<p><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="content">It&rsquo;s rare that anything we review has the longevity that Intel&rsquo;s Core i7 Bloomfield platform has enjoyed. If you were one of the fortunate few to buy a Core i7 920, 940 or 965 back in November 2008, you&rsquo;d still have one of the fastest desktop CPUs today in March 2010.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="content"> <p>In fact, other than a few minor speed bumps, Intel hasn&rsquo;t done much with its LGA-1366 platform in the past 15 months. Last year Intel introduced Nehalem for the rest of us with its LGA-1156 socket and in January we got the first dual-core derivatives.</p> </span></span><span class="content"> <p>&nbsp;<span style="font-size: small;">Now it&rsquo;s finally time to take care of the folks who invested in Nehalem and Core i7 early on. In the coming weeks Intel will be shipping its first 6-core desktop processor, built using the same 32nm process used in the Clarkdale Core i3/i5 CPUs. It&rsquo;s codenamed Gulftown but today we can call it the Core i7 980X. Did I mention that with a BIOS update it&rsquo;s fully compatible with all X58 motherboards? That&rsquo;s right, even if you bought a board in November 2008 - you can upgrade directly to Gulftown.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3763">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p> </span></p>