Intel Core i7-920 - Core i7 Bloomfield Quad-Core 2.66 GHz LGA 1366 130W Processor - BX80601920

Pros: The i7's are the fastest, most efficient commercially available processors in the world right now. There is really no debate on this. But, don't be fooled. Of the three offerings right now (the 920, the 940, and the 965 Extreme Edition), this is, by far, the best bang for your buck. After purchasing a good aftermarket cooler (Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme), I easily overclocked this processor to a stable 3.8GHz!! Yes, 3.8GHz--on air cooling! You can real 'Other Thoughts' for details, but this processor has a tremendous amount of headroom. I even got a 4.2GHz stable on a water system from a similar batch chip. So, don't waste your money on the more expensive 940 or 965 Extreme unless you really want to go above ~4.0Ghz, or need an unlocked multiplier. This processor will meet your needs without stealing your wallet.

Cons: It failed the razor test. The processor was slightly uneven on the top, but not enough to justify lapping. I just had to use more Artic Silver than I'm really comfortable with. This is a common problem with all processors from both manufacturers, so I can't count it against them. Come on guys. If an enthusiast can level these by a simple lapping procedure, surely you (Intel/AMD), with your state-of-the-art facilities and resources, can develop a process to ensure a nice, smooth finish before it hits my retail box. =/ Those dips cause heat dissipation issues, you know.

Overall Review: Here's my setup (for the visual people out there): *Case - Antec 1200 *MB – Asus P6T Deluxe/Palm OC *CPU – 3.8GHz Intel Core i7 920 CPU (Batch#3842A555) @190x20 @1.25V w/Ultra120 Extreme running two 120mm "Slipstream" Fans @ ~85CFA -- Max load temps are 51-48-52-49 and idles are 30-29-32-26 after 12 hours of prime *RAM – Corsair Dominator 12GB (6 x 2GB) DDR3 1066/1333 @ 1520MHz 9-8-8-24T *VGA – SLI – (2) ASUS GTX295 *PSU – Tagan BZ1100 Modular *HDD – Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB (System Drive), and 3 Seagate 750GB Storage Drives *BIOS Settings* AI overclock – Manual CPU Ratio Setting – 20 BCLK frequency – 190 (Temps were high 70s @ full load for 200, so I brought it down to 190.) PCIE frequency – 100 DRAM frequency – DDR3 1523MHz UCLK frequency – 3047MHz QPI frequency – 6857MHz Cpu voltage – 1.25v CPU PLL voltage – 1.96v QPI-Dram voltage – 1.35v DRAM Bus voltage – 1.65v DRAM REF voltage – Auto CPU Differential Amplitude - 800mV *Remaining entries

Pros: My processor overclocked to 3.2GHz by doing absolutely nothing besides turning up BCLK to 160MHz. Never tried the stock heatsink, but with a Noctua NU-12P SE1366 My cores run at 32C idle and 55C in Prime95 at 2.67GHz. Temps when OC'd to 3.2GHz are exactly the same! By turning Vcore up to 1.30V and BLCK up to 180MHz, 3.6GHz is rock solid, but temps go up to 36C idle and 65C in Prime95. This is all with the Turbo still enabled, so if you are running a heavy single-threaded app with the BCLK at 180MHz this part self-OC's to 3.8Ghz and runs at about 41C. It would probably run faster, but I don't feel comfortable running a core beyond 70C and don't want to mess with water cooling or the fans necessary to air-cool. At 1.30V Vcore and 180MHz BLCK, my machine gets Passmark scores of 2972 for the total system and 8262 for the CPU!

Cons: Going beyond 3.2GHz, the system blue-screens during prime95 if unless you increase Vcore. Beyond 3.6GHz, because of the Vcores required, power consumption goes up really fast and the power-performance ratio really isn't worth it for me. Price of my tower came to $1500 without a monitor.

Overall Review: This was an upgraded on my home PC from an Athlon XP Barton 2800+ (overclocked 2500+) so my exuberance might be out of perspective for some of you. However, my work PC's and laptop are all Dell Core 2 Duo's and are still really sluggish compared to this beast. System components: Antec 900, GA-EX58-UD5, 6GB GSkill F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ 1600DDR3, EVGA GTX 260+, PC Power S75QB 750W power supply, Vista 64 Ultimate, Samsung SH-S223Q DVD, 2xSamsung F1 HD103UJ 1TB in RAID 1. All from Newegg, except my heatsink--Newegg didn't have any real LGA1366 heatsinks :(

Pros: Great overclocker. I'm doing 3.83GHz on air with a Thermalright Ultra Extreme. Awesome performance. Around 6.4K in 3dmark06's CPU test. I could do well over 3.2GHz on stock voltage with the stock cooler. Most of you should be able to as well. 3.6GHz only took 1.28v to hold. 3.83GHz takes 1.35v. Very fast. @ 3.2GHz it blows away my old Q6600 G-0 @ 3.51GHz. O6 CPU scores at the mentioned speeds are 5516 vs 4901 respectively. It's beastly for multi-media applications.

