Intel Launches the Core i7-990X

Thought Socket 1366 was dead? Think again. Intel have officially launched the 3.46GHz, six core, twelve thread, 12MB L2 cache, 32nm, 130W TDP Core i7-990X. The i7-990X will slot nicely into Intel’s Core i7 Extreme Edition lineup.

The new beauty and the beast

It will also take over from the 3.33GHz i7-980X as Socket’s 1366’s flagship processor, even though they really aren’t all that different from each other. The 980X was announced quite a while back and I was looking forward to a nice price drop, which we will still be getting in time, but launching a nearly identical processor, with only a slight bump in clock speed, for the same price ($999, approximately Rs. 45,000) is a real head scratcher.

Anyway, thanks to the launch of the i7-990X, the i7-970 and the i7-960 have received price drops to $583 (Rs. 26,000) and $294 (Rs. 13,000), which are decent prices for the processors, especially for the hex-core i7-970. Anyway, you can check out more of the i7-990X here.