Intel Core i7 3820 Review: $285 Quad-Core Sandy Bridge E

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• ytoledano - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

  I'm in desperate need of memory. I bought the 3930K with 48GB as soon as it was released. If the 3820 was available then I would have gotten it and saved the cash for more memory. I guess this chip is useful for those just looking for SB-E features like 8 slot 4 channel memory or the PCI-E channels.

• Taft12 - Sunday, January 1, 2012 - link

  One day guys like you will learn Xeon/Opteron workstation platforms exist and really aren't all that expensive.

• futurepastnow - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

  #4: You need a new PC right now and can't afford a 6-8 core CPU but would like to upgrade later.

• hechacker1 - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

  Somewhat true. I have an i7 920, and would love to upgrade to a Gulftown 6-core now that is considered old.
  
  However, the price isn't coming down. It seems to be stuck at around $550 despite lower priced 4 core processors performing better at low threaded benchmarks.
  
  So it may make sense to just pay the price for the 6 core version if you really need it. Unless you are ready to go very long term in waiting for the price to come down.
  
  I imagine when Ivy-E comes out (with 8 cores?) perhaps then the old 6-core processors will finally get real cheap.

• piroroadkill - Monday, January 2, 2012 - link

  Unlikely. This upgrade path is ridiculous - it gives you a 4 core CPU that is effectively a wasted investment, hoping that the 6 cores come down.
  
  Go check out the best CPUs in socket 775 - Q9550, Q9650, and maybe the fabled Q9550S with its lower TDP.
  
  These things are still ridiculously expensive, and won't budge because people want the best on their old platform.

• CW1 - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

  
  "This also really provides that budget friendly high-end part for X79, basically the successor to the i7-920 for entry level enthusiasts. X79 still has its glaring omissions (USB 3.0, limited SATA6G, no Thunderbolt etc) but the 3820 makes it look better compared to SB and even IB."
  
  The 3820 is essentially the Sandy Bridge's i7-920. With what benchmarks I can find, it appears the 2600 runs around 10% faster than the i7-920 and with the 3820 running a few % faster than the 2600, I just don't see good reason to upgrade my aging i7-920 just yet. Perhaps we can convince Anand to compare the i7-920 to the new 3820...
  
  Sure, 32gb of memory would be great! The cost of that memory is a large page file size and a large hibernation size. Using recommended page file size, that's 64gb of precious SSD space!!

• hechacker1 - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

  I know it's possible to easily relocate the swap file, but I think you're right, you can't easily move the hiberfil.sys.
  
  But then I rarely hibernate my desktop PC. It goes into S3 sleep, which is IMHO, good enough. Unless you are prone to frequent power outages.

• peterfares - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

  Manually set the page file size then. There is no need to waste all that space on a page file that will rarely get used. I have 8GB in my laptop with a 128GB SSD. I set the page file to only 2GB.

• CW1 - Friday, December 30, 2011 - link

  Yeah, that's why I said "recommended". Although I've got 12gb ram and still have my page size set to 12gb. When my SSD starts running low on space I'll shrink it down.
  
  You could relocate the pagefile to a differnet drive, but it's something you'd want on an SSD. :)
  
  Regardless, Intel hasn't provided any real incentive to upgrade my i7-920. I was really hoping that SandyBridge-E would be my next upgrade (I've got the itch!), but it looks like Ivy Bridge will be it.
  
  Unfortunately, this appears a result of no real competition for Intel other than within itself. There's nothing to push the price of performance down. AMD has become all but forgotten. Unless they make a big splash in the CPU market their market share will continue to dwindle. It's unfortunate...all my machines have switched to Intel...the last AMD was a x2 250 for my htpc. With Sandy Bridge, I finally upgraded that machine so I could use the onboard GPU.

• dj christian - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link

  You shouldn't shrink the pagefile when your's SSD is running low on space. Trust me!