Intel Core i7 930

Intel Core i7 930 review

When the first Bloomfield Core i7 chips initially cropped up it was the usual, frighteningly expensive parts that hit the floor running. We were aghast at the sight of eight threads running on a single-CPU machine and the hole that it was going to leave in your pocket. Then came the incredi-chip, the Core i7 920. At £200 it was the cheapest Core i7 around, but packed one hell of a wallop in its unassuming silicon innards, thanks to its impressive overclocking performance. The next stepping of the chip, the 920 D0, only served to further improve its prospects. But now there's the Core i7 930, a chip charged with being the best value X58 i7 CPU around. So, what's different with this new pretender then? Well the first thing to notice is the stock speed: at 2.8GHz it's clocked slightly higher than its elder brethren, giving superior performance straight out of the box. The real key to this new chip though, is the higher CPU multiplier that the 930 is sporting under the hood. It's only slightly bigger than the 920's 21x at 22x, but that extra should make all the difference when tweaking the clocks. And that's exactly what this CPU, like the i7 920 before it, is for.