Gulftown

Gulftown was the codename for Intel's six-core desktop processors based on the 32nm Westmere microarchitecture. These processors were officially branded as Intel Core i7-980X and i7-990X. Gulftown processors used the LGA 1366 socket and required an X58 chipset motherboard. They were targeted at high-end desktop users and enthusiasts seeking increased multi-threaded performance. Key features of Gulftown included six physical cores, twelve threads (through Hyper-Threading), and a larger cache compared to previous quad-core offerings. They also incorporated Intel's Turbo Boost technology, allowing individual cores to run at higher clock speeds when others were idle. Gulftown processors were succeeded by the Sandy Bridge-E family of processors.