Overclockers

It has been about a month since our last CPU launch article. These things aren’t usually hot on each others’ heels, but we’re certainly not going to argue. AMD’s Bulldozer was not exactly what everyone – especially AMD fans – had hoped it would be. Enthusiasts were hoping for an Intel killer but got a slight upgrade instead.

Now it’s Intel’s turn. The hype surrounding Sandy Bridge – E hasn’t been the same as it was for Bulldozer: this isn’t an architecture rewrite, rather it’s an improvement on an existing core. We have already seen that AMD has nothing to compete with the Intel i7 2600K so there’s nowhere to go but up for Intel.

Sandy Bridge Extreme – It Goes to 11!

The Sandy Bridge architecture, which is just stellar in efficiency, processing power and overclocking (until you hit the multiplier wall) came out in January of this year. We went over that architecture in our Intel i7 2600K review.  Today, Intel has released the top-end hex-core version of Sandy Bridge, known as Sandy Bridge Extreme (or Sandy Bridge-E/SNB-E) and it’s a doozy. The Intel i7-3960X flagship processor is equipped with six cores and twelve threads, like the i7 980X and i7 990X from the first i7 range of chips, but these are Sandy Bridge cores. We’ve all been amazed over the last eleven months at how well these cores perform; adding two more should make the new LGA2011 platform scream.

In addition to the six full cores, the 3960X has 15 MB of L3 cache (L1 and L2 cache per core is the same as for Sandy Bridge), supports quad-channel DDR3-1600 RAM and operates at a 3.3 GHz stock clock speed. Turbo kicks that up to 3.9 GHz for lightly-threaded workloads. The CPU has 2.27 billion transistors in a rather large die coming in at 20.8 mm x 20.9 mm, versus the ca. 1 billion for quad core Sandy Bridge chips.

i7-3960x Feature Summary

i7-3960x Die

I’m sure that you can’t help but notice that there is space on that chip for two more cores. At this time, Intel has revealed no plans for a consumer-grade octo-core SNB-E processor. There may well be eight core Xeon chips on the way, but even that is unclear. Intel says that they had to fuse off those cores (sorry folks, no core unlocking) in order to maintain competitive clock speeds while staying within TDP. The clock speed hit from allowing all eight cores to be active wasn’t worth it. They also make the point that this is the path they’ve been on for a while and has nothing to do with AMD’s eight-core CPU being unable to compete with their hex-core CPUs.

If you haven’t heard of Intel’s Turbo feature, here’s how it works: if you have a workload that uses three to six cores, you could see a turbo boost of up to 300 MHz, depending on the CPU load. If you have a very lightly threaded load using only one or two cores, you could see a boost of up to 600 MHz. In testing, it functions fast and flawlessly.

i7-3960x Turbo Boost 2.0

With the new platform comes, of course, a new chipset. Intel has gone the way of the PCH for their enthusiast platform too: gone is the northbridge of the very long-in-the tooth LGA1366 platform. The CPU handles traditional northbridge functions now.

With 40 full lanes of PCIe connectivity, SNB-E has more than double the graphics throughput of the original Sandy Bridge CPUs. This gives us the ability to run two graphics cards at the full PCIe 2.0 16x for each slot. It also introduces the ability to run more than two cards without resorting to the NF200 for additional PCIe lanes. You can run four graphics cards (1 at 16x plus 3 at 8x) for example.

There has also been discussion (along with some complaints) about the X79 platform not being PCIe 3.0 compatible. The question has been put to Intel who say there just aren’t enough GPUs to test for PCIe 3.0 certification right now, so they can’t legally put the PCIe 3.0 label on their parts. It will be up to motherboard partners to claim whether their boards meet the specifications of PCIe 3.0 or not. Intel does say that the platform is fully capable of the required 8GT/s data rate, so it will run at PCIe 3.0 speeds, but they just can’t apply the label for legal reasons. There are rumors of potential LGA2011 chips coming in 2012 that will officially be considered PCIe 3.0 parts, but they’re just rumors right now.

The on-chip memory controller that forms part of the SNB-E CPU is revamped and is specified to handle quad-channel DDR3-1600 RAM. Of course, you’ve probably already seen the DDR3-2133 quad-channel kit G.Skill sent us, so it’s safe to say we can expect better things out of this memory controller.

That leaves the X79 chipset itself, which is slightly disappointing to be honest. There is no increase in SATA III (6Gb/s) connectivity, with only two ports. Just like P67 and Z68 there are also four SATA II (3Gb/s) connections. There are also no USB 3.0 ports, just 15 USB 2.0 ports. Therefore, you’re looking for at least one third party USB 3.0 controller on any decent board, plus another third party controller if the manufacturer wants to add more SATA 6Gb/s ports.

Rounding out the X79 PCH is Intel High Definition Audio (HDA), a LAN interface and eight more lanes of PCIe 2.0 connectivity. This is all connected to the CPU through a high-speed DMI interface.

X79 Chipset Block Diagram

Now we move on to the numbers from the Intel presentation. These were provided and we’ll share them because they show the differences between their previous generation and the current one. We’ll show our own numbers below, but this is how Intel sees the differences. First up is a  i7-990X vs. i7-3960X comparison.

i7-3960X vs. i7 990X Content Creation	i7-3960X vs. i7 990X Larger / Faster Cache
i7-3960X vs. i7 990X Sandra	i7-3960X vs. i7 990X SPECint

There is nothing at all to sneeze at there, with significant gains over the previous generation across the board. Intel actually uses several benchmarks that we use too, so we get to test these out. Up next is an i7-2600K vs. i7-3960X comparison:

i7-3960X vs. i7-2600K Content Creation	i7-3960X vs. i7-2600K Larger / Faster Cache
i7-3960X vs. i7-2600K Sandra	i7-3960X vs. i7-2600K SPECint

While these numbers are impressive, it’s very important to note these tests do focus heavily on multi-threaded applications. The single-threaded performance should remain pretty similar between the i7-2600K and the i7-3960X, with the exception of memory-intensive loads that should take advantage of the SNB-E quad-channel memory.

Intel has changed one other important thing with SNB-E: as rumored, SNB-E will not ship with any cooling solution. The vast majority of people purchasing this platform will view this  as a complete non-issue, especially when Intel is still offering their full 3-year warranty with these CPUs sans heatsink. However, that brings us to one potential issue – this is a new socket. Thankfully it’s not as big of an issue as you may think. The difference between LGA 2011 and LGA 1366 is threading. The hole spacing is the same, but the LGA2011 backplate has threads in the holes. ASUS addresses this on their Rampage IV Extreme by giving you a star-drive key and 1366 backplate, which just holds down the socket bracket and opens up the holes for your existing LGA 1366 cooler.

If your board doesn’t come with a backplate change kit, you may have to get inventive. If you happen to be using an EK Supreme HF water block with the old mounting kit (like I am), you’ll be happy to know that the bolts fit perfectly into the backplate; just screw them in and you’re good to go. Another solution would be to drill out the screw holes to fit your heatsink which may lead to warranty problems, so the last solution would be a new mounting kit from the manufacturer of your cooling solution.

Thankfully, some manufacturers are ahead of the game. Noctua, Thermaltake, and Cooler Master (Hyper 212 only) are already offering free  LGA 2011 brackets. Hopefully others will follow.