Cons: None. Buy one.

Overall Review: Glad I bought this. I am running it @ 3.83GHz with GTX 260 SLi @ 730 on the core. It's a perfect setup for 1920x gaming with AA. Also, again, if you do a lot of encoding, you'll love it. If you plan to go Tri-SLi or SLi get on X58 with one of these. The massive bandwidth on said platform benefits them both. Most people that invest in decent aftermarket air cooling or water cooling should see at least 3.6-3.8GHz with one of these. I've seen them over 4.0GHz on water and better cooling.

Pros: Overclocks to the same level of performance as the $900 version. Stock cooler temps are fine with base clock. I OCed with both the stock cooler and Coolmaster V8. I would recommend the V8 if you are going to OC. Really not much to say on this, it can multitask like a champ running just about every MS Office Application without any problem while running Chrome and IE in the background. I even ran Warhammer Online and Alt-Tabbed out to see if it would lag and I never came close to overloading it. Again, just a dream to have with the EVGA X58 board and no problems for a non-OCer to OC this to maximum performance. I would recommend reading Maximum PC's recent article on how to OC this CPU, it worked perfectly.

Cons: Still a little high in price but if you OC then the Cost/Performance Ratio is very favorable.

Overall Review: Antec TPQ-850 850W Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit ASUS MK241H Black 24" LCD Monitor LITE-ON 22X DVD Burner with LightScribe SATA COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard 2X EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX(G92) 512MB Antec Nine Hundred Computer Case OCZ Gold 6GB Triple Channel Kit Model OCZ3G1600LV6GK Western Digital Caviar Green WD6400AACS 640GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives Intel Core i7 920 AFT PRO-28U SILVER 28-in-1 Card Reader

Pros: I have never used a processor for so long, or with as much satisfaction. It has outlived everything in my life. When one application of Arctic Silver got crusty, it dutifully notified me by shutting down, only to return as fresh as the day I unboxed it, when I cleaned off the blackened soot and replaced it with a fresh splat. This processor has loved me longer than any woman. My father is dead, but the processor he bought me carries on.

Cons: Reminds us of the brick wall the industry hit in terms of processing power.

Overall Review: I'm going to OC this thing to a minimum of 3.5ghz for FFXIV: Heavensward, in a caseless setup, using a Zalman copper-finned heatsink so large I could never fit it in any case. How long can the 920 really last? I aim to find out.

Pros: Great CPU. easy OC to 3.2Ghz (did not touch a thing except BClock. Left TDP and thermal threshold limits on. It never throttles itself at 3.2Ghz even at 100% load on 4 cores). By far the best bang for your $$ right now if you are going i7.

Cons: Heatsink mounting system is garbage in my opinion. It literally took me 3 tries to mount the heatsink properly. I've put together a good number of PC's over the years(mostly AMD), but this was tricky. At first I was getting high temps under load (nearing 80C). Reseated the heatsink and replaced the thermal pad with arctic silver The 3rd time I finally got it right and idle temps dropped into the 30's, underload and OC-ed to 3.2 I hit 60's, maybe low 70's.

Overall Review: Just make sure that you seat the heatsink properly. It was not obivious to me that it wasn't fully seated until I googled for the temps these CPU's normally run at. Either that or find a quality aftermarket cooler.

Pros: Fast for sure. My BlueRay encodes now take 4 hours instead of 14 hours on my E8400 at 3.6Ghz. I'm seeing a 40% reduction in DVD Shrink speeds. Programs open in the blink of eye. I'm running at 3.8Ghz with the base clock at 181mhz and Turbo on equaling 3.8Ghz. All my settings are default except Northbridge freqeuncy which I set at 3000mhz. 3.8Ghz at stock settings,amazing.

Cons: Of course the Intel HSF

Overall Review: I initially used the stock fan,I cut off the Intel fan and replaced it with a 3000RPM 95mm fan, Idle temp was 32C and low 50's on moderate load. I did replace it with a Coolmaster N520,idle speed remained 32C,but load temps went down 5-6C. I turned off Hyperthreading because it did not seem to improve speed with the programs I use. HT greatly increases temps. On moderate loads HT adds 10-15C,on heavy loads it adds 15-25C to individual core temps. My CPU temps went to the high 50's under heavy load with HT on,with HT off my heavy load temps are in the high 40's.

Pros: Shorter times to working desktop. Easily overclocked with minimal "research". Stable. Better performance at some tasks.

Cons: None

Overall Review: I am not a gamer. I had an overclocked Q6600 and although the i7 920 is noticeably faster at some tasks (video encoding in particular), it really is not by much. Not much difference in "everyday" tasks. When you factor in the cost of a new MB, memory, and aftermarket cooler, if you have a Quad core or higher end Core 2 Duo you may not want to spend that kind of money for small gains. But hey, it was Christmas, and I'll take a processor, MB and memory over shirts, pants and socks everytime!