Intel has revealed and named its upcoming Extreme Processor, 990X which belongs to its Core i7 Extreme Family and will be released in Q1 2011. The processor will be slightly faster then the current fastest 980X Extreme Processor.

The 990X Extreme Processor is based on the 6 Core Gulftown Architecture where as it was previously reported to be based on the 32Nm Sandy Bridge Architecture. The Gulftown core provides two more cores iver the four cores of the sandy bridge 32NM CPU’s.

The Processor is clocked at a massive 3.46Ghz which is a 130Mhz more than the i7 980X which is clocked at 3.33Ghz. The Turbo boost feature will allow it to reach speeds of 3.76Ghz for each core. The processor comes with 12 Threads featuring Hyper-Threading and a QPI of 6.4 GT/s. The other good thing about the CPU is that its unlocked providing more room for overclocking.

The CPU houses 3-channel memory controller and has a TDP of 130W. As said on the top, you wont be noticing any significant performance increase with the new one but those who are looking forward to the latest hardware or want to upgrade from their current Extreme Processors would sure give 990X a try.

The processor when available in Q1 2011 will be priced for 999$ which is the same as the current price of the 980X. Till then we wont be seeing any new Extreme Processor in the market except 980X.