As we all heard that the Core 7i is already transitioning to being one of the flagship chips for Intel, but what happens to the extreme edition in the previous one/ well to be exact the Core 7i’s 640 and the 965 extreme edition are just a LGA1366 socket replicas of the extreme edition QX9650 and the QX9770, they have the same 45nm fabrication architecture and also has just the same clock frequency with the QX9650 going with the 940 chipset from the 7i and the flagship QX9770 is the 965 in the new socket. While their feature technology are different (and to prove it, the New Core 7i’s have the onboard memory controller while the Core 2’s don’t) they have to have only one successor in the performance round form Intel so they will discontinue the production of the extreme quad based additions of the QX9650 and the QX9770. The fastest of Core 2 Quad generation 3.2GHz clocked QX9770 is going to be retired in Q2 2009, and this CPU has already received PDN (Product Discontinuance Notice) in current month.
The last orders have to be placed shortly and as of end of Q2 2009 you wont be able to buy a Core 2 Extreme QX9770, at least not from Intel. The second CPU that faces retirement is Core 2 Extreme QX9650 and this 3.0GHz clocked and unlocked CPU also retires at the same time.
But they haven’t shut it off completely, with the plants already shut down to make way for the Core 7i variants there is still an amount to sell the older chips, so probably the existing stock of the extreme edition quad cores are still on sale but in limited quantity. So for those people who don’t like the hype of the new core 7i and just want to have the more existing LGA775 socket platforms and want to buy the best of them, you could say that the QX editions are no longer availability, but if they are still, they will going to be really expansive, at least give about $1,000 to one of these chips. So really if you want the best from last year, with the QX9650 and the QX9770, you better just buy yourself a Core 7i variant instead, to me why would you want to buy a chipset that is already that old and a veteran in benchmarks in the former platform, yes they still have life on them, even having a few apps that it still rivals with the new 965 and the 940, but there is still the mid-end quad core variants in the Core 2 with the Q9650 looks alright being the same clock speed and at a lower price, you better opt for that, so with the transition from the new socket is brilliant, but chipset prices like the triple channel memory and the X58 chipset all making $1,000 asking price, all in all it is a mixed emotions move for Intel, we liked the QX9770’s and the intro of the newer core 7i chips, keeping in mind that they will last just short of 6months.
