Performance per Dollar
In our initial review we knew going in that the performance per dollar of the Core i7-3960X was going to be poor – all Intel Extreme Edition processors end with that result. We pined for the Core i7-3930K to see how it compared, and now I am eager to see how the Core i7-3820 stacks up against them both.
The Core i7-3820 actually gives you better performance per dollar when compared to the Core i7-2600K though that is only considering the price of the processor itself, not the platform as a whole. If motherboard prices for the X79 platform continue to be noticeably higher than the Z68 offerings on the market, then this performance per dollar advantage will likely be negated.
Great Work PCPER.
Great Work PCPER.
Very nice review. I will
Very nice review. I will admit makes me want to get it over the 2600K.
With regards to the review. I was wondering if there is a way to make the result charts more readable?
The main thing is better grouping of Intel and AMD cpus? I know this is more or less add the newest CPU at the top, but when I jump from page to page and try to compare it to other CPUs it makes it difficult to quickly compare between them.
Possible area of improvement is just colour code it. AMD green, Intel Blue, currently tested Red? Or any other colour scheme.
Beyond that I’m curious about the Blender benchmarks, especially with Blender 2.61 having better multithreading and new rendering engine called Cycles which is fully ray tracked engine unlike current.
What ever you guys do or not do I just want to say. You guys are doing an amazing job.
Polish Canuck – Prodeous.
Prodeous, thanks for the
Prodeous, thanks for the comments. I think you are right on the graphs and it is something we have tried to figure out in the past but honestly, my Excel-foo is just too weak… We’ll try again soon!
As for Blender, we are going to completely re-do our CPU test bed soon and I’m sure we’ll update it then.
I think this will be a decent
I think this will be a decent way to upgrade from my Q9650 🙂
Thanks for the great review!
Any thoughts on the continued
Any thoughts on the continued support of LGA 1155 vs 2011? In the long term, I’d think the 2011 platform is a better choice. You get PCI-E 3.0 for next gen GPUs, and a socket that potentially carries you onto a Ivy-E chip with 8-cores? A lot of speculation I’m sure.
Care to comment? btw love the podcast.
As a enthusiast, I think I
As a enthusiast, I think I like what I see in the SNB-E.
For my build later this year I was looking at the 2600K with a water cooler, a $220 Motherboard and populating all 4 DIMM slots. This processor will likely have me reevaluating what I do with this system as the x79 platform is more robust than the Z68.
Perhaps I will change my mind again after I see what Ivy Bridge brings to the table though.
Excellent review Ryan, and I have to agree with Prodeous both about the charts and the continued excellence.
Cheers,
Dreadteir
The high end SB-E processors
The high end SB-E processors are enough of a shitty value themselves, but this takes the cake. You’d have to be a grade A moron to buy this over something like a 2600K or 2700K. Either you have the money to blow on a 6core SB-E, or you don’t. This in between bullshit gets you SB performance and SB-E prices.
…with twice the memory
…with twice the memory bandwidth and more PCIe. It definitely fills a specific niche, but I’m not sure I would heckle a potential buyer as a ‘moron’.
Umm only an uneducated idiot
Umm only an uneducated idiot would say that. On a 2600k 0r 2700k your pci-e lanes have limited frequencies due to the very mild on chip intergrated graphics. I’ll explain this in layman’s terms… If you want to run multiple video/graphics cards your pci-e multipliers are limited to 8x/8x or 16x/4x if you use the SB-E chips without intergrated graphics you will be able to run 2 video/graphics cards @16x each and a third card @8x.Plus the SB-E chips fully support Pci-e 3.0 although regular SB chips are able to run pci-e 3.0 they do not fully support pci-e 3.0 because 3.0 came out much later than the release of the SB chips therefore they were not designed to run it.
Good review. I just wish
Good review. I just wish Intel would release this CPU before February
Excellent review and quite
Excellent review and quite the feather in the cap of Pcper as you are one of the few to review all three Sandy Bridge-E processors. In fact I know of no other at this time that has. Most so far have only reviewed the Core i7 3960X. I think Anandtech only has a review of the 3960X and now the 3820 too.
Personally I was waiting for C2 stepping but the Core i7 3820 looks to be quite reasonable once its released. I still feel like X79 motherboards are missing features though. I’d like to see an updated chipset that has the features we were expecting out of the X79 (12 Intel SATA ports 3G + 6G, native Intel SRT and so on).
The biggest issue for me with
The biggest issue for me with this chip is the TPD. 130w vs. 95w makes this a no go for me. The minimal gains vs. the 2600k are not woth the added power consumption, especially when overclocked.
This was a great review, I
This was a great review, I also have a question, I have a 990X,GTX480,GI Assassin Mobo, with GB revodrive, while my rig is not quite a year old it is fast, the fastest I’ve ever had do you think I would benefit from a upgrade or should I wait till the next round. I have moved up the ladder selling and buying so I can have a nice rig. I have almost a thousand movies and tens of thousands of songs and use my computer for encoding mostly and play skyrim and COD4, and BF3 ?
Awesome! Can’t wait to leave
Awesome! Can’t wait to leave the Core 2 Duo era. Sure, I’ve got a quad now but the rest of the PC will be five years in March.
I wonder what difference the RAM speeds will make (1600 vs 1333)… Photomatix doesn’t rely on CPU power as much as memory speed.
Just an FYI: your pricing
Just an FYI: your pricing column lists “(1k USD)”, which should obviously be just “(USD)”.
I imagine a lot of people who
I imagine a lot of people who are considering the 3820 are currently running i7 920 rigs. Could you add the 920 to the benchmarks for comparison? It might be helpful to see whether the upgrade is worth it or not.
I don’t think it’s worth it
I don’t think it’s worth it over 2600k, unless you plan to go 3930k soon.
Am I missing something, but
Am I missing something, but your charts show good metrics for
the Core i5 s, several times beating the i7’s. What’s the
answer? Channels? USB3? PCI?
SLI tests? Would have been
SLI tests? Would have been nice to see the difference between 3820 and 2600k w/ multi-GPU.
In Romania is listed as
In Romania is listed as “available for purchase” online at PcGarage.Price is exactly 300 euros.
http://www.pcgarage.ro/procesoare/intel/i7-3820-36ghz-box/
the Core i5 s, several times
the Core i5 s, several times beating the i7’s. What’s the