Monday, November 14th 2011
Intel Releases Core i7 ''Sandy Bridge-E'' Processors
Intel today released its Core i7-3000 series processor family, codenamed "Sandy Bridge-E". These new processors, along with the new Intel X79 chipset, make up for an entirely new platform. The processors are an upscale of the Sandy Bridge architecture found on chips in the LGA1155 package. The Sandy Bridge-E silicon measures 20.8 x 20.9 mm, with a humungous transistor count of 2.27 billion. In its Core i7-3000 configuration, the silicon has up to 6 cores, up to 15 MB of L3 cache, four DDR3 memory channels, and 40 PCI-Express 3.0 lanes ("some" devices "may" support Gen 3.0, Intel's words).
Sandy Bridge-E has the same instruction set as Sandy Bridge, which includes SSE up to version 4.2, AVX, AES, and features Turbo Boost 2.0, HyperThreading. It's the memory controller that's complete upscale. It features four independent 64-bit paths to DDR3 DIMMs, making it a quad-channel DDR3 IMC. DDR3-1600 MHz is natively supported. There are three models, the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition leads the pack with a clock speed of 3.30 GHz, 3.90 GHz top Turbo Boost speed, and 15 MB of L3 cache. It has 6 cores and 12 threads with HTT enabled. This chip has all its multipliers unlocked and is geared for overclocking. It is priced at US $990 in 1000 unit tray quantities, though retailers might draw a decent margin for the boxed parts.The next best chip in the series is Core i7-3930K. With clock speeds of 3.20 GHz and 3.80 GHz (Turbo), this chip has a slightly smaller L3 cache size of 12 MB, though it is still unlocked and geared for overclocking. Like the i7-3960X, this is a 6 core / 12 thread chip. This chip commands a price of $555. Touted to be the most affordable model, the Core i7-3820 is a quad-core part drawn out of disabling two cores (there's no evidence so far that they can be unlocked). With HTT enabled, this chip offers 8 threads. Its L3 cache is further reduced, to 10 MB (still higher than any preceding Core i7 quad-core model). Unfortunately, this chip is "partially unlocked", meaning that its base clock multiplier is locked, though you can still effectively overclock it by tinkering with the base clock. What's even more depressing is that this chip won't be available until Q1 2012. It is supposed to be priced in the $299~$399 range. This means that the only people building Sandy Bridge-E desktops this Christmas will be the ones with at least $600 to spare for a processor.
Moving on to the platform itself, the processor is built on the new LGA2011 package, it's the largest CPU package by dimensions, in recent times. Over its 2011 pins, the processor gives out four DDR3 memory channels and 40 PCI-Express 3.0 lanes, a DMI 4 GB/s connection to the X79 chipset, and a large number of pins handling power. The X79 chipset itself doesn't differ much from the P67 chipset in terms of the kind of connectivity it offers, except support for Intel Smart Response SSD-caching technology.
Sandy Bridge-E has the same instruction set as Sandy Bridge, which includes SSE up to version 4.2, AVX, AES, and features Turbo Boost 2.0, HyperThreading. It's the memory controller that's complete upscale. It features four independent 64-bit paths to DDR3 DIMMs, making it a quad-channel DDR3 IMC. DDR3-1600 MHz is natively supported. There are three models, the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition leads the pack with a clock speed of 3.30 GHz, 3.90 GHz top Turbo Boost speed, and 15 MB of L3 cache. It has 6 cores and 12 threads with HTT enabled. This chip has all its multipliers unlocked and is geared for overclocking. It is priced at US $990 in 1000 unit tray quantities, though retailers might draw a decent margin for the boxed parts.The next best chip in the series is Core i7-3930K. With clock speeds of 3.20 GHz and 3.80 GHz (Turbo), this chip has a slightly smaller L3 cache size of 12 MB, though it is still unlocked and geared for overclocking. Like the i7-3960X, this is a 6 core / 12 thread chip. This chip commands a price of $555. Touted to be the most affordable model, the Core i7-3820 is a quad-core part drawn out of disabling two cores (there's no evidence so far that they can be unlocked). With HTT enabled, this chip offers 8 threads. Its L3 cache is further reduced, to 10 MB (still higher than any preceding Core i7 quad-core model). Unfortunately, this chip is "partially unlocked", meaning that its base clock multiplier is locked, though you can still effectively overclock it by tinkering with the base clock. What's even more depressing is that this chip won't be available until Q1 2012. It is supposed to be priced in the $299~$399 range. This means that the only people building Sandy Bridge-E desktops this Christmas will be the ones with at least $600 to spare for a processor.