Intel is still offering their little air cooler for less than twenty bucks but, at any rate, I’d buy a better solution for $30 before even considering those dinky things. Intel is also offering their own closed-loop liquid cooling solution. Built by Asetek, these are very close to the kit AMD is bringing to market for Bulldozer. There are significant differences though: the Intel kit only comes with one fan and doesn’t have a user-selectable LED on the coldplate/pump assembly. These kits are expected to be priced somewhere around $85-$100.

Socket 2011 Air Cooler

Intel Closed Loop Water Cooler

Tick tock goes the Intel clock, but there is no tick nor tock this time around. These chips are manufactured on the same 32 nm process and have the same architecture as Sandy Bridge, it’s just optimized with a couple cores and features added. In recent years there hasn’t been a major Intel release that wasn’t either a tick or a tock, so this is a slight departure from the norm. Never fear though, Ivy Bridge’s tick is supposed to be coming soon in 2012. Plus, if you have one major competitor and they can’t compete with your current mainstream chips, why force a new architecture or process shrink when you don’t need one? Just give it a couple more cores, optimize it and equip it with a quad-channel memory controller and call it a day.

Sandy Bridge-E - Tock Continued

Now we tackle an important issue to those considering this platform – price. There is not a large departure here from previous generations. Intel’s flagship i7-3960X will be priced (per 1000 units) at just below a kilo-buck – $990.

The big news here is that the 3960X is not the only unlocked CPU. Unlike the i7-970 CPU, which had a locked multiplier, the i7-3930K has an unlocked multiplier. The only difference on paper between the 3930K and 3960X is the stock speed (100 MHz at stock and turbo) and the loss of 3 MB of L3 cache. Priced at $555, the 3930K will most likely be the perfect CPU for overclockers wanting a strong Intel hex-core set-up but without spending a thousand dollars on the CPU alone.

How that cache difference impacts upon performance is yet to be seen. Plus, we don’t know how the binning process is different. Will the K-series average lower maximum clock speeds? Time will tell. We’ll know for at least a couple of CPUs soon enough though, as Overclockers Editors MattNo5ss and EarthDog as well as Benching Team Leader Brolloks all plan on purchasing the 3930K to see what it’s made of.

2nd Generation i7 Family Comparison

Now that we’ve gone through the slide presentation, let’s look at the chip itself. As you can see, it’s huge. Massive even. That little CPU to the left? That’s a 2600K. Yowza!

i7 2600K and i7-3960X

i7 2600K and i7-3960x

As you know I have a penchant for taking plenty of photos, so here are a few more.

i7-3960x	i7-3960x
i7-3960x	i7-3960x

There you have it folks; you’ve been introduced to the new Sandy Bridge Extreme. Impressed? Not yet? Well, keep reading, we’ll see if benchmarks will impress you instead.

Intel DX79SI Motherboard

Intel sent their DX79SI “Siler” motherboard with the i7-3960X to evaluate SNB-E’s performance. We’ll do a relatively quick overview of it here, but to be honest, people looking at a thousand dollar CPU will probably want more than this board has to offer. It’s solid, stable and will run the CPU with no problems; it’s a no-nonsense, get-the-job-done-reliably motherboard that does well in that regard.

Packing & First Look

Intel has gone the windowed route too and offers a preview of the board through a window in their box. The flap and the box have specifications and features all over it. They’re not extensive like some other boards, but the feature set is solid for what it is.

Intel DX79SI Box	Intel DX79SI First Peek
Intel DX79SI Box Rear	Intel DX79SI in Hard Plastic

The board itself isn’t bad looking at all. They did away with the blinking skull and kept this one LED-free. The PCH is under the skull and that heatsink attaches to the one mid-board to offer additional cooling. The VRM heatsink is at the top and does a good job of dissipating the heat from the power section.

Intel DX79SI In The Flesh	Intel DX79SI
Intel DX79SI	Intel DX79SI
Intel DX79SI	Intel DX79SI Back

Board Close-Up

Here we have our first look at the socket area on Intel’s board. This ‘backplate’ is strange compared to other offerings in that the threads are on top of the board. On the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, the threads for the socket plate are actually on a backplate, which would offer more stout heatsink pressure.

As you can see, the Intel board can take up to eight DIMMs, which can – if you have the money – handle up to 64 GB of memory.

LGA2011 Socket Area

There isn’t a ton of connectivity on this board. Intel have chosen not to expand SATA-based storage capability with a third party controller, so you have the standard six SATA ports available from the X79 PCH: two SATA 6 Gb/s and four SATA 3 Gb/s.

The backplate is similarly sparse. If you have a PS/2 keyboard, you’ll need to upgrade or get an adapter for this board. Intel did include a third party controller for USB 3.0, which gives you two ports. There are six USB 2.0 ports, dual Intel LAN ports, a FireWire port, audio output, and a button that forces booting into BIOS when an overclock fails. Note, however, that it is not a clear CMOS button.

SATA Ports

Rear I/O

Here are a couple quick pictures of controllers. The board uses a Realtek audio codec (on the left) and on the right you can see the LAN controller.

Realtek Sound

Intel Ethernet Controller

There are some enthusiast features to be had, though. Onboard power and reset switches and a POST code indicator are supplied. In the far bottom left are LEDs that correspond to different facets of the system. When booting up, these will blink through to let you know where a fault is if booting fails. This is similar to ASUS’ QLED and is definitely a nice feature to have for diagnosing trouble spots. There is also a USB 3.0 front panel header which is handy. In a nod to benchmarking enthusiasts there are even voltage read points for VCore and VDIMM. These are a nice touch, but I doubt that anybody is going to be pushing voltages on this board so much that you need a multimeter.

The rest is standard fare – front panel audio, power/reset/USB headers, and so on.

On-board Power & Reset, POST Code Indicator

Additional Front Panel Connectivity

Like the DP67BG supplied for the Sandy Bridge review, the BIOS on this board doesn’t have extensive tweaking options. Most annoying is the fact that you cannot increase the base multiplier past the stock setting of 33x. To overclock you must use the turbo multipliers. You can set it so you’re only adjusting one multiplier instead of six, but there is no way to turn off speedstep and overclock. Frankly, that’s just a pain.

So while this board won’t tickle the fancy of die-hard overclockers, it does run the SNB-E platform reliably and overclocks decently. Massman recently said that “no enthusiast in his right mind would opt for the Intel board.” While I think it’s a little harsh, with better options from partners available for roughly the same price (ASUS’ P9X79 should retail for $299, this board will come in between $280 and $300), I’m inclined to agree with him.

It’s not that this is a bad board by any stretch, it’s just not as good as its competition. If it were priced at, say, $250, it could be a good option for people on a budget: maybe for someone running distributed computing applications that keeps the system at stock or uses moderate overclocks for ultimate 24/7  stability.

Power Consumption, With a Little Folding Thrown In

We never focus on this too heavily, but power consumption is definitely an important measurement for some – especially those on our distributed computing teams (and I guess those other teams too). So we’ll have a couple quick numbers and move on with the review. Load numbers were taken after applying a load on the CPU with Prime95 Small FFTs.

It definitely requires more power than the 2600K and is pretty much on par with the FX-8150 under load. People complained about that power consumption, but I think the performance-per-watt was the killer there. For instance, Folding@Home on an SMP work unit, the FX-8150 could only churn out 13,700 ppd (points per day). By comparison, look at what an i7-3960X can pump out.

Folding@Home - SMP Work Unit

Yes, you read that right. Over 43,500 ppd. For the same power draw, this CPU puts out well over three times as much work. While it may not be the most power-sipping processor out there, it sure does a whole lot of work per watt.

