something concerning the core i7s performance:
"A 2.93 GHz Core i7 940 system has been used to run a 3DMark Vantage benchmark and gave a CPU score of 17,966.[13] The 2.66 GHz Core i7 920 scores 16,294. A earlier generation Core processor, 2.66 GHz Core 2 Quad Q9450 scores 11,131.[14]
AnandTech tested the Intel QuickPath Interconnect (4.8 GT/s version) and found the copy bandwidth using triple-channel 1066 MHz DDR3 was 12.0 GB/s. A 3.0 GHz Core 2 Quad system using dual-channel 1066 MHz DDR3 achieved 6.9 GB/s.[15]
Overclocking will be possible with the 900 series and a motherboard equipped with the X58 chipset. In early October 2008, reports surfaced that it will not be possible to use "performance" DDR3 DIMMs that require voltages higher than 1.65v, because the integrated memory controller within the Core i7 will be damaged.[16] Some tests however have demonstrated that the voltage limit does not apply, like on an MSI board, and manufacturers can choose to bond CPU voltage to memory or not. By the end of that month, Performance memory vendors had announced 1.65v DDR3 memory kits with speeds up to 2GHz.
Some early articles suggested that i7's design is not ideal for gaming performance. In a test done on leaked hardware, a Core i7 940 compared to a QX9770 shows the Core i7 is slower than Yorkfield clock for clock in 2 games while being faster in the other two. Difference in all cases are small.[17] However, more recent testing done on all speeds of official hardware with final drivers and BIOS reveisions show that Core i7 at the very least beats Yorkfield clock-for-clock, and in most cases exceeds it by an average of about 17%.[18]
In the single-threaded Super PI 1M test, a Core i7 920 running at 2.66 Ghz finished the test in 15.36 seconds, while a QX9770 (3.2 Ghz) did the test in 14.42 seconds,[19]so the Core i7 executed 20% more instructions per clock cycle on this test.
Since the Core i7 is a quad-core processor, Hyperthreading cannot yield any performance improvement for application workloads with fewer than five simultaneous threads when all the cores are fully powered on, and some applications will suffer a performance degradation when hyperthreading is enabled.[20] Hyperthreading will provide its best improvement when the workload has eight or more simultaneous threads."
wonder how it will peform in games of course