Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Detailed, Priced [Extreme Edition Processor Gains Specs, +$1000 Price, 32nm Westmere Chip, Heading To Mac Pros?]

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After months of speculation in the enthusiast community, pricing and further specs for Intel’s new bleeding edge processor has revealed. Info about the -980X Extreme Edition comes to us from (where else) European retailers who apparently posted sale pages for the item early. As you can imagine, the processor won’t be cheap.

The listings from the eRetailers has the price of the -980X Extreme Edition set at an incredible €931 ($1,274). Although it’s a ton of money, it’s in-line with what Intel usually charges for their “Extreme Edition” processors (though). But it’s a sweet (or not so sweet) irony that the silicon die that the chip is printed on probably cost Intel $2.50.

Cost aside, it’s looking like it’ll be the elite chip you’d expect from an Intel “Extreme Edition” processor. It’s an Gulftown processor which is right from Intel’s cutting edge 32m Westmere fab processor. It is a hyper-threaded six-core processor and has a clockspeed of 3.33GHz with Turboboost speeds reaching 3.6GHz.

The -980X will have a 12MB L3 Cache and will have a very high TDP of 140W. It’ll also use the LGA 1366 socket. So, can we expect the -980X Extreme Edition in a Mac Pro refresh this year? Our former editor Alex thought it possible in December, but it seems much more likely that Apple will opt for one of the new Xeon 56xx chips in a Mac Pro refresh. The Xeon 56xx series is from the same chip (Gulftown) as the -980X EE and Apple likes to put those workstation cores in their workstation Mac Pros.

Regardless, those hoping to purchase a Core i7-980X Extreme Edition can prepare their wallets for a release date later this month.