A new day, a new dawn and a new era in the life of Intel brings to the fore a whole new concept of computing.  When a product of this nature and magnitude comes along it most certainly has us standing up and paying great attention to what it can bring to the end users within the professional community.  There have been many rumours of what the i7 can do and cannot do.

Something special should grace the new set-up.   And this is a double first outing, because we also take an exclusive first look at ATI's FirePro V8700 professional graphics card. 

This enthusiast motherboard houses the X58 chipset, supporting  three DDR3 channels, LGA1366 socket and ICH10 Southbridge which has been code-named Smackover.  It’s packaged in an  ATX form factor desktop board based on the Intel X58 Express chipset, 6 SATA (3.0Gb/s) ports storage capability, 1 PCI, 3 PCI Express* x16, 1 PCI Express x1 IEEE-1394a, Gigabit LAN, 2 eSATA ports, Intel High Definition Audio supporting 8-channel Dolby* surround sound.

If you pop in a fourth module and occupy all the slots the DX58SO motherboard won't be running in quad-channel.  It does default back down to single channel mode, which in turn has an impact on memory bandwidth.   Therefore run with a triple channel set-up when possible.   The official support memory clock speed is 1066MHz, but times have changed and 1333MHz, 1600MHz and even 2000MHz memory kits will work on the platform.  But make sure you have the correct supporting CPU.    There are plenty supplying these new timing triple kits and some are at a great premium.
  
Delve into the BIOS and the i7 is an overclocker’s heaven.  There are so many variables I could spend all day covering this, though with the help of other websites which have pushed forward the board to day you can read all about that later in your own time.  For now, we have to run at the stock values as these are the basic requirements of some of the tests here.

Intel claims its next-generation microarchitecture (codenamed "Nehalem") represents the next step in processor energy efficiency, performance, and dynamic scalability. Designed from the ground up to take advantage of hafnium-based Intel® 45nm hi-k metal gate silicon technology, Nehalem will also be the first to introduce Intel QuickPath technology. So Intel says.

The new chips can switch off processing cores not in use and come in three flavours:

What does this translate into in real terms?

· The Front Side Bus is replaced by a QuickPath interface. This means that motherboards must use a chipset that supports QuickPath.
· The memory controller is on the processor, not in a separate chip, so the memory is directly connected to the processor.
· The memory controller supports three channels of memory, and each channel can support one or two DDR3 Dimms. This means that motherboards for the Core i7 have three or six DIMM slots instead of two or four, and that Dimms should be installed in sets of three, not two. 
· Intel Core i7 is a single-die device: all four cores, the memory controller, and all cache are on a single die.
· Intel Core i7 cores re-implement Hyper-threading. Each of the four cores can process two threads simultaneously, so the processor appears to the Operating System as eight CPUs.

With this brief explanation of the i7 now completed we now move to the ATI FirePro V8700

This card is the real direct successor of the extremely successful FireGL V8600 which is to be found within many workstations due to its cost/performance ratio.  Popular with  many OEMs and System Integrators, the card fulfils a wide set of criteria for the professional graphics industry.
 

System Set-up and Software Used
With the supplied parts these components now form part of our “in house” test systems supplied by Intel, Crucial Memory, Western Digital and Akasa.   This is a very reliable and sound workstation platform which has plenty of scope for upgrading at later dates.As this is an extreme system we decided to take the extreme to the limits, therefore we put not just one VelociRaptor in place but two and configured them into a Raid 0 array.   This configuration most certainly pushes the complete limits of the mainboard and cooling.

 The mainboard BIOS settings were left at default and it automatically adjusted the clock speed settings and voltages to facilitate the CPU’s and Memory to maintain the higher functionality which the mainboard has to offer.

Benchmarks and Software Used (32 Bit Mode)
With the plethora of benchmarks available in this arena you could spend all day in producing results if the time permitted, paralysis by analysis!  Many benchmarks have been heavily covered already therefore we felt it inappropriate to repeat this process with the few exceptions.   The clock ticked hard and fast against us therefore we did only have a very short time in which to complete this basic but factual review.

Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2c
HD Tach Version 3.0.4.0
HD Tune Ver 3.0
Sandra 2009
Everest Disc Benchmark
ATTO Hard Drive Benchmark
PCMark 2005 Advanced
MAXON CINEBENCH 10
Autodesk 3ds Max 9 SP2 Scenes
SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
SPECviewperf 10 ®

Each set of tests has been applied on the clean system hard drives shown above to ensure that no residue drivers were left installed with all updates/patches applied.   A test/render has been completed many times over different periods of the system uptime.   Maintaining the fair play rules of SPECviewperf® and SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™ we did not manipulate any of this mainboards functionality and left it at its default settings in which it was supplied.   Tests have been conducted at 1280 X 1024 @ 60Hz in 32 bit colour.   Results that have been shown within this review are from the application/benchmarks first run in accordance with the SPECviewperf® fair play rules.  Not an average of 3 runs as some places seem to think is right. 