Overclocking for Stability

Overclocking Sandy Bridge-E is as easy or as complicated as you want it to be. Since the K and X chips have unlocked multipliers it really can be as easy as setting the VCore and multiplier. That’s not the end of the road like Sandy Bridge though. SNB-E gives you a new option – FSB strap. While everything is still linked to the FSB, like Sandy Bridge, SNB-E brings in a FSB multiplier to give you more flexibility with overclocking. Depending on the board, there can be three or four straps available to use. This Intel board has 1.0x, 1.25x and 1.66x. The ASUS Rampage IV Extreme we’re reviewing adds a fourth strap at 2.5x. Those are multiplied by the stock 100 MHz FSB to get 125 MHz, 166 MHz or 250 MHz FSB.

Above that, you have about the same range the original Sandy Bridge had with regard to FSB frequency. The maximum that you’re likely to see is +/-  about 10 MHz (probably less). It’s not truly a resurgence of complete FSB control, because of all the traditional northbridge functions located on the CPU die. What these multipliers do give you is lots of flexibility relative to the original Sandy Bridge CPU range. You can have FSB set to up to 250 MHz +/- ~10 MHz and there are a lot of available RAM multipliers. Tweaking is back with SNB-E; it’s not as finely-grained as some would like, but it’s plenty to keep you busy for a long time.

Author’s Note – For clarity, I’m using FSB interchangeably with base clock (or BCLK) here.  FSB overclocking like on socket 775 is dead. Thanks to Brolloks for pointing this out.

For a 24/7 overclock, I set the CPU voltage in BIOS to 1.4 V and saw what I could come up with. The limited Vdroop control was set to its performance setting, so there was likely still some Vdroop. I didn’t measure with a multimeter and monitoring software failed on Intel’s board. Anyway, with a 1.4 V Vcore set in BIOS, the 3960X achieved a very respectable frequency of 4.5 GHz, which is a 1.2 GHz overclock.  As this board wouldn’t cooperate with DDR3-2133 memory, I used the 1.25x FSB strap combined with the memory divider that gave DDR3-2000. Obviously, CPU-Z doesn’t read memory properly on this board (or Vcore), but the memory was running at DDR3-2000 with timings of 9-11-9-28.

4.5 GHz LinX Stable

As you can see, temperatures (in degrees Celsius) were only in the upper 50′s to low 60′s. This was on a decent water loop consisting of a Swiftech MCP-35X pump and reservoir, Swiftech MCR-320 radiator with three 120 x 38 mm ultra high speed Panaflo fans (running only about 2/3 power) and an EK Supreme HF Cu CPU block. This is the same loop that we ran our sample chip with for the Bulldozer review previously.

Test System, Opponents and Methodology

Firstly, a huge THANK YOU to benching team member thobel for generously volunteering his time by running 2D benchmarks on his i7-980X. Without numbers from that CPU, this review would have been missing a key component. Thobel stepped up to the plate and took care of business. Thank you so much! While we’re thanking, the 2500K results are the same as were used for our Bulldozer review and were run by our editor EarthDog.

We have a lot of competition today. Not all CPUs are featured in every benchmark. The ones that are will be clearly labeled in the graphs. First-generation Sandy Bridge chips are lighter blue hues, AMD chips are different shades of red, the previous generation hex core i7 980X is green and the i7-3960X is two shades of darker blue, depending on whether it’s stock or overclocked.

The BIOS was the latest available from Intel at the time of testing. They did not update prior to launch, so it’s the best we had at our disposal. All benchmarks were run on Windows 7 Professional x64. The stock benchmarks were run three times each and the results you see are averaged. The only exceptions were 3D benchmarks, game tests, and overclocked benchmarks, which were run once each.

The results you see below are graphed relative to the Intel i7-3960X’s stock performance. This means that results by the i7-3960X at stock all equal 100% and the other results are graphed as a percentage relative to the its performance. So, for instance, if the i7-3960X scored 200 points on a benchmark and the i7 980X scored 180 points, on the graph the  i7-3960X would be 100% and the i7 980X would be 90%, meaning in that benchmark, the i7 980X is 90% as good as the  i7-3960X.

Benchmark Results

We’ll start out as usual with the only benchmarks run solely at stock – the AIDA 64 benchmark suite.

AIDA 64 Benchmarks

First up in the AIDA 64 suite are the CPU benchmarks.

AIDA CPU Benchmarks

AIDA CPU Benchmarks II

Well then, I certainly hope the rest of the review looks like this. If so, Intel has mopped the floor with…well, with everything. Only in CPU Hash does AMD even come close. In everything else, the Gulftown chip beats it with the new SNB-E chip opening a can of whoop-arse even on the Gulftown chip. How does it perform with floating point operations?

AIDA FPU Benchmarks

AIDA FPU Benchmarks II

For the most part another great performance. In the SinJulia test, the 980X get close, but everything else is completely trounced by the 3960X. What about that quad channel memory?

AIDA Memory Read & Write

AIDA Memory Copy and Latency

It’s not looking so great for quad channel memory; the 2600K seems to out perform its bigger sibling. However, in a conference call with Intel I mentioned the AIDA memory results. They conducted their own testing and found out that AIDA tests are single-threaded. That’s not nearly enough to saturate all of the memory channels available, and I actually remember similar comments when tri-channel memory first came out.

There is an application with that kind of ability though – SiSoft Sandra. I ran their cache and memory bandwidth and latency tests against the 2600K. Unfortunately, this information came too late to test against other chips, but considering the 2600K beat everything else already, if the 3960X comes out ahead, it is reasonable to consider it the strongest memory performer

SiSoft Sandra Cache & Memory

Wow. That’s more along the lines of what you should see from quad channel memory. Bandwidth for memory and cache simply trounces the dual-channel Sandy Bridge.

Reviewer’s note: In the interests of full disclosure, because of when this info came to light, the Sandra tests were run on the Rampage IV Extreme in testing now. This meant that the memory speed was greater than that above, at the full DDR3-2133 / 9-11-9-28. This still demonstrates that the quad channel memory set-up is superior to the dual channel configuration used for the i7-2 range of CPUs.

3D Benchmarking

When Sandy Bridge came out, many folks that didn’t have an i7 980X already scrambled to grab a 2600K because of its stellar performance in 3D benchmarks. Even those with 980X’s considered it because to score better than a 2600K on air / water, you had to take the i7-980X cryogenic. With this launch I had a feeling people into heavy 3D benching would need to bench those cards all over again.

3DMark06

Starting with 3DMark06, my instinct was dead on, with the 3960X beating up on the competition not only in the CPU test, but making a dent in graphics scores as well.  Overclocking shows tremendous increases across the board for both graphics and CPU tests.

3DMark Vantage

Vantage tells a very similar story. The graphics gains are there, but are not nearly as tied to the CPU as the 06 results. The CPU score at stock beats the 2600K by almost 35%! Overclocked, that increases to a whopping 59%.

When it came out, 3DMark 11 was a GPU-bound monster. Can the 3960X change that?

3DMark 11

It’s not a night-and-day difference in overall score but, with this CPU, 3DMark 11 gives up a little of its GPU-bounded ground. There is a noticeable difference moving to this CPU, even more so when overclocked. There is a greater than 200 point increase from the stock 2600K to the overclocked 3960X. Looking at the overclocked Physics score, it’s just insane: 14780 points on water alone is crazy.

HWBot Heaven is also somewhat of a GPU bound bench, but not as much so as 3DMark 11.

