Intel Core i7-3960X - Sandy Bridge E Processor Review @ [H]

cdr_74_premium said:
That one made Bulldozer's power consumption look good.
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What is this shit. This cpu actually has performance behind its power consumption whilr bulldozer uses tons of power for bad performance
 
Looks like it working as intended. Power consumption was an eye opener but then again so was the video encoding performance.
 
Michaelius said:
By stomping it into ground in every benchmark while taking a few watts less ;) ?
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I didn't talk about performance. At all. Bulldozer still sucks, but I expected better from Intel on that department. More performance, sure, but TONS of extra power required. If you don't like to side it with Bulldozer, compare it with a 2600K. Still a power hog.

And no, it doesn't use less power than BD, overclocked or not.
 
cdr_74_premium said:
I didn't talk about performance. At all. Bulldozer still sucks, but I expected better from Intel on that department. More performance, sure, but TONS of extra power required. If you don't like to side it with Bulldozer, compare it with a 2600K. Still a power hog.

And no, it doesn't use less power than BD, overclocked or not.
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Thats not a big deal though. It is a 130W processer just like the I7 920.

130W procs use alot of power
 
I'd like to take the CPU reviews as gospel but everytime I see one here, you always post shit-ass i7-920 memory benches, when I know for a fact I get between 39 and 40 GB/second on mine...at 1600Mhz with no fancy memory settings.

Other than that, my only point would be this is a CPU only needed for thread intensive applications (folding would benefit?)
 
Thanks for the great review as always Kyle.

It appears to be a solid step up for video encoding and rendering.

While the power numbers are high, it most certainly does have the performance to back it up. I don't know why I would have expected better power consumption when Gulftown was already on 32nm.

I have a concern with the idle power numbers in this review. If power saving features are on, shouldn't SB have the same idle power whether it's overclocked or not? Your previous reviews indicate this, and it would make sense, would it not?
 
Review seems a little over the top negative on the power use when it's well within the scale of a 2500K/2600K with two additional cores and still less than a comparative pre-sandybridge i7 - also doesn't match what tomshardware are saying on power useage.

In terms of price, well yep, vast majority interested in this will go for the 3930 anyway.
 
Hmmm. Why is the OC'd 2600k losing to the stock clocked 2600k here?

I also find x264 amusing because of how well BD does at it. Mind you I still wouldn't purchase BD because I have workloads aside from x264, but it's still amusing.
 
I was really wondering why the introduction was harshly worded, which alerted me to a non-favourable review. But upon reading, I understand why. Aside from the fact it's the $1000 dollar Intel processor of today, you would think they would at least handily beat their former Sandybridge offerings in most tests by at least 5-10%.


Definitely only for someone with deep pockets and a true need for the 2 extra cores.
 
John Vuong said:
I have an i7 970, do you think its worth getting an i7 3930K?
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Nuuuuuppppeee. I just upgraded to a 970 and it is BLAZING fast. For what? a 15% IPC improvement, you want to drop $1k and sell your 970 @ $350? Not a good plan.

I mean, my perspective is that of a poor college student...if you've got the income to burn, then by all means, get a 3930K. New hardware is always, always fun to play with :)
 
The Bottom Line

I am not sure who is supposed to buy a 3960X. I really do not see it benefiting gamers. I do not see it being a boon too overclocking enthusiasts due to price, power usage, and subsequently heat output. I guess if I sat around all day ripping Blu-ray disks and encoding those for torrent sites, it would be awesome. Maybe that could be Intel's new 3960X motto, "Sandy Bridge E, maximizing BitTorrent ratios, one desktop at a time." Meh. Let's see what the K series brings before we totally turn our noses up at this beast of a processor...that none of us really need, or I think even want. I think we have enough cores for now. Get your noses back on the grindstone and give us stellar IPC gains or even better, 5GHz stock clocks.
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At the end of the day, yeah Sandy Bridge-E dose noting for 99.5% of the users, only heavy threaded users have benefits, and then only if time is money, and specially if you look at bang for buck, i agree, SB-E is a no go.

For the other sub 1% SB-E is something to look forward to.

Actually the quad ram bus is the main reason i am even considering getting a X79 SB-E combo, or even een SR-3 Xeon combo.
I want to fill them up with reasonable cheap 8/12x 8GB strips DDR3 1333 = 64/96GB memory, ware i can use 8GB for system memory, and the other 56/88GB to use for 10 to 20 times faster then SSD ramdisk.

I have now a heavy water cooled triple5870 2GB CF system with a i7 970, and for me the 64/96GB ram the extra PCIe lanes and the extra cores for video encoding would be a plus, for my next build, with tripe 7970 (or if possible maybe a GTX680) for 5 monitor Eyefinty setup

But hey building a PC like that, that is a hobby and have noting to do with common sense.

