Take this with a pinch of salt...

Intel's upcoming Core i7 965 will offer a 52% performance improvement in games over the QX9770, which shares the same 3.2GHz clock speed. Expreview has the goods.

According to some reviewers who had their hands on the upcoming Bloomfield, the new CPU runs great. But how huge improvement it is compared to today’s top dog?

In a recent document sent to partners, Intel pointed out that when comparing Core i7-965 with QX9770, we can get 52% more 3D gaming performance, 38% more rendering performance and 41% more movie editing and conversion performance. (Core i7-965 platform: X58, DDR3 3G, Discrete VGA card, QX9770 platform unknown.)

Yes, the numbers are quite vague, but it is directly coming from Intel. Compared to a more expensive product, we can’t expect more. (QX9770>1450USD, Core i7-965=999USD)