Heaven Benchmark

This result was quite surprising. The DirectX 9 “basic” test shows very little increase when overclocking, but the “Xtreme” DirectX 11 test got a massive boost. Also surprising is the fact that it doesn’t seem to take advantage of all the cores available to it, with the 2600K beating the stock 3960X by a couple percent.

Gaming

While we don’t do a ton of game testing here, we do understand there is a large portion of our audience that games and overclocks. In fact, that’s how I got into overclocking in the first place: trying to squeeze a few more FPS out of a 7600GT/Core 2 Duo E4400 combo in Day of Defeat 1.3b.

All games that we benchmark are run at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 with all settings turned up (except one iteration of Aliens vs. Predator). When we do game testing, we find the most value in tests that will show real-world conditions, not some artificial testing at 640 x 480 to attempt a CPU bottleneck. First is Stalker: Call of Pripyat.

Stalker: Call of Pripyat

We already knew the 2600K was a stellar gaming CPU and that holds true here. No doubt the scores would improve equally well if you overclocked it to the same level.

The next graph has a trio of game tests. Aliens vs. Predator was run in two configurations – the default settings and with everything turned to maximum. HAWX 2 and Dirt 2 were both run at the usual maximum settings.

AvP DX11 Bench, HAWX 2 and Dirt 2

Aliens vs. Predator doesn’t seem to care much about frequency or thread count; it was pretty close to equal across the board, with the i7-3960X actually bringing up the rear. HAWX 2 definitely shows more CPU dependency, but the 2600K still wins out. Dirt 2 doesn’t look so hot either.

The biggest conclusion here is that these games don’t really scale with thread count and in games that don’t, the 2600K does just as well as the 3960X. If you can find a game that uses all the threads available, no doubt this one would come out ahead. Time didn’t allow to get Battlefield 3 installed for this review, but we’ll see if we can’t add it in the comments.

Rendering, Video Conversion and Compression

Now to where this CPU should really shine – real world, CPU intensive applications like rendering, encoding and compression.  First up, the former – rendering.

Cinebench R10

Cinebench R11.5

That’s what I’m talking about. Trouncing the competition, then grinding its defeated silicon into the ground to finish it off overclocked. With a couple rendering tests in the bag, let’s see one more.

PoV Ray 3.7 RC3

Very similar scaling here. Now a different task – encoding. x264 runs two passes. The first is a scanning pass and the second performs the actual encoding.

x264 Benchmark

More stellar scaling here. This is shaping up to be quite the work horse. Last in our real world testing is compression with 7zip.

7zip

Again, this CPU comes out far and away on the top of the pack. SNB-E is most definitely a great choice for anyone that uses their CPU for tasks that can use all of its horsepower.

2D Benchmarking

Now the fun part. This is what many benchmarkers have been waiting for. Is it better than Sandy Bridge for single-threaded applications? How about multi-threaded FPU-based WPrime? The time has come to find out.

SuperPi 1M

SuperPi 32M

SuperPi definitely doesn’t disappoint. As expected, it’s very similar to the 2600K’s performance. With the slight turbo advantage up to 3.9 GHz it has a small edge. Quad channel also comes into play in SuperPi 32M, showing that it can make up for the difference between DDR3-2133 (dual channel) and DDR3-1866 (quad channel).

Last, but certainly not least, one of my favorites – WPrime.

WPrime 32M

WPrime 1024M

Wow. It doesn’t put a the i7 980X to shame but without a doubt it’s a very strong improvement. Overclocked, the 3960X really flexes its muscle. This is going to be quite the competitor for six-core WPrime on HWBot! With the FSB strap flexibility it may even turn out to be better competition than just seeing who can bin the most chips to find one that can reach the highest multiplier.

Pushing the Envelope

Now the fun part – seeing how high we can go! Remember though, this is the Intel board. It suffers from Vdroop, so with another board (like the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme I’m also working on), there is the potential for more at this same voltage.

The self-imposed limit in this case was 1.52 V set in BIOS. High clocks in this case ended up at 5.0 GHz. The good part is that it would even run WPrime 1024M there; so as long as the chip is up for it, there is room to go higher, even on ambient cooling. SuperPi first.

SuperPi 1M @ 5000 MHz

SuperPi 32M @ 5000 MHz

Not bad, not bad at all. Coincidentally, this is the same speed with an Intel board the 2600K got to in its initial review. The RAM speed was different but the CPU was the same. SuperPi 1M lost 0.093 seconds, which is basically just a matter of running the bench again, so I’d say that’s parity at the same clocks. SuperPi 32M is a different story. As expected, the quad channel RAM showed its true power, shaving 5.289 seconds off. That’s no rounding error.

Now to where this CPU will shine – WPrime.

WPrime 32M @ 5000 MHz

WPrime 1024M @ 5000 MHz

WPrime 1024M isn’t quite as impressive as expected actually, scoring about the same as 980X’s around that same clock speed, but this is with Windows 7; times would definitely improve in XP. WPrime 32M on the other hand is killer and scores around where 980X and 990X CPUs on HWBot are at 5.6-5.8 GHz.  I’d say a roughly 700 MHz gain is a significant jump for one generation to the next.

Clocks will improve too. I’ve already seen 5.1 GHz+ (still on water) with the Rampage IV Extreme and have high hopes once temperatures go below zero. Speaking of sub-zero, on that conference call I asked about that. We had already expected as much, but it’s for certain that we’ll see the same behavior as Sandy Bridge. I’ve been told by reliable sources that they stop scaling around -50 degrees C, so a strong single stage (or dry ice) should be enough for these too.

It’s important to note that Intel has said repeatedly that their focus is on optimizing these CPUs for air and water cooling. Their “…more integrated PCIe architecture is optimized for more real world conditions vs. maximum frequency under extreme cooling.” They feel that’s where they should focus their efforts and indeed on a decent water loop these things perform wonderfully with low temperatures. Like Sandy Bridge, chances are going cold might allow you higher clocks but it will definitely allow the same clocks you get on ambient cooling to be more stable and run with less fear of killing your chip.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Sandy Bridge-E is just plain awesome. The i7-3960X out-performs every other CPU on the market, bar none. AMD has nothing to get close to competing with SNB-E. Bulldozer disappointed many and this just makes it look even worse. They also have nothing on this price bracket.

Price is going to be a huge factor in the adoption of SNB-E, especially in this economy. But if you’re going to get the best, you’re going to have to pay for it. Just like the extreme editions before it, the i7-3960X will sell for a cool grand. That’s a lot of scratch and isn’t really something the majority of people are willing to drop on a CPU. Intel has a savior though – the i7-3930K.

Unless we find compelling evidence that the 3930K is binned to have a significantly lower top end than the 3960X, that’s the area where many overclockers will focus their energies. We don’t yet know how the loss of 3 MB of L3 cache will affect the performance, but we’ll find out soon when our other editors get their hands on one. SuperPi 32M immediately comes to mind, but the other benchmarks may not show that significant of a difference. More is always better, but if that’s the only difference between the chips, it’s hard to think it will be worth an extra $450.

Regardless, Intel hasn’t changed. Their best CPU – and the best CPU you can purchase on the market – will cost you $1,000. We’ll leave it to you to decide if it’s worth that to you, but it is by far better than anything else that competes with it right now. If all you do is lightly threaded applications, the 2600K is still going to be your go-to CPU. If you do anything at all that takes advantage of the available threads on this beast, or if you multitask and take advantage of them manually, this is the processor for you. It clocks like a dream, runs cool and processes everything you can throw at it with the stellar Sandy Bridge efficiency we’ve come to love.

