Intel Core i7 3960X (Sandy Bridge E) Review: Keeping the High End Alive
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 14, 2011 3:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Core i7
- Sandy Bridge
- Sandy Bridge E
Gaming Performance
Most games have a tough enough time stressing more than four cores, so the move to the 3960X won't do much for gaming in most cases (particularly when GPU bound). That being said, the added cache may help give SNB-E a slight bump over its quad-core brethren.
Civilization V
Civ V's lateGameView benchmark presents us with two separate scores: average frame rate for the entire test as well as a no-render score that only looks at CPU performance.
In GPU bound scenarios the 3960X is no different than the 2600K. Civ V is a unique game in that its CPU workload does scale reasonable well across multiple cores:
Here the 3960X is nearly 30% faster than the 2600K.
Crysis: Warhead
Dawn of War II
The larger cache helps give the 3960X a 9% advantage over the 2600K in Dawn of War II. At 1680 x 1050 the game isn't entirely GPU bound on our 5870.
DiRT 3
We ran two DiRT 3 benchmarks to get an idea for CPU bound and GPU bound performance. First the CPU bound settings:
DiRT 3 is an example of a CPU bound title (at lower resolutions) that doesn't scale well with core count or cache size. The 3960X is barely 2% faster than the 2600K.
Metro 2033
It is interesting to note that while SNB-E and SNB perform similarly here, both parts do offer a performance improvement over the Gulftown based 990X.
Rage vt_benchmark
While id's long awaited Rage title doesn't exactly have the best benchmarking abilities, there is one unique aspect of the game that we can test: Megatexture. Megatexture works by dynamically taking texture data from disk and constructing texture tiles for the engine to use (note that Rage doesn't store textures in a GPU-usable format). As a result whenever you load a texture, Rage is transcoding the texture on the fly. This is normally done by the CPU.
The Benchmark: vt_ are all the virtual texture commands. Vt_benchmark flushes the texture cache and then times how long it takes to transcode all the textures needed for the current scene, from 1 thread to X threads. Thus when you run vt_benchmark 8, for example, it will benchmark from 1 to 8 threads (the default appears to depend on the CPU you have). Since transcoding is done by the CPU this is a pure CPU benchmark. I present the best case transcode time at the maximum number of concurrent threads each CPU can handle:
Starcraft 2
World of Warcraft
WoW does enjoy the 3960X's larger cache, here we see a 13% increase in performance compared to the regular Sandy Bridge parts.
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mcturkey - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Glad I'm not the only one who was thinking that! My 486 66 only had 4MB as well.Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
My 386 started with 4MB, but I kept it for a very long time as upgrading was fairly expensive. I eventually threw a ton of memory at it as my last upgrade to the platform :)Take care,
Anand
BSMonitor - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
How big was your 386's hard drive?How many times over could you store it's entire contents in 8 DIMM's of DDR3 memory, now ?? And for probably less cost!
Thought I saw a 16GB kit on newegg for $75? Lol!
just4U - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
I had a roomie 81 meg harddrive in my 386/16khanov - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
"With the socket the same, is the reviewed SB-E the same design as the new Xeons? Will there be 3D design like Ivy Bridge?"1. It is the exact same die as the new Xeons, although of course different parts are harvested for each market.
2. Yes there will be a 3D transistor design (according to rumors) but this will be Ivy Bridge-E and will not launch until at least late 2012.
gamoniac - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Anand,More and more power users are running VMs on their desktops or workstation. With most Intel and AMD CPU now support Intel-VT or AMD-V, I notice a lack of measurement in this department in pretty much all online reviews. When you update your test suite, could you possibly include some sort VM test? Note: If so, could you possibly run the VM test on SSD to eliminate HDD limitation?
Thanks for the great review and conclusion, as always.
Senti - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
I'm amazed how much fuss QuickSync is still generating in reviews. Let's face it - it's fairly useless in current state. Cool words "GPU video transcoding" can only impress casual users, not someone who cares about quality in first place and speed only after that.With time it will be even more useless if like GPU video decoding it's unable to work with 10 bit and 422/444 content (very likely).
gunslinger5577 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
This review indicates no significant improvement with 2x 16x PCI-E lanes in SLI. However the ASUS X79 Pro MB review seems to indicate there is a measurable and significant at times advantage.fishbits - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Weird stuff. Why fret over on-die USB 3.0 when every mobo supports it? And mourning Quick Sync for a CPU that flies at encoding without it? Or when you'd already have an SNB with Quick Sync? Really unhappy with the new Porche's glove compartment...Love the CPU/Platform, but too pricey for how much I'd use it over what's currently available. Hoping against hope that mainstream Ivy offers 8 RAM slots, but not holding my breath.
DanNeely - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Each addon chip the mobo makers include increases the cost of the board (not just the chip itself, but the engineering time needed to integrate it, and potentially (if enough are chips are added) by adding an extra layer to the PCB).You also take a hit in the number of PCIe lanes available for expansion slots. With legacy PCI gone from the southbridge we're unlikely to see any 4x electrical slots coming off of it. Audio, ethernet, and firewire, will take 1 lane each; USB3 controllers will take 1lane/2 ports, probably 3lanes total/board leaving only 2 for expansion slots. THe main impact here is just not being able to go all USB3 for the legacy free gloss without a major squeeze elsewhere. Scientific customers doing stuff that actually needs the PCE 3.0 bandwidth without needing 2x width cards could end up being dinged since it means several fewer total lanes for them to hook stuff up to.