Sandy Bridge E Core i7-3960X performance revealed

Sandy Bridge E Core i7-3960X performance revealed early

Although an exact release date for Intel's upcoming X79 chipset and Sandy Bridge E processors remains uncertain, DonanimHaber has revealed some new details about one of the parts. The Turkish site has published some internal slides that compare Intel's existing hexa-core Core i7-990X Extreme Edition processor to the new flagship i7-3960X. Unsurprisingly, the new part is claimed to offer a dramatic speed boost.



Despite winding the core clock frequency down from 3.46GHz to 3.30GHz, the i7-3960X actually has a higher peak Turbo Boost speed, revving up to 3.9GHz versus 3.73GHz. The slides also indicate that the new 32nm six-core (12 threads) processor will come with an extra 3MB of cache (15MB versus 12MB). Such a configuration should grant the i7-3960X a solid performance boost while keeping thermal loads in check.

In fact, the 3960X is expected to list the same 130W thermal design power as the 990X. Like Intel's other recent Extreme Edition and K series processors, the upcoming Sandy Bridge part will have an unlocked multiplier, giving enthusiasts more flexibility with overclocking. Another key feature is the addition of support for quad-channel DDR3 1333MHz memory, granting the 3960X a substantial increase in memory bandwidth.

According to Intel's data, the 3960X is 12-15% quicker than the 990X in Cinebench, POV-Ray, and ProShow Gold. That gap is even larger when comparing their performance in SPEC CPU2006 and Sandra's multimedia and memory bandwidth tests. In the former, the 3960X achieves 34% more integer performance and 64% better floating point results, while it offers double the speed in both Sandra benchmarks.



We've seen compelling reports that suggest may not make their originally scheduled August or September debut. Intel is reportedly pushing to ship the new platform before the end of 2011 and rumors suggest that the company may have to downgrade some specifications to make the cut. Namely, the X79 chipset might lose support for PCI Express 3.0 and it will offer four SATA/SAS 6Gb/s ports instead of eight.

Lot of rumors going around, we are waiting to see what comes out and what tech is there and what is missing if any.

they are talking about oct/nov release.

8 core is gonna be server for now, I'm not sure when or if there will be an e or main stream 8 core for sb or ivy, haswell is suppose to have native 8 cores.

But don't worry sometime between 2014 and 2016, you gonna see a 12 core cpu IMHO.

Edited by DST4ME - 26 Jul 2011 at 2:02am

Many new apps/games will use multi core/threads, win7 itself supports multi core/threads.

For games and for now over 4 cores is not really needed but soon that will change, everybody is moving toward support for multi core/thread.

Losing PCI Express 3.0 in the X79 would really suck.

Keep in mind it was never going to have PCIe 3.0 for the GPUs, it was just going to have a x4 or x8 (I forget which) PCIe 3.0 lane for SATA bandwidth to support all the Intel 6Gb/s ports.

Even if this is downgraded to a PCIe 2.0 lane it would still take many very expensive SSDs in RAID 0 to tap out its bandwidth, so this shouldn't make an impact on many people.

Meh lets wait and see for sure, the tec can fit on it if needed.

Tom's review. Ya I know its Tom's lol
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-3960x-x79-performance,3026-2.html

noob question, what do you mean? My friends told me back in the days Tom's site was good...or was i misinformed?

rofl, may i dare ask why!?