Intel Core i7 970 Gulftown On Linux

As another real-world test, there's the build-apache test profile to measure how long it takes to compile Apache (currently at Apache version 2.2.11) and it does use the make command's jobs flag for compiling with GCC at twice the number of jobs as available threads, which for the Core i7 970 means compiling with 24 jobs. Compiling the entire Apache web server with this Intel review sample CPU took a mere 22 seconds while the other Core i7 CPUs we tested took 27~28 seconds along with the dual AMD Opteron 2384 system. The Core i7 970 is a blessing if you are to do a lot of compiling on a daily basis.

Sadly, there still are not a lot of native Linux games available especially ones that are good and would be suitable for benchmarking. With the Unigine tech demos currently available (such as Unigine Tropics and Unigine Heaven), you will find them to be limited by the graphics processor with even the latest AMD/NVIDIA hardware. With the open-source games that are most commonly using some form of the ioquake3 engine (such as with OpenArena), you will find them to be CPU limited unless using the open-source Linux graphics drivers from Mesa / Gallium3D. These open-source games are also generally not multi-threaded. With NVIDIA's proprietary driver and the GeForce GTX 460 when paired with the Core i7 970, it had the highest-frame rates, but even with an Intel Core i3 530 you can find it running at several hundred frames per second.

With the TTSIOD 3D phong renderer, which is actually all CPU-based, the Core i7 970 was moderately faster than the Core i7 870.