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
The Test
To keep the review length manageable we're presenting a subset of our results here. For all benchmark results and even more comparisons be sure to use our performance comparison tool: Bench.
| Motherboard: |
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro (Intel Z68) ASUS Crosshair V Formula (AMD 990FX) Intel DX79SI (Intel X79) |
| Hard Disk: |
Intel X25-M SSD (80GB) Crucial RealSSD C300 |
| Memory: | 4 x 4GB G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600 9-9-9-20 |
| Video Card: | ATI Radeon HD 5870 (Windows 7) |
| Video Drivers: | AMD Catalyst 11.10 Beta (Windows 7) |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1920 x 1200 |
| OS: | Windows 7 x64 |
Cache and Memory Bandwidth Performance
The biggest changes from the original Sandy Bridge are the increased L3 cache size and the quad-channel memory interface. We'll first look at the impact a 15MB L3 has on latency:
| Cache/Memory Latency Comparison | ||||||
| L1 | L2 | L3 | Main Memory | |||
| AMD FX-8150 (3.6GHz) | 4 | 21 | 65 | 195 | ||
| AMD Phenom II X4 975 BE (3.6GHz) | 3 | 15 | 59 | 182 | ||
| AMD Phenom II X6 1100T (3.3GHz) | 3 | 14 | 55 | 157 | ||
| Intel Core i5 2500K (3.3GHz) | 4 | 11 | 25 | 148 | ||
| Intel Core i7 3960X (3.3GHz) | 4 | 11 | 30 | 167 | ||
Cachemem shows us a 5 cycle increase in latency. Hits in L3 can take 20% longer to get to the core that requested the data, if this is correct. For small, lightly threaded applications, you may see a slight regression in performance compared to Sandy Bridge. More likely than not however, the ~2 - 2.5x increase in L3 cache size will more than make up for the added latency. Also note that despite the large cache and thanks to its ring bus, Sandy Bridge E's L3 is still lower latency than Gulftown's.
| Memory Bandwidth Comparison - Sandra 2012.01.18.10 | |||||
| Intel Core i7 3960X (Quad Channel, DDR3-1600) | Intel Core i7 2600K (Dual Channel, DDR3-1600) | Intel Core i7 990X (Triple Channel, DDR3-1333) | |||
| Aggregate Memory Bandwidth | 37.0 GB/s | 21.2 GB/s | 19.9 GB/s | ||
Memory bandwidth is also up significantly. Populating all four channels with DDR3-1600 memory, Sandy Bridge E delivered 37GB/s of bandwidth in Sandra's memory bandwidth test. Given the 51GB/s theoretical max of this configuration and a fairly standard 20% overhead, 37GB/s is just about what we want to see here.
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xpclient - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
I read Intel is not going to release AHCI/SATA/Matrix RAID drivers for 32-bit Windows XP for X79. Why??? Without AHCI, performance is going not going to be optimal. For those that dual boot with Windows 7, this means changing the settings from AHCI to IDE every time you boot into XP.Rick83 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
And I heard that USB 3 had no drivers for my Win95 D either!B3an - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Because no one in there right mind would buy this high-end platform then use a decade old POS operating system. Waste of Intels time to support it and XP needs to die already.XP will take little advantage of SSD's or even new HDD's properly, some drives wont even work at all on it, and it lacks the same level of support and performance for CPU features and multiple cores that Win7 has. If you really need to run some old software just use XP mode in Win 7 or use VM software.
xpclient - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Are you not aware of multi-core benchmarks? http://www.infoworld.com/t/platforms/generation-ga... Windows 7 does not perform faster than XP until you reach eight cores or higher.Peskarik - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
"Just as with previous architectures, installing fewer DIMMs is possible, it simply reduces the peak available memory bandwidth."So, I have:
Asus P8Z68-V Pro/Gen3 motherboard
Intel Core i7 2600K
Corsair Vengeance Red, 2x4GB, DDR3-1600, CL9@1.5V
When I am in BIOS the memory is set to 1333Mhz, and I had to manually set it to 1600, though I am not sure whether it actually runs at this speed (how can I check?).
Does the above sentence from the article mean that with 8GB RAM I do not have full memory bandwidth and that if I install 16GB RAM (I have 4 slots) then I have full 1600Mhz automatically?
kr1s69 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Sandy Bridge E is quad channel and so needs 4 DIMM's to obtain the peak bandwidth. Your Sandy Bridge system is dual channel and so you need 2 DIMM's to obtain the peak bandwidth. This is what you currently have installed, so no need to worry.The statement you quoted is basically saying this motherboard would boot with less than 4 DIMM's installed, that is all.
Sandy Bridge defaults to 1333Mhz but you can change this in the BIOS to 1600Mhz as you have done. You can download CPU-Z to confirm what speed your RAM is set to.
piroroadkill - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Set the O/C Profile to X.M.P.This uses the eXtreme Memory Profile provided by your RAM. Basically, standard SPD ratings don't go as high as 1600. XMP is required for this, it's a custom Intel extension to SPD.
piroroadkill - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Although it's supposed to work, in my experience I had to set my RAM to DDR3-1600 anyway. Ho hum.lukarak - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
This is not a great update. I wonder if 2011 will be the socket for ivy bridge E. If that's the case, it could be a good buy for somebody transitioning from an older system.dlitem - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
There were some rumors / news circulating earlier that VT-d is bugged. Is that actually the case? SB-E is The workstation platform and losing VT-d is kind of a shame, as there actually are people who might have benefited from it.Also, a lot of us are still running our trusty 3 year old Quad-Bloomfields that have served us so well, so including one LGA1366 Quad-core would have be a really nice thing.