious home users. Take Phoronix who are testing the Core i7 970 on Linux, a CPU that is anything but cheap. Apart from some remaining minor issues with the x58 chipset, this processor makes Linux hum.
