Intel Core i7 920

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.

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.

View Performance Index Table