- Jeremy Vaughan (hokiealumnus)

If this leaves you wanting more on this new platform, never fear; we have lots of SNB-E coverage coming for you! Motherboards from ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte as well as RAM from G.Skill, Kingston and Patriot. For now, we’ll leave you with what’s currently on the test bed…

ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Test Bed

Tags: cpu, i7, i7 3960x, intel, review, sandy bridge, sandy bridge e, sandy bridge extreme, snb-e

116 Comments:

kskwerl

11-14-11 08:08 AM

Wow that thing is silly fast! Nice review Hokie

David

11-14-11 08:09 AM

Nicely done, J

LancerVI

11-14-11 08:45 AM

Great processor!!!

Dissapointing chipset. X79 is not a "flagship" Enthusiast chipset. It's just not. Looks pretty mainstream to me.

Tom's Hardware summed it up best with this line, "X79 Express: P67, Is That You?"

Classic.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...-e,3071-3.html

Really, all I wanted to see was SAS or at least 4 to 6 SATA III RAID'able ports on the Intel chipset akin to ICH10, not some BS marvell controller. I don't wan't 2+4. That's pretty much useless to me for my RAID's. And the omission of USB 3.0 still confounds me.

MIAHALLEN

11-14-11 08:51 AM

Thanks for the review Jeremy...I got left behind on this one....thanks for filling the void

wagex

11-14-11 08:54 AM

As puss n boots would say "holy frijoli" I'm gettin one

manu2b

11-14-11 09:01 AM

That's insane... Now, I have to sell my first born child to get one of those!

thobel

11-14-11 11:14 AM

Great review Hokie

capttripppp

11-14-11 11:43 AM

Awesome review as always Hokie

dejo

11-14-11 12:24 PM

Once again Jeremy, you have put together a review with the information we need to see what this chip is capable of. Nice and thanks

Janus67

11-14-11 01:05 PM

Posting from my phone, can't wait to read it Jeremy! Will edit with my response momentarily!


edit: looks like the wrong account was used to post your news story?



double edit:

Fantastic review man, very well written, solid graphs, and a big thanks to the thobel and EarthDog for submitting some hardware scores for the markers. I can't wait to see what the 3930k is going to do.

And surprisingly, microcenter is selling them for $50+ more than newegg, world first? (that said, they do pricematch I do believe).

PolRoger

11-14-11 01:12 PM

Another nice review Hokie.

Food for thought... when comparing the cost/performance of a new a 3930K combo... ($$$ ) to current 2600K setups.

Devil_Dog

11-14-11 01:13 PM

Awesome review Hokie. Now I must sell one of my kids to get on of these beast and a R4E.

Brolloks

11-14-11 01:52 PM

Jeremy, fantastic review, thanks for bringing us the latest and greatest on launch day !!'

Couple of questions...hope you don't mind:

I see you talk about FSB and FSB strap under overclocking, does this replace base clock we have come to know since Nahalem was brought to the table, I thought FSB died with LGA 775?

Will you throw in Gulftown benchmark comparisons on your RIVE review?

Lastly would it be possible to include clock for clock benchmarks between SB and SB-E to see if they tweaked the architecture to make it more efficient? this will off course make sense in the thread for thread (4c/8t) runs to rule out gain by using extra threads.

Thanks again for a great review

Devil_Dog

11-14-11 02:11 PM

Here are Vantage 2 subs from Massman.

62919 with 990x @ 6000: http://hwbot.org/submission/2199009_...0_62919_marks/

62958 with 3960x @ 5300: http://hwbot.org/submission/2221270_...80_62985_marks

Brolloks

11-14-11 02:41 PM

As I expected SB-E crushes Gulftown in the same way SB did with Bloomfield, nice!

bmwbaxter

11-14-11 02:46 PM

Nice review!

Looks like I am going to have to start selling my benching kit to buy one of these bad boys.

Devil_Dog

11-14-11 02:48 PM

Yes, but from what I've been reading the binning process will be the same as previous SB's. Going to need to find a 5500+ gem. To rich for my blood to bin these.

I still want one.

bmwbaxter

11-14-11 02:52 PM

no need to find a gem if a 5.3ghz chip beats 6ghz gulftown.

anyone know if there is an SR3 mobo in the works?

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 02:55 PM

Sorry, you are correct - FSB terminology in this case = BCLK. Good point, I've added an author's note to the article:

There are gulftown results in this review for all 2D benches (thanks to thobel!). Unfortunately I don't have the ability to compare 3D benchmarks due to not knowing anyone with a Gulftown and 6970 combo. Was there something in 2D you were wanting to see?

I'm knee deep in the RIVE review right now but after that one I'll see what I can do. However don't I remember something about first-gen SB chips dying from disabling cores? I don't really want to take a chance on this chip.

I can do a really quick comparison with WPrime in the comments here. I'll just assign it four threads, then eight and see how they compare with each other. Would that help?

Devil_Dog

11-14-11 03:01 PM

That is true but I still would have to try to bin for better. That may cause a divorce.

Yes, there is an SR3 in the works but iirc it will be just like the SR2 and be limited to Xeon chips.

Brolloks

11-14-11 03:04 PM

It was Gulftown that died when you disable all cores except one, I will include that in my review, that way we have something different in another review if you dont mind

ghost_recon88

11-14-11 03:08 PM

Curious as to how much faster quad channel is over dual channel on the same CPU, or if its just a marketing gimmick? Any chance of running the 3960X with both dual and quad channel? Might be to ones advantage to run only in dual channel if the DIMMs they have can run higher MHz and tighter timings than the quad channel kit.

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 03:11 PM

Fine by me!
Excellent point, and I plan on addressing it in the review of this G.Skill kit, which is in line after the motherboard.

capttripppp

11-14-11 03:26 PM

Making a sign right now..... "Will work for LGA2011"
Edit: or we can "occupy" Intel.... Anyone interested?

I.M.O.G.

11-14-11 03:34 PM

Thanks hokie, great article and everything I was looking to read on this. Can't wait to see some benchmark scores crushed very soon.

I'm still on the fence about plunking down the cash here, but man this chip's performance look great.

Maybe you aren't looking at the price on the boards - that looks pretty flagship enthusiast to me.

dejo

11-14-11 03:43 PM

anyone know how they respond to cold? As that will be a factor for some.

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 03:46 PM

Thanks!

Haha...what's more amusing is that I've heard the chipset is what's driving up the price of these boards. It's not much better than P67. I can't imagine precisely why it costs so much more to produce. If it had at least six SATA 6Gb/s ports along with USB 3.0 native support, maybe...but it doesn't. No idea what they were thinking with this one. The CPUs are insanely powerful, but the chipset? Not so much.

I'm so disappointed you didn't hang on my every word.

From the review:

dejo

11-14-11 03:51 PM

the point was, Is it a fight to get it to boot if sub-zero as the Sb is?

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 03:56 PM

When asked directly, Intel said we can expect the same behavior out of SNB-E as we did with SNB before it. I haven't had the chance to take it cold yet, but chances are we'll see the same issues.

dejo

11-14-11 03:57 PM

I would have guessed the same, but you never know till you try it. We were told that SB wouldnt boot cold, but there are ways, just takes some trial and error.

I.M.O.G.

11-14-11 03:57 PM

I haven't tested it, but I expect it will act the same way Dejo. Like you though, I'd like confirmation from those actually doing it.

