Well, looks like Intel's NDA is up on their latest CPU, the Core i7, formerly codenamed "Nehalem". There's some major changes for Intel this round, two of which are mandatory DDR3 and an integrated memory controller. With the memory controller onboard and the front-side bus gone, the Core i7 communicates with the rest of the system via the QuickPath interconnect, or QPI. QuickPath is Intel's answer to HyperTransport, a high-speed, narrow, packet-based, point-to-point interconnect between the processor and the I/O chip (or other CPUs in multi-socket systems.) The QPI link on the Core i7-965 Extreme operates at 6.4 GT/s. At 16 bits per transfer, that adds up to 12.8 GB/s, and since QPI links involve dedicated bidirectional pairs, the total bandwidth is 25.6 GB/s. Lower-end Core i7 processors have 4.8 GT/s QPI links with up to 19.2 GB/s of bandwidth. Obviously, these are both just starting points, and Intel will likely ramp up QPI speeds from here in successive product generations. Still, both are somewhat faster than the HyperTransport 3 interconnects in today's Phenoms, which peak at either 16 or 14.4 GB/s, depending on the chip. From The Tech Report. Other reviews: Anandtech Ars Technica Guru of 3D [H]ard|OCP -- Application [H]ard|OCP -- Synthetic Hexus Hot Hardware PC Perspective T-Break X-bit Labs
I have heard that you can’t add memory which is more than 1.65V because you end up frying the chip :doh:
