The Intel Core i7-920 is one of the top-level processors, or central processing units, of semiconductor company Intel Corp.'s flagship Core brand of personal computer chips. Produced under the code name "Bloomfield," Intel introduced it on Nov. 2008 as part of the six-member i7-9xx series, and it is specifically used for desktop PCs. The i7-920 had a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $284 at time of publication.
Design and Manufacture
Intel designs the Core i7-920 as a quad-core processor, which means that it has four cores that act as processing units. The cores are placed on a 263-square millimeter die, a wafer of semiconductor material that contains 731 million processing transistors. Intel adheres to the 45 nanometer manufacturing process, which it introduced in 2008, when making the i7-920. Also included are eight threads of execution that serve as the chip's smallest unit of processing that the computer's operating system can schedule.
Intel Turbo Boost
Each Intel Core i7-920 has a clock, or processing, speed of 2.66 gigahertz. Intel, however, includes a Turbo Boost technology that enables the CPU to operate above this rate. Thus, with this feature, the i7-920 can operate as fast as 2.93GHz. Still, it is at the bottom of the i7-9xx division and the mid-range of i7 desktop chips in terms of clock speed performance. Like its 9xx siblings, the i7-920 has a data transfer rate of 4.8 gigatransfers per second, or 4.8 billion transfers per second.
Cache and Power
Each Intel i7 desktop PC processor has an Intel Smart Cache, which is a tiny memory bank installed on the chip for super-quick access to the computer's most frequently used data. Like all the other chips, except for one, the cache of the i7-920 is 8 megabytes; the i7-970 has a 12-MB cache instead. The i7-920, however, ranks the lowest in terms of energy efficiency, posting a 130-watt thermal design power like its 9xx brethren.
Technologies
Besides the Intel Turbo Boost, the Core i7-920 has a 64-bit instruction set, which symbolizes the maximum size of data it handles. Also included are Hyper-Threading Technology for making the chip a better multitasker, virtualization for merging multiple operating systems into a single PC, SpeedStep and Demand-Based Switching for improving performance while conserving power, and Execute Disable Bit as a security measure against viruses and malware.
Tags: Core i7-920, Intel Core, Turbo Boost, Also included, Each Intel, Intel Core i7-920, Intel Turbo