Hewlett Packard ships Intel Core i7-990X CPU in desktop PCs

Earlier last year many hardware news site reported on forthcoming Core i7 Extreme Edition CPU with processor number i7-990X. This model was supposed to have six cores with ability to handle 12 concurrent threads, operate at 3.46 GHz, or up to 3.73 GHz in Turbo Boost mode, feature 12 MB level 3 cache, and support all technologies available in enhanced Nehalem micro-architecture. The processor was rumored to be released in the first quarter of this year. There was no official announcement of this CPU yet, and it was not included in yesterday's update of Intel's price list. It seems that the Core i7-990X was not launched yet. Or was it? In the past few days this Intel Extreme Edition processor popped up on Hewlett Packard website in the list of CPU upgrade options for two desktop computers, Pavilion Elite 580t and 590t series:

HP Pavilion Elite (HPE) 580t and 590T are top of the line computers, powered by high-performance Intel microprocessors from Core i7 family, and packed with premium components. Both desktops offer a choice of three Intel Extreme Edition CPUs, Core i7-970, i7-980X and i7-990X. The HPE-580t also adds two less expensive CPU options, Core i7-930 and i7-960, as well as i7-975 Extreme Edition model. Upgrading the 580t PC from Core i7-930 to Core i7-980X costs $900, and moving to i7-990X adds $100 on top of that. Upgrading the Pavilion 590t from Core i7-970 to the Intel i7-990X adds $350 to the system price.

The Pavilion Elite 580t and 590t support up to 24 GB of DDR3 memory, and can be customized with up to two 2TB HDD drives in non-raid mode, or up to 2 TB disk space for raid operation. Both systems have limited selection of high-performance ATI and NVIDIA video cards, and can optionally include TV tuner card, and discrete Creative Sound Blaster sound card. HP-branded keyboard and mouse on these PCs can be upgraded to Logitech wireless ones. The desktop PCs come with Wi-Fi and 10/100/1000 LAN interfaces. HPE-580t and HPE-590t computers have 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium Edition installed. Extra software on both systems includes a number of office, anti-virus and other popular software titles.

HPE 580t base configuration sells for $999.99. For this price the computer includes Core i7-930 CPU, 8 GB RAM, 750 GB hard drive, DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive, and 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics. The same base configuration with the Core i7-990X Extreme Edition comes with the price tag $1999.99.

Prices for HP Pavilion Elite HPE-590t start from $1,699.99. The cheapest configuration has Core i7-970 CPU, 9 GB RAM, 1.5 TB SATA 3Gb/s drive, 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5570 video card, and Blu-ray player / SuperMulti DVD burner. The same system with the Intel i7-990X is priced at $2049.99.

Update (Jan 23): Core i7-990X was removed from the list of CPU upgrade options for both HPE-580t and HPE-590t desktop PCs. The computers were also sold on a Costco website (Costco Wholesale Corporation is a large online and brick-and-mortar retailer in US), and the Intel i7-990X option was removed on the Costco website too. HPE-590t configuration page on HP website and HPE-590t configuration page on Costco website are still can be seen in Google cache. HP may have jumped the gun by listing the processor before the official release date, and now they corrected their mistake.