Intel's 3.2GHz Nehalem Extreme gamer chip in Q4?

Check it gamers, things are about to get like, so extreme in Q4. RegHardware has it from "motherboard-maker moles" that Intel will be loosing its smokin' Nehalem architecture before the end of the year starting with a trio of quad-core "Bloomfield" processors aimed at desktop users. A top o' the line 3.2GHz Extreme proc brings 8MB of L3 cache, connects to 1333MHz DDR3 memory, and rides Intel's new QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) bus capable of delivering 4.6 billion transactions per second. Front Side Bus, be gone.

[Brian @ Jun 16th 2008 7:33AM]

Woo, clockgens! Intel's kickin' it old-school.

[Mark Anderson @ Jun 16th 2008 7:41AM]

BOOM!

That's fast.

[brando_commando @ Jun 16th 2008 7:41AM]

Veddy niiice, how much? :)

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Jun 16th 2008 7:44AM]

A wife or a girlfreind will cover the cost.

[jaalin @ Jun 16th 2008 7:49AM]

this should hopefully push down the prices on the core 2 duo/quad chips a significant amount

[norino @ Jun 16th 2008 7:54AM]

We gamers don't earn much cash, we get our money from parents.

[neofolklore @ Jun 16th 2008 7:55AM]

Fuck Crysis, i'm going to be 3D modelling and video editing nonstop on this thing!

[Fernando G. @ Jun 16th 2008 8:04AM]

i'm gonna buy it to browse engadget

[Corazu @ Jun 16th 2008 8:17AM]

Don't forget your triple SLI'd 9800GX2's! (And 16GB of RAM)

[Mam00th @ Jun 16th 2008 8:29AM]

Actually, according to fudzilla, Nehalem might not support SLI as Nvidia won't be allowed to make chipsets for Nehalem.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7713&Itemid=69

[Sean @ Jun 16th 2008 8:40AM]

you should buy one of these
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/worlds-fastest-ibms-roadrunner-supercomputer-breaks-petaflop/

[random @ Jun 16th 2008 8:25AM]

i bet it will overclock like crazy, like the QX9770

[Dagwood @ Jun 16th 2008 9:18AM]

Other than a new design, isn't this just as fast as their existing chips. 3.2 quads do not sound all that ground breaking (for intel). Processors seem to have topped out on clock speed. Now it looks to be more cores, and less watts. This makes it all the more confusing for consumers to know that they are buying a chip that is better than last years model. We need a new performance benchmark to inform consumers. Clock speed was great while it lasted. Q's E's Duo's, X3's, X4's Core2's and a meaningless model number is not working. Amazingly, the price seems to be the best indicator of your processors performance.

Engadget readers seems to get this stuff, but no one else will. I guess everyone else will buy whatever apple or dell tell them is a good deal, and leave it at that.

[IT-Accountant @ Jun 16th 2008 9:26AM]

The speed gains here have more to do with improved (read: more efficient) CPU architecture and improved communication with RAM and the GPU(s). As you probably know, it's hard to bump clock speed up all that much without creating cooling issues, and CPU-RAM communication is far more of a computing bottleneck than CPU clock speed.

[jdang @ Jun 17th 2008 4:04AM]

I have it on good info that ... you ain't seen nothing yet.

Go read the anandtech preview, where it beats the Penryn handily. Take into account that the cpu they previewed was not good silicon, and be prepared. Watch the increase of performance over Penryn clock for clock be improved greatly.

[milton359 @ Jun 16th 2008 9:31AM]

You can blame Intel themself for spreading that ghz myth in the market back in the day.

But everything that I have heard and just the few unofficial tests point out to this being one huge performance bump over most existing lines of chips.

[teecas @ Jun 16th 2008 9:46AM]

Goodbye.

[albtms @ Jun 16th 2008 10:13AM]

Since when is a quad-core CPU a gamer chip? Am I just not EXTREME enough that I don't run four games at once? I guess the other improvements would still make it quite fast, but somehow I don't know if it'd be worth the extra cost. But I guess that's why I'm not so extreme.

[madeforidiots @ Jun 16th 2008 1:25PM]

Since when would you run 4 games at once?

[palehorse @ Jun 16th 2008 10:26AM]

I'm guessing $999 for the chip, which puts it squarely in the "YEAH RIGHT!" category for me...

but mannn, it sounds like fun!

[kal326 @ Jun 16th 2008 10:43AM]

In other words the lastest Xeon chips will also be available by years end. The nice thing is that at 3.2Ghz plus the roughly 20% performance gain that been reported by ditching the FSB and moving the mem controller into the chip, these chips will be great for a big beefy virt machine host.

2 to 4 of these, 32GB of ram and a nice SAN and it will be a good day.....

[sr1329 @ Jun 16th 2008 11:59AM]

The extreme has triple channel quick connect for 6.4 billion transactions per second. The non-extreme models will have 4.8.

[sr1329 @ Jun 16th 2008 12:00PM]

I meant "quickpath" not quick connect.

[foxinsocks @ Jun 16th 2008 12:33PM]

Once again the oh so classic 3.2ghz barrier.