All the way back in August a rumor was going around that the 990x would be released in September however no sign of the release appeared and many months on we’ve finally seen the new 990x hit shelves. There’s no official statement from Intel as of yet but the chip has hit shelves and is now available for purchase.
The 990x will be based on a new stepping of the 32nm Gulftown Architecture, with the same 6 core, 12 thread setup as the 980x except that it will ship with a higher clock speed of 3.46GHz and speeds of up to 3.6GHz with Intel’s Turbo Boost enabled.
While the bump in speed bears little significance, the new stepping could significantly improve overclocking performance over the 980x which is already able to hit a very impressive 4.2GHz and beyond on nothing more than air cooling.
If you’re looking to buy one of these monsters then be prepared to sell an arm and leg as the 990x is hitting shelves with a retail price of $1,050 USD. While the price tag is large it’s not to be unexpected from an Intel Extreme Edition processor. Perhaps the better news to come from this for our budget conscious readers is that it’s predecessor the i7 980x which is currently sitting at $1,000 USD is expected to fall significantly in price due to the release of the 990x, while the 970 (locked multiplier) is currently sitting at a more swallow-able $600 USD.
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