Core i7 Supports Only DDR3 800/1066
Mobo integrators are ready to launch their Core i7 compatible products and in a couple of months we’ll get to pit the Nehalem CPUs against AMD’s Deneb. The first Core i7 specs were signaling the fact that Nehalem should be faster than Deneb, but a recent clarification shrouded all those expectations into a thick cloud of confusion. Fudzilla reports that the Bloomfield CPU (he first Nehalem CPU to hit the market in Q4 2008) will only support DDR3 800 and 1066.
Even the extreme edition 3.2GHz Core i7 which will be launched early next year officially supports only DDR3 modules clocked up to 1066 MHz. Intel didn’t mention anything about specific support for DDR 3 1333, 1600 or higher. However, it might be possible for motherboard integrators to come with a solution for this problem.
The guys over at Fudzilla also found out that the memory-CPU voltage has to be synchronized and this would mean that overclocking the Core i7 CPUs will be pretty limited. Current evaluations pointed out that you cannot go over 1.65V as far as memory voltage is concerned. DDR 3 1600 usually requires 1.8V or higher. Moreover, since the voltages have to be synchronized, everything over 1.65V is likely to turn your Nehalem CPU to a toast.
Bloomfeld won’t be supporting any DDR2 memories either. Only the motherboard integrators and chipset makers, excluding Intel, may be able to lift these limits.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader by FeedBurner.
What I want to know is that will the 940 version of this processor be out by November? And also do I need 3 DDR3 RAM just to make it work or will 2 2GB DDR3 RAM be enough? Also is/will there be a NVIDIA SLI Ready MOtherboard that can support this processoer?