Intel Core i7-875K Review

Testing

The most important question we had to answer was whether or not the i7-875K could provide a compelling reason to own a top end LGA 1156 setup. To answer this question we put our three test CPUs through their paces with our CPU test suite, using our standard CPU test components.

For the X6 1090T we used the brand new Asus Crosshair IV Formula motherboard which is based on the new AMD 890FX chipset. This is a more expensive motherboard than the Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H that we used for the i7-875K, but both boards are excellent overclockers and allowed us to get the maximum performance from the CPUs on test. For the LGA 1366 i7-930 we used our standard Asus P6TD Deluxe board which is also an excellent overclocker.

Test Setup

Software

Here is a list of the applications we've used for our testing - most of them are available free for public consumption, although some are popular professional software applications.

• Crysis v1.21
  
• X3: Terran Conflict rolling demo v1.2.0.0
  
• WPrime v2.00
  
• Media Benchmarks v2007.235
  
• Maxon Cinebench 10 (x64)

We've used Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, as this is the most flexible and reliable 64-bit OS for testing the applications above.

Hardware

• ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card (Catalyst 10.5 WHQL)
  
• 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 hard disk
  
• PC Power & Cooling 750W PSU
  
• Asus P6TD Deluxe motherboard
  
• Asus Crosshair IV Formula motherboard
  
• Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H motherboard
  
• 4/6GB Corsair 1,600MHz DDR3 memory (CL9)
  
• Titan Fenrir TTC-NK85TZ CPU cooler