As previously revealed Intel will launch the hexa-core enthusiast model Core i7 980X, based on the Gulftown architecture, next year. The 32 nanometer processor has found its way into the hands of overclockers, even though it should not be available outside Intel’s lab, which has led to a number of early benchmarks. Additional benchmarks and overclocking results have appear where the 3.07GHz processor has been pushed over 6GHz.
We have witnessed overclockings as high as 6.5GHz+ with Intel’s Gulftown, but then with the earlier 2.4GHz engineering samples. Exactly what separates the new 3.07GHz model from these is unclear but rbuass who has published the results at XtremeSystems.org have managed to reach some pretty decent clock frequencies on both memory and northbridge/uncore. The northbridge was operating at over 4.6GHz.
The overclocking was performance with an ASUS Rampage II Extreme motherboard and rbuass decided to run some SuperPi tests at 5.98GHz which resulted in a SuperPi 1M score of 6.922 seconds.
It is pretty clear that Gulftown will have no problem achieving decent frequencies even though it has two more cores to handle. With 32nm technology to boot there is plenty of potential for good results.