Janus67

11-14-11 03:59 PM

SB will boot cold, but it surely as a CB/CBB unlike AMD chips. I didn't run into any issues when I did mine on my MIVE with DICE.

ghost_recon88

11-14-11 04:01 PM

Native USB 3.0 would have been icing on the cake, guess we'll have to wait until IB to get those.

Seebs

11-14-11 04:37 PM

I'm thinking there will be a surplus of SB chips and mobos hitting the "used" market soon. Good thing for those of us that have not made the move to SB just yet.

I'm sure that's CPUz just bugging out, but did anyone else notice this?
101414

bmwbaxter

11-14-11 04:41 PM

he mentioned in the review that CPUz wasn't reading it correctly.

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 04:41 PM

What, you don't believe I hit DDR3-10500?!?

ghost_recon88

11-14-11 04:41 PM

I like how bclk is finally above 107 again

Theocnoob

11-14-11 04:43 PM

SO FAST! I saw the benchies. OH MY GAWRSH... This is a QUANTUM LEAP for cryin out loud. Look at those numbers. Crushes a 2600K by double in most cases.

bmwbaxter

11-14-11 04:51 PM

i didn't think bclk went above 100mhz all FSB strap did was add a multi so it was like 125mhz, 150mhz, 200mhz and 250mhz. but blck stayed at 100mhz. thats how I understood it working. Clarification?

EDIT: my 2600k and M4E can do 108.3 thats over 107

GoD_tattoo

11-14-11 05:01 PM

I'd like to see a picture of the SB-E and your hand to see the size of this thing... Working on the boss to get some of them

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 05:02 PM

Yes, that's correct. We're looking at the same +/- ~10MHz bclk there was on SNB. The difference is those straps, which give much more flexibility with memory frequencies.


I'll try to remember to do that when I prep this board to go cold. It's huge, comparatively speaking.

freeagent

11-14-11 05:29 PM

That was a great review, thanks!

The power this thing has, wow.. I think its awsome that such a huge package can be wound up so high, very impressive. I probably wouldnt be able to get one until next year, with the baby on the way. It pains me to see a new socket come, and I cant play

EarthDog

11-14-11 05:47 PM

Yet another quality review Hokie... excellent job!!!!

But what is SNB-E? Isnt it SB-E? As SB was Sandybridge?

MattNo5ss

11-14-11 05:48 PM

I was tempted to edit out SNB-E for SB-E late last night, but I thought maybe he knows something I don't...lol. I say SB-E as well.

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 05:51 PM

It's SNB-E according to Intel, so that's what I went with. SB was technically SNB too, FWIW.

EarthDog

11-14-11 05:52 PM

NOW we go with the right name...

Again, awesome review... and awesome chip. Oh and awesome board!!!!

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 05:53 PM

Thanks!

Awesome board = coming. Intel board != awesome.

MattNo5ss

11-14-11 05:53 PM

Huh, interesting. You did know something I didn't

What's the "N" for? Any clue? Just curious...

LancerVI

11-14-11 05:59 PM

Exactly. I'm so dissapointed because the proc itself is awesome. It's truly a monster! Doesn't it deserve to be released with a platform worthy of it's performance?

And we're not just talking about the loss of USB 3.0 people. I think a lot of people here forget what X79 was suppose to be.

2+4 sata has got to stop.

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 05:59 PM

I had always guessed SaNdy Bridge, but honestly that's just a guess. I don't really know. Their emails never explain it.

EarthDog

11-14-11 06:00 PM

That is an interesting point that this chipset was so neutered from what it orginally started out as...Im wndering how it can be so much more towards the cost?!

sp33dball

11-14-11 06:18 PM

Another incredible review, thanks!

PolRoger

11-14-11 06:21 PM

I was looking at Micro Center today and their starting prices are ~650+ tax and ~1150+ tax for the 3930K/3960X! I sure hope they will follow their past Intel pricing practices and cut the price for the 3930K for in-store pickup. ~$950 to ~$1000+ just to get going with these "enthusiast" parts!

EarthDog

11-14-11 06:22 PM

Currently MC is offering those chips with an H80... that I can understand. Newegg is $599.

Surfrider77

11-14-11 06:23 PM

Re-couping failed R&D costs?

Who knows? Its faily insulting to charge these premiums for what is essentially an LGA 2011 socketed P67 board. There is nothing "enthusiast" about it.

MattNo5ss

11-14-11 06:27 PM

Still has quad channel RAM and 40 PCIe lanes so no need for the NF200 for up to 4-way SLI/CFX. Those are "enthusiast" features in my opinion.

EarthDog

11-14-11 06:28 PM

+1... the differences just are not on the board for the most part (outside of the obvious need for more traces b/c of ram, and PCIe lanes as mentioned above).

Gotta pay to play as they say . If AMD could put out something remotely as fast, maybe these prices wouldnt be so exorbitant.

Surfrider77

11-14-11 06:31 PM

It was my understanding that Quad channel was just as gimmicky as Triple channel in real world use.

PCIe lanes? I've already got a NF200 chipped X58, so who cares? Besides that, I am positive the 4 way SLI / CF crowd are the Nth percentile of an already slim percentile benchmarker segment of the market.

MattNo5ss

11-14-11 06:38 PM

From Intel's point of view, why does there need to be a crap ton of SATA ports on a desktop platform? Two SATAIII ports means you would need at least three current gen SSDs and need them in RAID before a complaint was warranted on the amount of SATAIII ports on X79. Now, it also has 4 SATAII ports, plenty of speed for HDDs.

Now you have to think about how many people in the desktop market actually need more than 2 SATAIII ports and 4 SATAII ports. I would think 1% or less need either 3 SATAIII SSDs in RAID or more than 6 total internal storage devices.

EarthDog

11-14-11 06:39 PM

What if we used SSD caching with HDD though and had another SSD? Better hope its not a new SSD in that case...

MattNo5ss

11-14-11 06:42 PM

I'd hope someone wouldn't spend a ton on a current gen SSD just for caching a HDD...

Surfrider77

11-14-11 06:46 PM

By that logic, I am willing to bet there are a lot more people looking for the additional SATA3 ports vs 4-Way SLI/CF. Lets not forget, they also omitted ANY native USB 3.0 support.

I think the bottom line is, X79 is a huge letdown and there is no justification in the pricing.

On the other hand, the CPUs are amazing. (Especially the 3930K and its pricepoint)

EarthDog

11-14-11 06:46 PM

I meant that the other way around... You need to put your SSD+HDD on the 2 Sata3 Intel ports... leaving none available for another SATA3 SSD. That method is a bit backwards though so not sure how realistic that setup is.

LancerVI

11-14-11 06:53 PM

Because it's an enthusiast board. Enthusiast's like options don't we? I certainly use all of my ports and have discrete controllers for more. But I'm an 'enthusiast'. Architecturally, sure X79 has the goods, but if you're not going to use the lanes, then what's the point? Who want's third party Marvell controllers? They're crap.

As I've posted before, the Sandy Bridge-E/X79 combination was originally planned to include on-processor PCI Express 3.0 support. It was supposed to enable 14 SATA ports, 10 of which were 6 Gb/s-capable and ready to accommodate SAS drives. There was even an additional four-lane link between the CPU and PCH dedicated to augmenting storage performance and USB 3.0.

...and then to further the loss, from the mainstream, you lose QuickSync.

PCI E 3.0 is all we got and it's not even official support at this point. What justifies the price jump of the chipset? Nothing.

Anand, Tom's and HardOCP have all come to the same conclusion. It falls way short as a platform in the enthusiast class. I don't see how anyone could come to a different conclusion. It IS P67 with more lanes at a huge price premium. That's not exactlly compelling.

