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Intel announces mobile Core 2 Extreme
Author: Tim SmalleyPublished: 17th July 2007
Intel's Core 2 Extreme X7800 comes clocked at 2.6GHz and features an unlocked multiplier, allowing you to overclock your notebook.
In the bulletin sent out to press last night Mooly Eden, Intel’s vice president and general manager of the Mobile Platforms Group, stated that “Laptops are the fastest-growing computing market segment, and there is increasing demand from those who crave the ultimate in video, gaming and design computing performance yet want the freedom and flexibility that a laptop brings.”
The Core 2 Extreme X7800 hums along at 2.60GHz on an 800MHz front side bus and features 4MB of L2 cache. This is 200MHz faster than Intel’s Core 2 Duo T7700, which operates at 2.40GHz.
As a result of the higher clock speeds, Intel has set the X7800’s thermal design power at a fairly liberal 44W; this is up 10W from the T7700’s TDP – an equivalent of a 30 percent increase. What makes the Core 2 Extreme X7800 special is that, like its desktop cousins, it has a fully unlocked multiplier which means you can overclock it with a fairly minimal effort.
Notebook Italia (translator required) has already had the chance to play with one of these new CPUs and got it running up at 3.00GHz with almost no effort. That’s obviously going to increase power consumption and will result in a shorter battery life.
Pricing is set at $851 USD in 1000 unit boxes (probably around £500 inc. VAT if it’s sold off the shelf in the UK) and it hopefully won’t drive the prices of notebooks up too much when it starts to appear. However, no notebook manufacturers have officially unveiled designs featuring Intel’s new flagship mobile processor, so we’re going to have to play a waiting game.
While you wait, what are your thoughts on this move? Tell all in the forums – go on, you know you want to.
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Comments (11)
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That's actually not quite true. Draw a distinction between "mobile gaming" and "portable gaming" and you'll see a difference. Let me explain:
1) Mobile Gaming - if you're planning on playing Company of Heroes on a transatlantic flight then you're pretty screwed (unless you have in-seat power).
2) Portable Gaming - if you want all the power, but the ability to easily cart your system around to LAN Parties / mate's house / home / work etc then there is a point. As an example, we recently had a mass TrackMania night here in the office. We ran out of PCs but I could happily play on my notebook. OK, so it's not a Quad nor is TM a taxing game, but the principle is there.
Make sense?
I have a top end laptop for running Database and Development software, so a high end processor would be better when we have to execute complex SQL queries that take minutes (especially when demoing to clients off site). I think most business laptops are normally connected to the mains and only used on battery for short periods.
Keep on going Intel, crank out those fast processors so the prices for the middle end of the market drop...