Moving on to the platform itself, the processor is built on the new LGA2011 package, it's the largest CPU package by dimensions, in recent times. Over its 2011 pins, the processor gives out four DDR3 memory channels and 40 PCI-Express 3.0 lanes, a DMI 4 GB/s connection to the X79 chipset, and a large number of pins handling power. The X79 chipset itself doesn't differ much from the P67 chipset in terms of the kind of connectivity it offers, except support for Intel Smart Response SSD-caching technology.
81 Comments on Intel Releases Core i7 ''Sandy Bridge-E'' Processors
Worth 990$?
No
K answer me this now... What is a better buy... i7 3930K or i7 970? i7 3960X or the 990X?
kthxsbye
I would love to see a benchmark done with DCS games even more so KA-50 as they lean pretty heavy on the CPU.. Love to see how it does in Arma 2 or even Arma 3 when it's out too.
And it is released only 10months after mainstream sb parts. Not 4 years after ; ).
I wonder when we will see the full fat 8 core chips in desktop form.
Intel.(R) You are our sponsors.(TM)
Maybe I'm missing something...... it beats everything out there right now....so where is the fail. Sb was a beast 2 begin with this is a tweaked. 6 core sb. Maybe sb was too good to start with its hard to top now....but please no where close to being a bulldozer. My only reservation is wether to wait for the true x79 chipset
unlike Bulldozer Exactly!
www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1316/pg16/intel-sandy-bridge-extreme-and-x79-chipset-launch-core-i7-3960x-processor-review-skyrim.html
And BFBC2 does well with a 3960
www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/intel_core_i7_3960/12.htm
I'm sure someone can pick faults but the only shit thing about this processor is it's price. Otherwise it is the best multi-purpose cpu out there. It's just the chipset that is a bit meh..
www.overclockers.ru/lab/44528_4/Novoe_pokolenie_Intel._Sravnitelnoe_testirovanie_i7-3930K_i_i7-3960X_v_2D_i_3D.html.
Those new predators are 50% faster then i7-930. Gaming is not a living.
P.S. Ya - thanks for info.
The Xeon E5 family
Seeing some benchmarks with an EVGA SR-3 and 16 cores/32 threads at it's disposal should be fun.
The only con is that its not affordable by comparison to Sandy Bridge, but it isn't supposed to be either.
That are so many haters/one-minded people on these forums lately, its really hard to read a thread without getting irritated by ignorance.
ZOMG sucks, major fail like Bulldozer cuz it sucks in gaming except it is the best...
I do not see any contradictions /end sarcasm
Joking ofc, cheers.
I think both Intel with Sandy-e and AMD FX-8150 made a crucial jump but f'd their high end users and PL so expect Intel + AMD claiming major loses or low sales for the April tax year just to BS the IRS/TAX guys and then recover from it with Ivy bridge / AMD ?? processor .
Accounting wise Intel and AMD wrote the Sandy-e and FX-8150 off as a failure's by June 2011 already. Rigging products to fail is a normal here in the USA and is standard practice, everyone does it.
Ivy-bridge and the socket 1150 is the way to go and by that time / mid March 2012 they would have sorted out major software optimization programing and performance issues so choosing by that time would be ideal purchase time and then you can then get the updated / 2nd release AMD79** and NVidia 6** video cards.