It's too bad. The proc IS compelling, but tied to this platform??? I'll pass.

....

Theocnoob

11-14-11 06:53 PM

That's actually pretty darn impressive and yes it is over 107

SteveLord

11-14-11 06:58 PM

Looks like we have a fancy hispeed motor......strapped onto a canoe.

EarthDog

11-14-11 07:10 PM

Fixed.

Im sure people will get by.

Surfrider77

11-14-11 07:15 PM

Kinda sounds like a "Taco Supreme" without the sour cream or tomatoes! LOL

(Guess what I had for dinner!?)

MattNo5ss

11-14-11 07:19 PM

I agree, no USB3.0 is disappointing. I also agree that we always want more features. I just don't think that not having 14 SATA ports (10 SATAIII) is a deal breaker...

I would think if someone is going to use that many hard drives, then a discrete third party controller would be better anyways. I was under the impression that discrete cards were faster than onboard, for RAID anyways.

As for the multiple GPU part, it's not only 4-way SLI/CFX. All multiple GPU setups will be better on SB-E than SB. Only 3 or 4 way SLI/CFX would be better on SB-E than X58. This is just considering bandwidth for the GPUs.

Super Nade

11-14-11 07:23 PM

I agree with HardOCP's take on this:

http://hardocp.com/article/2011/11/1...essor_review/9

A lot of tongue in cheek, but it does ring true. This seems like a gimmick rather than anything useful (Quadfather anyone?).

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 08:37 PM

dejo & IMOG: comments on SNB-E sub-zero - 4Way SLI with Asus X79 Rampage IV Extreme and 1650 core 3D11 single card !

EarthDog

11-14-11 08:49 PM

What I took from that... 100pcs, average 5.2-5.5Ghz... Yikes. Not a clockspeed queen!

I.M.O.G.

11-14-11 08:55 PM

Thanks Hokie, good to know.

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 08:56 PM

No, it would appear not. But, fwiw, massman says...

Also, assuming your chip can get there in the first place, it's a heck of a lot easier to run a 3960X at 5.3GHz than it is to run a Gulftown at 6GHz+.

Heh, so it looks like you trade binning for difficulty. I'm not 100% on it, but pretty sure you have to bin to get a 6GHz+ Gulftown too, so there's binning involved either way.

David

11-14-11 08:59 PM

£480 for the CPU in the UK, plus £190 for a board equals the end of my relationship if I even *dare* think about it

bmwbaxter

11-14-11 09:00 PM

hmm, well if 5.2 seems to be the low end of average I am okay with it. It will allow 90% of the current scores set by gulftowns to go down

Not sure if others feel the same but I like how the new intel chips are making it easier for the non-sponsored benchers to somewhat compete with the sponsored guys.

EarthDog

11-14-11 09:00 PM

Read that too. I was hoping for 5.3-5.6Ghz (SB averages or so)... Not too far off. Come ooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 5.5Ghz please!

Janus67

11-14-11 09:25 PM

Isn't it pretty much always been about binning? I mean not every celeron will do 8+ ghz, etc. So different batches/steppings (if it comes down to batches mattering again instead of just random luck) will be better clockers than others as usual?

Archer0915

11-14-11 09:45 PM

Good job and that processor is impressive. When the IB gets here I am going to see how the QuickSync compares to the 6+6 threads because encoding is the only use I would have for that processor.

hokiealumnus

11-14-11 09:49 PM

Yes, but honestly I had hoped that the lowest-performing SNB-E was better than the highest-performing Gulftown. It was a tall order, which is why it doesn't get any dings from me on that; but a part of me had hope. It's still quite impressive, even if it "only" clocks to 5.2.

IntelEnthusiast

11-14-11 09:51 PM

Thank you for taking the time and effort to review this processor.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

freeagent

11-14-11 10:07 PM

Sorry for the O.T. but triple channel isnt really gimmicky, maybe for internetting, wmp, office and stuff sure. But about 8 months ago in f@h the difference between dual and tri channel on the same board was 15k ppd, wich if you arent familiar with the app, its huge. Tho I do agree, tri channel ram on "just" a quadcore is a bit of a waste

EarthDog

11-14-11 10:10 PM

Really FA? I had no idea that F@H was memory bandwidth limited... wow!!!

EDIT: Funny there are no availability issues with these chips? Is it b/c of price? Performance? Or, contrary to some articles, there are enough available to the market...

I sprung out of bed this morning at 06:00 after it not being there around 03:00...and it was there. Its still there in stock and at the same price.

Archer0915

11-14-11 10:34 PM

Well these processors will sell to the people who must have the fastest for bragging rights, the people who can make full use of them, engineering departments who have a clueless IT guy and those of us who have the spare change and need a new toy.

For me one would be great but I want to see the IB before I sink money into anything.

I see no supply issues.

Brolloks

11-14-11 11:55 PM

Judging from these guys that getting 5 ghz is pretty good on water, they tested 100 chips and could only get 5.4 ghz on LN2.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?276829-4Way-SLI-with-Asus-X79-Rampage-IV-Extreme-and-1650-core-3D11-single-card-

rge

11-15-11 12:06 AM

Great review Jeremy

A tempting toy....but with Ivy coming in few months...

EarthDog

11-15-11 12:46 AM

I saw that earlier and was posted in another thread. I was hoping to run 57x or so... oh well good think doc prfornance is better than gulftown!

freeagent

11-15-11 01:01 AM

Its not, thats what I dont understand

Gautam

11-15-11 03:05 AM

Intel acronyms are almost all three-letters long, no matter what. In this case it's simply the "n" in SaNdy

David

11-15-11 11:07 AM

Thanks for taking the time and effort to make it and send it to us

>HyperlogiK<

11-15-11 12:33 PM

I don't mean to come across as too much of a luddite but like Gulftown before it I'm not really sure what the point of buying one of these is, even for an enthusiast.

- Gaming performance differs little from Nehalem and vanilla Sandy Bridge

-It is much faster at encoding multimedia but unless you are playing with 2K or better video or running an unbeliavable number of VSTs and filters it doesn't seem particularly useful.

-Benchmarkers will like it, but that is a fairly niche hobby.

I want to upgrade my PC early in the new year, but since I can comfortably encode 1080p and play BF3 at close to max settings (on a trusty old 4ghz i7 920) I am struggling to justify any purchases to the other half. I'm not saying that PCs are fast enough per say, just that there isn't any interesting enthusiast software or game right now that really benefits from a chip like this. If there were some killer game or other application that would benefit then this would be a different story, and I hope that something comes along soon.

Janus67

11-15-11 01:32 PM

With regards to games it will come down to if/when game developers start taking advantage of more than 2/3/4/possibly 8 threads, while very few do at this point. I wouldn't hesitate to guess it won't happen until after the next console generation, as most of the games that end up on PC are console ports and they are rarely made to be large# multi-threaded just for the PC.

Tspek

11-15-11 02:10 PM

That is one pricey CPU

Tspek

11-15-11 02:11 PM

I've been hearing this line of thinking since HT was first introduced on P4's. Not saying it isn't true but at this point it probably shouldn't drive purchase decisions today.


As for this...someone has to take the step forward, it's almost always the hardware.

David

11-15-11 02:34 PM

These machines only really suit massive megamultitaskers or people who crunch lots and lots of data.

I'm sure Xeon-based datacrunching rigs based on these SNB-E chips will be very popular.