And for video encoders like me, yeah, 4 cores aren’t as good as 6, its literately a 50% speed boost.
I do a lot of video encoding with heavy post processing, and a 6 hour job would come down to a 4 hour job, what imho is a notable difference.

And i am even considering the SR-3 for dual octa core , and 12 dimm slots for 96GB of memory.

And yes i know its ridicules, but so is having a coin collection, I just have a lot more fun building my case and have more use of it, then just only looking at it.

It makes just as mouths sens to me as my Nissan R33 Skyline with 600HP, its fucking greasy, but hell those are the most fun things in life!

What I really would like to see is a comparison of SB and SB-E with dual/triple/quad SLI/CF
 
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You blazed em on this one.....why would they even bother releasing this product.....If you were looking for the performance in the area this excels in wouldn't u get a damn server......


I mean if I own'd any 9xx i7 I'd be either happy as heck cause I would have had a baller computer that still holds its own and looks like it will for another year.
 
I looked at a few other sites who reviewed this and it would have looked comparable to Bulldozer's failure if you had game benchmarks in it, except for the synthetic canned game benchmarks in Intel-optimized game engines like Civ 5

..but alright, maybe if I won a few mill and urgently had to build a computer to keep me warm over winter!
 
Lets see if SB-E does anything for Multi-GPU stuttering
 
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player-x said:
At the end of the day, yeah Sandy Bridge-E dose noting for 99.5% of the users, only heavy threaded users have benefits, and then only if time is money, and specially if you look at bang for buck, i agree, SB-E is a no go.

For the other sub 1% SB-E is something to look forward to.

Actually the quad ram bus is the main reason i am even considering getting a X79 SB-E combo, or even een SR-3 Xeon combo.
I want to fill them up with reasonable cheap 8/12x 8GB strips DDR3 1333 = 64/96GB memory, ware i can use 8GB for system memory, and the other 56/88GB to use for 10 to 20 times faster then SSD ramdisk.

I have now a heavy water cooled triple5870 2GB CF system with a i7 970, and for me the 64/96GB ram the extra PCIe lanes and the extra cores for video encoding would be a plus, for my next build, with tripe 7970 (or if possible maybe a GTX680) for 5 monitor Eyefinty setup

But hey building a PC like that, that is a hobby and have noting to do with common sense.

And for video encoders like me, yeah, 4 cores aren’t as good as 6, its literately a 50% speed boost.
I do a lot of video encoding with heavy post processing, and a 6 hour job would come down to a 4 hour job, what imho is a notable difference.

And i am even considering the SR-3 for dual octa core , and 12 dimm slots for 96GB of memory.

And yes i know its ridicules, but so is having a coin collection, I just have a lot more fun building my case and have more use of it, then just only looking at it.

It makes just as mouths sens to me as my Nissan R33 Skyline with 600HP, its fucking greasy, but hell those are the most fun things in life!

What I really would like to see is a comparison of SB and SB-E with dual/triple/quad SLI/CF
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Wow...good points.
 
Siorus said:
Just skimmed through the review and read the conclusion to decide if I want to go pick a 3930k up when Microcenter opens.

I came away feeling completely differently than you seem to have, Kyle. It looked to me like the 3960 @ stock speeds was mostly faster than the 2600k @ 4.8GHz in the multithreaded benchmarks. It's certainly not a good value proposition, but if you've got the money to spend I see no compelling argument to not spend it.

The power consumption doesn't concern me; It's nothing that can't be dealt with with a decent cooling system. And as far as cost goes, the 3960 is pushing it but it looks like the 3930k plus a board is going to run about $600 more (give or take) than a 2600k and a comparable mobo, and its performance shouldn't be far off the 3960's. Still not a small amount of money, but if you keep the system for even two or three years the amortized cost is really trivial.

I dunno. I'll probably end up waiting for the Xeons to hit the market. The EVGA SR-3 looks like one hell of a board.
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I think the reason not to spend money is based on looking at how many times you hit the max thread count on your processor. If you're not regularly going above the cores/threads an SB i7 gives you, those extra two cores/four threads are going to waste.

If you can regularly make work of using twelve threads, that's one thing. I don't think that's the case with most enthusiasts though. In the professional world for the right people, that's a different story.

I regularly have half a dozen apps, 2 virtual machines, and 20-30 browser tabs open simultaneously at work and switch back and forth through them, with no issues. That's on a Core i7-860. I only occasionally encode video, so I can wait a few minutes extra (which is still tons less time than the dual-P4HT Xeon beast I had before this one).
 
