Putting it all Together

So the title of extreme carries with it a significant reputation for a computer component to fulfill. The Core i7 965 extreme CPU is no different in its need to fulfill the idea of an extreme CPU. The definition of what categorizes a processor as extreme can be a slight bit vague. The 965 maintains its stance as an extreme processor for several different reasons. Out of the box, this processor runs at a blazing 3.3GHz under turbo mode with a 25x core multiplier. The benchmarks speak for themselves when compared with the Core i7 920 and AMD's top of the line offering, the Phenom II X4 955. In stock speeds, the AMD 955 puts out close to that of the 965 at 3.2GHz, but with a smaller cache and not featuring hyperthreading technology. The Core i7 920 clocks in at 2.67GHz and features the hyperthreading abilities of the Core i7 family, but without the ability to adjust the core multiplier. This showdown helps put into perspective the characteristics of the 965 that puts it into the category of extreme.

Stock Speed Showdown Results

The battle between the hyperthreading enabled Intels and the flagship Phenom II 955 from AMD was fierce, but the results really showed why the 965 is dubbed the extreme edition. The everyday tasks associated with the benchmarks of World Bench and PC Mark Vantage demonstrate the dominance that is associated with the abilities to hyperthread and take advantage of the extra processing power associated with the quad cores. The file compression, media editing and encoding tasks, graphics rendering, and productivity scores show that the Intels are the clear leaders in these categories, with the 965 easily leading the pack. When looking at the memory, arithmetic, and multimedia efficiencies associated with SiSandra and Everest, again the results found favor with the Intel Core i7s, with the extreme 965 commanding the complete lead. Cinebench demonstrated the powerful rendering abilities of the hyperthreading abilities of the Core i7s during the multicore rendering test. The 965 produced outstanding numbers of nearly 19000 under multicore testing. Once into the gaming benchmarks, the CPU portions of the benchmarks showed excellent performance gains by the 965 over the i7 920 and the AMD 955. This was especially noticeable in the 3D Mark CPU scores and the Crysis CPU test, with the 965 leading in these two benchmarks over the 920, and significantly over the AMD 955.  The significant dominance throughout the productivity benchmarks and the amazing graphics rendering capabilities allows the 965 extreme fulfills the demanding needs of just about any system. When it comes to gaming, the quad core processors are not fully utilized by the games, as most games are designed for dual core CPUs and when it comes to gaming, much of the demands fall on the GPU rather than the CPU anyway.

Overclocking Showdown

The overclocking portion of the showdown excluded the AMD Phenom II due to a minimal 400MHz overclocking being the highest that could be achieved, due to a motherboard limitation during testing. The benchmarks of the overclocked AMD 955 were not much better than stock, and thus the CPUs featured in this comparison are the Core i7 965 and 920 CPUs. The 920 was able to be overclocked from the stock 2.67GHz to an excellent 4.2GHz with a fully stable system and a full suite of benchmarks achieved with remarkable results. The 965 was overclocked to 4.1GHz by way of the multiplier overclock discussed in the overclocking section.

The benchmark results throughout the testing of the overclocks on both of these Core i7s gave interesting results. Though the overclocks were very similar, the results seemed to tend toward the 920 in many of the productivity based benchmarks, but the gaming benchmarks showed favor toward the 965 in Hell's Highway, World in Conflict, and Crysis, showing the extreme gaming abilities of the 965 when overclocked versus the overstretched base clock of the 920. The flexing muscles of the 965 throughout overclocking really seemed to be restricted by the limitations of the cooling abilities of the north bridge and the PWM of the motherboard. The results, however, reassure anyone considering the purchase of this chip for a very high performing system, that it is well worth the money and can easily meet the demands of any demanding user.

Extreme or Not?

This is the question that should be on anyone's mind who is deciding on whether a $1000 chip is worth the money for their system. An evaluation of the results from the full suite of benchmarks performed on this CPU, as well as the 920 and the AMD Phenom II 955, go well to support the exceptional performance of the 965. Out of the box, the 965 clocks in at 3.3GHz, with unlocked multiplier for overclocking, and the ability to hyperthread. The dominance shown by this chip through the stock testing provides more than enough performance to meet the demands expected by a user who is looking to build a system that will perform better than any other CPU and by a good margin as well. Though the question of extreme or not is difficult to answer definitively, the benchmark results tend to speak for themselves as to the level of performance that can be achieved in a system based around the Core i7 965 Extreme.