Super Nade

11-15-11 02:54 PM

I'm not sure there is anything great about this chip for enthusiasts. A crazy high price and the rather high thermals coupled with the underwhelming overclocks for benching addicts, I don't know if there are any redeeming features even for those with the spare change.

Maybe I am misinterpreting the criteria for awarding a badge (certainly seems so) but I don't think this merits a badge from us (just as the joke of a Bulldozer did not merit one).

EarthDog

11-15-11 03:00 PM

There is the much more reasonably priced 3930K ($599 at newegg). The IPC over Gulftown is significant. Even though these only seem to average 5.2-5.4Ghz o/c, thats like a 6Ghz+ benchable Gulftown which is pretty rare as I understand it. Doesnt seem leaps and bounds better, but still a bigger jump than PhII to Bulldozer.

hokiealumnus

11-15-11 03:13 PM

Bulldozer didn't meet the expectations set out by baseless speculation. Sure AMD talked a little smack with their stupid comic, but the expectations were set too high by the public due to the fact that they never released a single benchmark. That doesn't mean it wasn't a good CPU for the price point we were given. At $240, I still hold it does what it's supposed to do at that level. At the current price of $280 it's a ripoff and the first comment on the review (which shows on the front page) says as much.

As far as this CPU, it is literally the best CPU on the market. As EarthDog pointed out, at 5.3 GHz, it performs where a 6.0 GHz Gulftown performs. That's a massive improvement. It's also much easier to get to 5.3 GHz than it is to make it to 6.0 GHz on a Gulftown. Add to that the fact that we're talking 4.5-4.7 GHz 24/7 overclocks (I'm up to 4.7 on the ASUS board so far), it's also good for every day overclockers.

No, it doesn't show gains in gaming. As stated in the review, "If all you do is lightly threaded applications, the 2600K is still going to be your go-to CPU. If you do anything at all that takes advantage of the available threads on this beast, or if you multitask and take advantage of them manually, this is the processor for you." I also fail to see how the strongest CPU on the planet that overclocks well isn't qualified for an Overclockers Approved?

All of that said, the K is the better deal assuming the only difference really is the loss of 3MB cache (also as mentioned in the review).

rge

11-15-11 03:22 PM

3930K/3960K is currently the best cpu on the market. Even though, as Hokie's review clearly pointed out, core for core isnt better than 2600K which was not unexpected, it was designed to be and is 2 more cores of the best cpu (2500K, 2600K) on the market, albeit at a premium price.

If most software could utilize 6 cores, this cpu would be seen in a very different light (though maybe not the shortcomings of platform).

It is just the fact that most software that people routinely use doesn't tax 4 cores let alone 6, hence most people are going to stick with 2500K, 2600K.

And in that regard, only benchers/folders/crunchers are likely to pay for increased cost since only they are likely to benefit.

But really not a cpu issue, as it is the best on market, it is a failure of software to keep up with hardware.

Edit: god Im a slow typist, hokie beat me by 9 mins.

Angry

11-15-11 03:36 PM

Great review, Hokie.

As for the processor...."meh."

$1k is just to much to ask in my opinion, esp since the price hasnt dropped on a 990x.....

Brolloks

11-15-11 04:06 PM

My recommendation is unless you bench or do heavy encoding where time is of the essence this platform is not worth upgrading for, it is after all targeted as an Enthusiast platform, nice to play with but way to rich to aquire as a everyday rig or for gaming.
The 2500k/2600k remains imo still the best setup, very efficient and affordable.

David

11-15-11 04:08 PM

How's the (EVGA?) board working out for you?

Janus67

11-15-11 04:09 PM

Completely agreed with this. The SB-E chips are not made for gaming of this generation and maybe not even the next until they start using heavily threaded applications. They are for workstation/benchmarking and not too much else at this point in my opinion.

bmwbaxter

11-15-11 04:15 PM

Intels flagship processors never get a noticeable price drop. They just get bought out of stock then disappear.

Brolloks

11-15-11 04:21 PM

First thing I want to do this weekend is do clock for clock compatisons between a 2600k and 3930k to see if there is any gain with the new chipset, I would expect so with quad channel RAM and more cache but I don't expect more than 5-10%.

satandole666

11-15-11 04:29 PM

I told myself I was probably going to upgrade from my 920 when 2011 rolled around. Now that it is here, I find myself thinking that the $700 for the K CPU and a motherboard would be better spent on a video card, SSD, and raid storage combo for my existing rig.

It isn't that this socket is bad, but it seems like anyone sitting on any generation of i7 quad core won't see much improvement in day to day tasks by upgrading to the newest release.

Intel is kicking so much ass that developers seem to be 3 or so years behind the hardware curve at this point. Insane...

Brolloks

11-15-11 04:35 PM

No doubt Intel's R&D is top class, I'm really impressed how they can punch out such step up technology in less than 12 months from each other, exciting for us who like to play with new stuff

ChasR

11-15-11 08:18 PM

Nice review.

A suggestion for future folding Benchmarks, resize the columns in HFM so we can at least see what WU the benchmark was run on. Performance on 2600Ks (4.8 GHz) on normal SMP WUs in Linux vary from 25K to 45K ppd depending on the WU. 43,500ppd on p7500 isn't really Impressive, while that performance on p6058 would be fantastic.

hokiealumnus

11-15-11 08:22 PM

Thanks, I'll do that. I haven't folded in a long time and had no idea the difference in WUs was so much, my apologies.

PanteraGSTK

11-15-11 09:27 PM

Great review. I'm in the same boat as everyone else thinking that unless you are a cruncher, bencher, or video encoder then you aren't getting much benefit over SB. I'm considering building a new pc, but with IB looming I'll keep being patient.

>HyperlogiK<

11-15-11 09:53 PM

Of course I agree completely, I was referring only to enthusiasts. More power is always useful for enterprise data crunching.

ChasR

11-15-11 10:45 PM

Hokie,
Do you recall or can you look and see what WU the benchmark was run on?

wingman99

11-15-11 10:48 PM

To much money for what you get and gaming is the same as SB.

tuigi69

11-17-11 08:55 PM

There's a FAH benchmarking program running around the net. http://www.avid-edge.com/fah/FAHbench_v12.zip
It has a couple standard WU's that were "captured" (older) and the program allows you to select the WU and number of ticks (% of the WU) to fold. It'll allow you to bench a3's and a5's. The WU's are constant with the program so will allow everyone do directly compare performance using the program.

Eldonko

11-17-11 10:41 PM

Let me save you some time, Ive been running 2600k vs. 3960X head to head for a few weeks now. Clock for clock, SB and SB-E perf is the same for single thread and single GPU but SB-E dominates in things like rendering, video/audio editing, or anything multi-thread. SB-E also outperforms SB in multi-GPU by 2-5% depending on the test and the GPU (better GPU = more of an advantage). Add more video cards and the perf advantage of SB-E grows more. That is it in a nutshell.

tangletail

11-23-11 05:33 AM

Great but... that price.... deal breaker for me.

Sure the performance out does the BD on pretty much everything here but... the trends has been the same after AMD's Anthlon days. The thing that keeps me from ever buying the chip is it's price. That is still a bit ridiculous for me.

Power consumption is never a concern since it only adds two or three cents to my electric bill for a high end part, but I am not willing to shell out that kind of cabbage for something I don't even know a program will ever run. I will stick with my phenom and intel celeron for now :P.

Also, a quick hack for those who program. Turn off the freaking Intel Genuine on intel's instruction compilers. Not everyone is rich for a Intel part, and must suffice with AMD.

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