Interesting review.

Looking like higher prices and much slower rate of speed upgrades lately with AMD not really competing... :(

Seems my i7-920 can still hang around with the new big boys, impressive.
 
While the cheaper K6III's and Athlons were beating more expensive P3's and P4's in every performance arena, fanboys were waving that tattered, charred and threadbare Intel flag high. Intel shows its appreciation to them with products like this 3960X.

It's a beast!

cannondale06 said:
nearly 4 years later and overclocked i7 920 users still do not have anything worthwhile to upgrade to.
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And people wonder why we needed AMD while the PC's performance was still relevant. It's not anymore, of course.

Goodbye AMD and goodbye processor wars -- a time when having the fastest processor actually meant something other than that you're either very wealthy or a total spendthrift*.

Consoles like the Xbox are far better than the PC for gaming anyway. The PC is a dinosaur on the verge of extinction and everyone knows it; deep down, even the computer geeks (enthusiasts) do.

Large blame for that fact rests with either AMD for its inability to keep winning the gigahertz battles, or with Intel for its business strategy during and now after winning the war. Who cares which one is more at fault? It's over now and the PC can be put to rest and fondly remembered, just like the Commodore 64.

Intel is right: the Xbox hasn't needed to upgrade its CPU in (longer than) four years so why should you need to upgrade your PC's processor?

So, keep rallying against AMD. Fuck them! Bulldozer is total shit and it's blatantly, in-your-face obvious to everyone everywhere. Let the PC die already. Let's hurry up and usher in this new era of mobile devices and tablets and gaming consoles as fast as possible. I mean, does anyone actually enjoy building computers anymore?! Didn't think so! :D Rhetorical question, I know!

If you were an Intel fanboy during the processor wars of the very late 90's and early 2000's, especially during that window** when AMD was clearly making better cpu's than Intel in every way -- performance, price, and stability -- then good for you! You picked the winner!

This is what you get. AMD is soundly defeated and Intel can do exactly what it's doing. If you like what Intel is doing and you like the state of the industry and are ready to move on to the next, then you got your cake and get to eat it too.


-- Proudly written from an $800 Intel i7 2630QM laptop (like I even had a choice! :D) with an nVidia GeForce GT 525M that runs all modern first-person-shooter games great (i.e., just as good as the $300 Xbox they are meant to be played on).



(* Note: I'm not casting aspersions: spend your money as you see fit! I blow thousands on performance parts for my car and on guns and ammo. If you feel like doing the same on PC hardware, have at it!)
 
If you spend moeny on something that gives back very little, companies will continue to charge us little folks out the yin yang...

wait a second - you guys with all the money fund intel's R&D so that we can get the <300 $ procs that rock... please please please - continue wasting your money!! :D
 
It seems to me that SB-E has two main advantages over previous CPU's.

1.) PCIe Lanes

2.) Content creation

If you have no need for lots of PCIe lanes or don't do content creation/encoding then the money spent on this CPU is wasted.

Personally I'm interested for the sake of the PCIe lanes :p



Two things I'd be interested in knowing:

1.) Is there an LGA2011 mount for CoolIT based sealed water coolers (like the Corsair H100 and H80) yet? If so, how do you get one?

2.) Can you get this hot CPU to hit 4.8 rock solid on an H100?
 
This review showed exactly what I thought it was going to show. I was just hoping that you guys would have gotten your hands on a k series chip to see its overclocking prowess. From other review site's it doesn't seem that impressive.

There is one major thing that stuck out to me in one particular review that I would like to see you guys investigate.

Review in question http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/32591-intel-core-i7-3960x-extreme-edition-cpu/?page=3

Originally Posted by HEXUS
Speaking to NVIDIA Just before launch, the company reckons that, on average, three-way GeForce GTX 580 SLI scaling is improved by 29 per cent when compared to a 'similar' setup under X58. NVIDIA says it has spent considerable time optimising for the chipset and that Sandy Bridge Extreme's sheer speed helps out too. We'll look at multi-GPU scaling in a separate article.
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I would love nothing more than for you guys to do a review of 3 way and quad + eyefinity/nv surround to see if this architecture is the beez neez for us multi screen multi card gamers. +29% scaling sounds frickin awesome to me :D Also I would like to see what both companies improvement look like if any.
 
Spinning around my head after reading this review was the thought that maybe the bulldozer isn't such a bad deal after all. Think about it: if you're looking for a shitty CPU/space heater, you can save yourself quite a bit of money and buy yourself a bulldozer.

