processor i7 (i7)
Core i7 is a quad-core microprocessor from Intel in which the memory controller is an integral part of the processor. The processor's computing power has been increased by, among other things, the DDR3 memory controller driving three memory channels in parallel. The theoretical memory bandwidth is thus 25.5 GB/s. Furthermore, the i7 concept relies on the Quick Path Interconnect( QPI), which replaces the Front Side Bus( FSB).
The QPI connection is a serial point-to-point connection with clock rates of 9.6 GB/s to 12.8 GB/s, which consists of 20 data lines, 16 of which are used for data transfer. Each of the fast data lines consists of two unidirectional channels, each of which is 20 bits wide. The theoretically achievable data transfer rate is 12.8 GB/s in each direction.
The quad-core i7 processor has a dedicated Level 1 cache( L1) of 64 KB and a Level 2 cache( L2) of 256 KB for each of the four cores, which are exclusively available to the individual processor cores. The Level 3 c ache of 8 MB, on the other hand, can be used by all four cores. The translation of the virtual memory addresses into physical memory addresses is handled by the optimized Translation Lookaside Buffer( TLB).
The i7, manufactured in a structure width of 45 nm, is available with clock rates of 2.66 GHz, 2.93 GHz and 3.20 GHz. It is in an LGA package and has the 1366 as CPU socket, whose type designation corresponds to the pin number.
Core i7 supports StreamingSIMDExtension( SSE) in a higher expansion stage (SSE4.2) and offers Hyperthreading, where the processor can process up to eight threads simultaneously.