VR-Zone

As expected, Intel is preparing for a Core 2010 series refresh between July and August. The second six-core Gulftown CPU, Core i7 970, is expected to release at a whopping $885 in mid-July. Previously, we hoped the i7 970 would fit into the $562 price point, but Intel is not interested in making its six-core offerings more affordable yet. Considering the Core i7 980X is 0.13 MHz faster Extreme Edition CPU with an unlocked multiplier, surely a consumer would pay the extra ~$100 and go for the $999 980X? Either way, the hopes for a more affordable Gulftown will need to be prolonged for a while longer.

Also part of the mid-July refresh is the Core i5 760 and the low-power Core i7 870S.

The Core i5 760 will be an important product, priced at $205, clocking in at 2.8 GHz. At release, the Core i5 750 was an incredible product, easily outperforming every competition anywhere near the $200 sweet spot. The AMD Phenom II X6 1055T, however, enjoys a 50% core count advantage as well as a clock speed advantage, despite being based on an inferior and aging architecture. The result is at $200, the Phenom II keeps up with the i5 750 in gaming applications, while it smashes it in multi-threaded applications. The multi-threaded performance of the 750 is further hampered by the lack of HyperThreading. Thus, the i5 760 at $205 will go some way into making the i5 Lynnfield line competitive again. We can expect the i5 760 be the better product for gaming and other non-multithreaded applications.

The Core i3 540 will fall to $117, making space for Core i3 560, which will release at $138 in August. Another major change in August would be the Core i7 950, which will finally fall to the $284 price point, putting further pressure on the Phenom II X6 1095T BE.

Of course, AMD is not standing still either, with a slew of refreshes expected in Q3 2010 as well, as reported before.

Reference: Digitimes