Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition Review

Conclusion

Extreme Edition CPUs are not for everyone – they’re very expensive and you can obtain very similar performance from an overclocked Core i7-920 as from the 975 Extreme Edition if you’re using an air cooler. Where Extreme Edition CPUs come into their own is under exotic sub-zero cooling. Extreme Editions are made from the purest CPU dies that Intel can manufacture, so they should overclock further than any other CPU in the range with the right cooling.

There’s a reason why Extreme Editions feature heavily towards the top of benchmark leaderboards – they’re the fastest and most overclockable CPUs going, and Intel has continued this trend with the new D0 stepping Core i7-975 Extreme Edition.

Nonetheless, the 975 EE is a fairly underwhelming Extreme Edition. We'd have hoped that it would add at least two multiplier stops over the 965 EE rather than just one - that would've given us a 3.46GHz CPU, and we could've at least written 'the 975 EE is noticeably faster than the 965 EE' rather than just 'a bit faster'.


It's also disappointing to see that the official VID range hasn't been shifted down from the 965 EE - both have a range of 0.8V to 1.375V. While our 975 EE sample had a VID of 1.2V to the 1.3V VID of our 965 EE, you could still be stung with a 1.375V VID chip that will struggle to break 4GHz while a mate lucks in with a 0.8V 965 EE that happily clocks to 4.5GHz. Then again, the situation could be reversed - your mate might have a high-VID 965 EE and your 975 EE might turn out to be a super-clocking sub-1V chip. It's luck of the draw.

Final Thoughts

At least the new 975 EE only costs £45 more than the 965 EE, so if you haven't already got a 965 EE, it's only a bit more expensive for the small amount of extra performance. If being at the top of benchmark leaderboards is important to you, you'll want a 975 EE. For the other 99 per cent of us, a Core i7 920 is still plenty, while a Q9650 or Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition are also worthy choices.

A potential sticking point for even the wealthiest of benchmarkers might be the rumours that Intel is due to launch a six-core CPU on LGA1366 this year. Unless you really, really, really need to be top of the leaderboards until this six-core CPU is released, you'd be better off waiting for the sextuple-core Core i7 (or whatever Intel, in its infinite wisdom, decides to call it).

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• 10/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

Score Guide