Intel Corp. has unleashed two new components for high-end desktop (HEDT) LGA2011 platform. This week, Extreme Edition Core i7-3970X processor and the Extreme-series Intel desktop board DX79SR codenamed “Stormville” are finally hitting the market to unleash new PC performance for enthusiasts.

As reported, Intel Core i7-3970X is six-core Sandy Bridge-E chip with HT technology 15MB of cache, quad-channel memory controller, 3.50GHz default clock-speed and 4GHz maximum turbo frequency. Just like the previous top-of-the-range extreme edition microprocessor, the model 3970X uses LGA2011 form-factor, but has 150W thermal design power, a 20W increase compared to the 3960X model. The increased TDP allowed Intel to make the Core i7-3970X speedier than its predecessors and also leave a headroom for further overclocking and tuning by enthusiasts and PC makers. The chip will cost $999 in 1000-unit quantities.

The Intel desktop board DX79SR, “Stormville” is Intel’s highest performance Extreme-series motherboard designed for premium features such as 8 memory DIMMs, 64GB of DDR3 memory, 3 PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots to support AMD CrossFireX and Nvidia SLI multi-GPU configurations, and full complement of controls targeted for performance tuning and overclocking. The mainboard is available today for $320, which is in line with other solutions in the class from other makers of motherboards.

Intel’s Core i7-3970X will be the world’s highest-performing desktop central processing unit for many months to go. Theoretically, it may be dethroned by Intel’s fourth-generation Core i-series “Haswell” processors in the first half of next year, but it is highly-likely that it will remain to be the king of the hill till Intel releases its next-generation Extreme chip based on Ivy Bridge-E micro-architecture in the third quarter of 2013.

Tags: Intel, Core, LGA2011, Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge-E, 22nm, 32nm, HEDT