Intel Skulltrail Part 1 - Feeling the Power of 8 Cores

Not just small fries – Intel’s Skulltrail platform sports 8 cores running at 4 GHz each and uses a quad-core memory interface. Developed out of fear of AMD’s Phenom, Intel’s fastest hardware meets underdeveloped software.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] index.html

Fugger just ran 3DMark06 on his OC'd skulltrail system with 8800 Ultras in SLI.



Original Thread..
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] p?t=176049


Futuremark Page...
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=5070435

3DMark Score 29905 3DMarks

SM 2.0 Score 11282 Marks

SM 3.0 Score 12529 Marks

CPU Score 12293 Marks


I see him teaming up with k|ngp|n again and just demolishing their current 3DMark records.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] =3216&p=10

But its crap for many games as the memory latency is a joke.

It is a monster workstation though !!

They cracked on quad FX because IT SUCKED.

I am impressed though ... it is closer to the gamers dream.

It is a pity they didn't fix the ram issue ... but then the QF sucked power up like a dog and had it's own issues with IPC.

If anyone gets it right soon I have no doubt it will be Intel.

In the meantime there is no reason to buy it over a souped up single socket Yorkie with all of the fruit ... and half the cost.

Is all we know is that most games werent optimized for this technology?

The whole review was a waste of time, in my opinion. Why bother with something that doesn't do anything practical, as far as gamers are concerned? Unless that was the point, to make gamers aware of how bad this setup is, as well as how expensive.

I agree with wingless. Software developers are way WAY behind the game here. They've known about dual core coming for at least 3.5 years, and dual cores have been available on market for at least 2. And yet we're still not seeing any games that utilize more than one core? Lazy lazy lazy.

where is amd with there dual quad core system with a lower power use chipset. The 790FX chipset can be used with a dual cpu setup and it will use a lot less power then the skultrail chipset with more pci-e 2.0 lanes and 2 dual channels sets with DESKTOP RAM.
2 channels per cpu.

Umm... am I the only one that read the whole article? This setup seems about as practicel as whipping your bottom with a pine cone. Some of the #s are impressive but the layout is useless. You can't run 4 video cards, even if you could they would block significant air flow to the South Bridge cooler which is already noisy. I'm sorry, but i think this would be an immense waste of money and time to setup. Not to mention the added cost of powering it. There are bragging rights and then there is just blind stupidity. I think I will wait to see how the nVidia 790i chip set turns out. If you are a gamer then even going quad core right now or even for the next year or two is really just a waste as there aren't many games coded to use more then 2-4 cores. To all you graphics pros and artists... good luck and enjoy!

The Whole point was to review the product.
Show it's strengths/weaknesses so people could decide if they want it.

If you are a gamer, you likely don't want this system.

If you are a professional developer for 3D work, you may VERY MUCH want this system.

The whole computing universe, does not revolve around playing Crysis.
Some folks use PCs for other functions, heaven forbid.

And Yes, Intel did not target this system that will likely cost $5,000+ for a basic setup at tweens playing computer games.

This is more designed for professionals as a workstation type device for 3D Content Creators. A company would not think twice at tossing $10K-$15K on a computer, IF it made key folks more efficient.

This system is for MASSIVE CPU Power.
Games Don't Need Massive CPU Power off this magnitude.

Skulltrail? Two thoughts come to mind...

1. That's what you'd have to leave behind you to ever purchase/power one of these power hogs

2. Looks like Intel's human after all *cough cough*

hehe http://img.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] s/ange.gif

I think this is just a starting mobo. The idea is great for encoding and decoding. I am syre Itel is cooking up a desktop style chipset just for this and will impliment it later when it is fully ready. Intel is just trying to deliver on their promise of a 8 core system.

Don't forget it's also targeted at people who just wants to show off.

Yeah. Also the people who buys a stick shift car but can't use it properly.

Wait hasn't anyone looked at Apples Mac Pro. That is sporting 2 quads as standard default. You can have that or a crumby imac seems like a big gap to me. So what is the point of this article? Isn't this just another workstation board?

Uh-oh, get out the fire extinguishers, that comment will deteriorate this thread into a flame war.

Damn, a quad-core 3.2GHZ pentium 3. What will intel come up with next? Let's hope they skip the 10 GHZ pentium 4's this time.

This got to be the most useless MB i've seen so far... hope they'll get back to hearth and start building something that actually is worth reading through pages of, I'll have to say, a pointless review so far... waiting for part 2.

Uhm, yes.
Thanks tom, for your awesome articles that inform "the world" on information we wouldn't possibly have found out about without you.

Oh and since "The truth about power consumption" I stopped taking anything that you write serious. Biased and flawed is what most articles on this website are.

I must have missed something here. The article talks about 2 (or more) nVidia cards in an Intel board running SLI. I have been out of touch for about a month... did nVidia approve running SLI on Intel motherboards?

"In its manual, Intel recommends equipping the memory with an active fan. No fan is included with the system, however, and we're not sure how Intel imagines it should be mounted anyway."


With aftermarket memory coolers. Exactly the same ones used with conventional DDR2 memory (ieCZ XTC RAM COOLER)

Take care

Nope, this product will fail, I don't see it catching on.

This is more like the "we can also do the dirty trick you did, and we do it better" thing, as opposed to "let me sell this shtick and make some green".

But I agree, this product will fail, if its original intention was indeed selling for profits.

They did use zalman 9500's.