Intel Core i7 920 - DigitalVersus

Intel Core i7 920


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Socket	1366
Number of cores	4
Clock rate	2.66 GHz
Cache	8 MB
Thermal Design Power	130 W
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Technology	45 nm
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Régis Jehl
Test date: December 17, 2009

Intel's Range

Intel unveiled its Core i7 900 in November 2008 with three models: the 920, the 940 and the 965 Extreme. All of them are quad-core CPUs with hyper-threading technology allowing compatible software to simulate the presence of eight cores. They also have a Turbo mode, which can increase their frequency by either 133 or 266 MHz depending on the number of cores in use.

Based on the Nehalem architecture, the i7 900 processors have an 8 MB cache and sit in a 1366 socket. Engineered at 45 nm, they have a very high Thermal Design Power of 130 W.

The Core i7 920 is a more affordable version of the 975 XE: from a frequency of 3.33 GHz, on the latter, we fall back here to 2.66 GHz, but without losing Turbo mode or hyper-threading.

What are those two for exactly? They're actually simpler than they sound: when all four cores aren't in use, or at their maximum capacity, Turbo mode can increase their speed by 133 or even 266 MHz, pulling you up from a 2.80 GHz processor to one running at 2.93 GHz.

Hyper-threading, though, emulates an extra process on each core: the OS acts as if it has eight cores available, rather than four. The aim is to better manage the processor's capacity.

Energy Consumption

Like the other processors in the 900 series, the energy consumption of this processor is far from exceptional. While idle, it's no better than average at around 120 W. The new Core i7 models from the next range down, the 800 series, get this down to 85 W. While working, we measured a much worse result: our whole computer was drawing 242 W.

Performance: Applications

This model performed identically to the Core i7 870. Price is one thing that sets them apart, but it's not something that we pay attention to in our tests or the final scores. To give you some more detail of just how close they are, we could cite their scores on our Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.5 test, which involves converting a hundred RAW photos into JPEGs: both processors took exactly 4 minutes 51 seconds.

General overall average.
Click on the graph to see all of our results and compare this CPU to other models.

Performance: Gaming

Gaming results were equally impressive, with an average of 53 fps in World in Conflict: Soviet Assault. Playing Far Cry 2, the processor provided enough power to demonstrate the graphics card's shortcomings, reaching 67 fps.

There is one small hitch though: some games (ArmA 2, for instance), don't like it when you turn on hyper-threading and their performance falls as a result. If you don't find some games a little jerky, try turning hyper-threading off, even if it will degrade performance in other apps.