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

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• 14ccKemiskt - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

  Exactly. The original line-up for the enthusiast platform (LGA1366) was 920 ($280),940 ($560), 965 ($999). That has since then gradually transformed (by price level)
  
  ~$280: 920 > 930 > 950 > 960 > 3820
  ~$560: 940 > 950 > 960 > 970 > 980 > 3930K
  ~$999: 965 > 975 > 980X > 990X > 3960X
  
  The big "winner" on the enthusiast platform(s) is the $560 part that has gone from being a locked quad-core 2.9 GHz chip to a unlocked hex-core 3.2 GHz one.
  
  But it is fair that the 920 has got it's successor. And if you want a lot of RAM, don't need the internal graphics or want the option to upgrade your cpu, the LGA2011+3820 is as good a choice as the LGA1155+2700K. Remember that we may well see a octa-core IVB-E within a year or so and LGA2011 will be the only platform to put it into.

• rgallant - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

  have a I7-920 and 2 x 580 ,+ 2 x gtx 285's laying around.
  -down the road might want to use a 3rd card , either a 580 or a gtx 285[phsyx]
  -so sb = x8,x4,x4 pci-e 2.0
  -so ib = x8,x4,x4 pci-e 2.0 - need all 3.0 cards for x8,x4,x4 pci-e 3.0
  
  -so 40 lanes look's better to me , not = to sb\ib.
  -come Jan.09 hope to see some sb benches with 2 x 7970 and a 3rd card at x8,x4,x4, and at x8+x8 ,then some 2 x x16 3.0 + x8 on a 79x system.
  -ib will not have a nv200 chip to give more lanes , as it's does not do pci-e 3.0.

• DanNeely - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

  I'd be shocked if nVidia doesn't luanch a PCIe 3.0 successor to the nv200...

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

  I did not understand a thing what you just wrote

• tpi2009 - Friday, December 30, 2011 - link

  Hi Anand,
  
  could you tell uss what is the latency of 10 MB L3 cache in the i7 3820 ? From the 3960X review the latency for the i7 3930K and 3960X were a bit higher compared to Sandy Bridge, given their bigger size, and also the main memory acess lantecy was also higher .
  
  Given that the i7 3820 is not an eight core chip with disabled cores and cache, I was wondering what latency does the cache and main memory access have ? Close to Sandy Bridge ? Close to the i7 3930K and 3960X ?
  
  Thanks!

• HMTK - Friday, December 30, 2011 - link

  Looks like a nice cheap CPU for a virtualization setup if it has all the necessary hardware activated.

• SunLord - Friday, December 30, 2011 - link

  Just looking at that transistor count pretty much shows exactly why AMD isn't as good as Intel they keep failing at trying to do more with less. They'd probably have far better luck trying to do more in the same amount of transistors

• Hauk - Friday, December 30, 2011 - link

  Now for the release date..?

• murray13 - Friday, December 30, 2011 - link

  Your 'niche' posit has one big flaw. Not everyone builds a new system every year or even 18 months. Those of us that only build new systems every 3 to 4 years are more looking at the platform and it's longevity than the single generation cpu gains.
  
  If someone wants to build a system (in the next couple of months) and needs it to last for 3 or 4 years, LGA2011 sure looks a lot better than LGA1155 does, at least with the current z68 chipset. That may change with the 7x chipset upgrade coming with IVB.
  
  So for me the real question is do I build when the 3820 comes out or do I wait and build when IVB comes out, assuming IVB brings with it a 7x chipset...
  
  I'm leaning heavily right now on LGA2011. Maybe I'm one of those 'niche' people.

• descendency - Saturday, December 31, 2011 - link

  Nah. Anand is right. The performance gap between SBE and SB isn't big enough in the vast majority of applications (especially consumer applications, ie games). 3-4 years or not.
  
  You will only see a performance gap increase at the ultra high end of the markets. Regardless of what year it is. So unless you are predicting that in the next 3-4 years, the ultra high end needs today become the midrange needs of tomorrow (something I would say, from a software engineer's perspective, is far from likely), I'd suggest you buy an SB instead of an SBE.
  
  I'm running a 3 year old AMD system fine. (speaking of which... might be time to upgrade lol)