Intel Core i7-950 Review

Introduction

Processor lines are always strange things. When compared to graphics cards which have thousands of variants, processors tend to have perhaps three or four types within a classification.

The i7 line consisted, upon release, of the i7-920, i7-940 and the i7-960. With the i7-920 around £240, i7-940 about the £450 mark and the top end i7-960 being about £700 it was obvious that the i7-920 was the weapon of choice for the masses, and the extremists would go towards the i7-960. When the D0 stepping i7-920 was released it was pretty much the only sensible choice.

This continued to be the case through the many evolutions of the LGA1366 line until now the Quad-Core range consists of the i7-930, the i7-950 and the range-topping i7-975. The middle processor was always an odd choice. Nobody would spend twice the price on basically a single multiplier increase over the bottom end model, and those who wanted the absolute best would always gravitate towards the multiplier-unlocked 975 Extreme.

Recently however Intel have drastically cut the price of the i7-950 down to nearly the level of the i7-930. Surely it becomes the processor of choice now? Let's find out.

Technical Specifications

So as you can see it's basically a i7-930/920 but with a multiplier of 23 instead of 20.