Also, I can't ever recall when an Intel extreme edition chip was worth buying. Those things were always relegated to workstations due to the price alone. Now with the threading craze I suppose it's the performance/efficiency as well that relegated it to the same segment of the market it's always been for the same people who bought them before, and that's either Intel fanboy lunatics with more money than brains or people genuinely needing the threaded performance for work purposes.
 
On a side note, reading reviews from other sites made me realize how much I love [H] (no homo). Seriously, so many read like an Intel press release it's a shame. They treat the huge price like it's OK for all the huge improvements... thank you Kyle and crew to tell it like it is.
 
One quick grammar Nazi moment from the conclusion, jefe:

One thing is for certain, our overclocking netted us some huge performance increases, if you are will to power the components.
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Thanks as always for a fairly thorough breakdown...this monstrosity was way out of my price range to begin with, but assuming the 3930K is in the same ballpark power-wise that kind of takes the wind out of its sails for me too. In fairness I haven't played Civilization V yet, though...
 
My plan was to read the reviews early today, and - unless there were any surprises - go out and nab a 3930K before they go out of stock, as there were rumors they would not be plentiful at launch.

Intel not providing the [H] with a 3930K has put a dent in my plans. It has really highlighted how poor many other review sites are in comparison.

I like the extra PCIe lanes of SB-E, which is why I didn't get a SB right away after the BD disaster, but I don't want to pick one up if my cooling is going to limit me to 4.6, when I could get 4.8 on a 2600K...
 
The European price for 3930 are a bit too high. It's about 500 euro. Then the Rampage IV is about 360 euro. I'd say it's damn too much for home desktop PC without native USB 3.0 and castrated numbers of SATA ports.

Seems I'm not [h]ard enough to immediately ditch my setup and go for it. Though, I'm actually happy with the current i7. I guess when Keplers will be in town, they might get CPU limited, so then I might think of getting new rig, propably will be Ivy Bridge. Though, the idea of building the NV Surround system with 3 680 GTX, might be hard with IB, as it won't have more PCIe lanes then SB. So I guess for upgrade, I'll wait for IB-E or Haswell.
 
Lord_Exodia said:
There is one major thing that stuck out to me in one particular review that I would like to see you guys investigate.

Review in question http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/32591-intel-core-i7-3960x-extreme-edition-cpu/?page=3

Originally Posted by HEXUS

I would love nothing more than for you guys to do a review of 3 way and quad + eyefinity/nv surround to see if this architecture is the beez neez for us multi screen multi card gamers. +29% scaling sounds frickin awesome to me :D Also I would like to see what both companies improvement look like if any.
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THIS! + 1000
 
I think im going to stay with my i7 970 until Ivy Bridge.
I owned the i7 920 for almost 4yrs..until I purchase the i7 970 from the intel retail edge sale....unless intel includes the 3930k on the holiday deal, then I'll jump...probably wont be included, but if it is im going LGA 2011.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038018036 said:
My plan was to read the reviews early today, and - unless there were any surprises - go out and nab a 3930K before they go out of stock, as there were rumors they would not be plentiful at launch.

Intel not providing the [H] with a 3930K has put a dent in my plans. It has really highlighted how poor many other review sites are in comparison.

I like the extra PCIe lanes of SB-E, which is why I didn't get a SB right away after the BD disaster, but I don't want to pick one up if my cooling is going to limit me to 4.6, when I could get 4.8 on a 2600K...
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If you check tom's the increase in performance from the 3.0 express lanes and 3-GPU scaling is pitiful compared to how hyped it was and the numbers people were expecting. 20-30% doesn't translate to 1-7 frames per second when you're getting well over 100. Anand shows that the performance is better than SB on most games at low res with a single GPU, but that's strictly for testing the CPU and taking away as much of that GPU and GPU ceiling factor as they can.

If I were you I'd skip this chip completely. In terms of being marketed as a gaming chip this is about as FX as bulldozer is
 
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Wow, thanks Kyle... I was really looking to upgrade to socket 2011 when it came out... guess I'm not going to now.

My D0 930's still holding strong, bring on the HD7xxx series cards AMD (yes, I know they're waiting on TSMC.)
 
Guess it shouldn't really be surprising. SB-E is basically SB with a couple extra cores tacked on. Guess its no surprise its no better than a 2600k on anything thats not really multi threaded. Wouldn't be a bad option if it was like $400.
 
Oh a swing and a miss for ol' Intel on this one...Lack of native USB 3.0, still only two SATA3 ports on the chipset, and the chips suck back the watts like its goin out of style...Better than bulldozer for sure, but they should have just skipped the high end at 32nm and concentrated on IVB and IVB-E. It seems the Tick-Tock is getting a little backed up these days...
 
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