The results speak very clearly for themselves as a picture paints a thousand words; so there is no need for a running commentary of the results gained from each system.  “Run Logs” the SPECviewperf®  tests are available to those of you who wish to see them.

HD Tach Long

HD Tune Ver 3.0

Sandra 2009

Everest

ATTO Benchmark

PC Mark 2005 Advanced

Maxon Cinebench 10

SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007

SPECviewperf 10

Conclusion
It has been without a doubt an exceptional day for both Intel and ATI as each major component has performed impeccably.   

Let’s first start with the i7 CPU and X58 Mainboard  from Intel.   The stock level supply of mainboard, CPU and cooler are very good indeed.  The mainboard has some nice finishing touches which are aesthetically.  The black finish to the PCB most certainly gives Smackover that fast feel good factor.  Intel's own stock CPU cooler gives you two options of "quiet" and "performance".   For those wishing to overclock, it’s simple to set-up, and for the complete beginner the BIOS really does it all for you so within minutes you will have a complete high-speed system ready to install your required operating system.  The overall performance of the mainboard has been superb, and has many options for upgrades at a later date.  But for now it’s more than adequate for most.  The new triple channel memory controller most certainly has the required bang needed.   The unequivocal evidence shown within proves just how much raw performance is hidden under the hood.

With the aid of the Raid 0 array from the WD VelociRaptors configuration on the ICH 10 chipset, applications have never loaded so quickly.   We have never seen the overall PCMark 2005 scores break the 10K mark across the board until today.  Mind boggling to say the least.   

For the ATI FirePro V8700, the performance shown today has been well worth the wait.   The results shown within have been extraordinary to say the least.  SPECviewperf® 10 scores have never been so high from a single socket CPU.  This card most certainly has overtaken its predecessor in many ways, faster memory, the aid of 800 unified shaders - this will help many in complex drawings.  Life in the professional graphics card market has just shifted up an incredible gear. 

Cost and availability of the ATI FirePro V8700? Currently the card fires in at an MSRP of approximately $1,499 - this is a very respectable price bracket for something which performs so well in all areas.  As for shipping of the FirePro V8700, in the next two weeks it should be with all good distributors and then making its way out to the OEMs and SIs.  We would suggest getting your order in quickly as they are going to sell like hotcakes.   We have tested the FirePro V8700 within other systems here and the results are very good.  

One note. The FirePro V8700 shown here today is an early shipping sample and used within are extremely raw but nevertheless the performance is exceptional.    The WHQL drivers used should be here within the next two weeks and we will see a improvements on what has been shown here today therefore so we should see some remarkable improvements within many areas.  

To roll back very so slightly and focus on the SPEC results shown.  Yes, they are very fast indeed and that was to be have been.  Not far away we will see the next generation of SPEC benchmarks which will bring a major leap forward in measuring professional graphic card systems.  We will see the ability to measure performance for applications incorporating vertex buffer objects (VBOs) and the latest OpenGL (GL2) shaders, and updates to more than half of the viewsets, including those based on traces of 3ds Max, Catia, EnSight, Maya and Siemens PLM NX.   The updates range from new traces that add GL2 and VBO functionality to test files, to completely new models that provide a greater challenge to the latest graphics systems.  There is much more to these new benchmarks than meets the eye, so watch this space soon for more information.  

It's also worth noting that when we completed the 3D Studio Max scenes a few months back upon Intel's own SSD we thought then that the results shown were fast.  Fast indeed they have been.  Today's performance has utterly blown them all away with the combined force of all the components here.  With this in mind its well worth a revisit to this and see just how well the SSD will run on the X58 mainboard with the i7 3.2GHz CPU.

It's an absolute shame that the 2GB memory modules did not make it on time as these would have made substantial improvements across the board within all the professional tests.  Although the returned results are exceptional, they are limited to what the full complement of memory would have brought.   It would have been nice to see the ultimate scores.   We will have to wait for a few more days to see this now. 

As for acoustics, well we have shown plenty of options within on how to keep the system quiet and cool - to the end user looking for the chassis with the flair of "looking good" then the Akasa Infiniti Zor has achieved this.  Tons of storage space and it most certainly looks the part.  This chassis will not look out of place in many environments. 

Articles and first outings of this nature always have a few hiccups and it goes without saying the unsung heroes of these exclusive reviews  come from the respective companies’ technical support guys and girls.  Thank you all.

In a previous article we stipulated that fast is good and we want fast.  Oh so very fast is what we most certainly have here today.  Cost is most certainly not a factor anyone would care to consider in gaining the huge bound in technology and performance output.    Intel has brought to the fore a combined set of parts which will have many happy waiting buyers waiting to fill their pockets with the goodies.   In conjunction with the ATI FirePro V8700 we have in our hands a seriously supersonic piece of equipment.  For those of you who have been waiting for an upgrade path, now is the time.

Move over X48, the i7 & the X58 are here to stay and the ATI FirePro V8700 is the new King of the Hill within the Professional Graphics arena . X