Intel Core i7-4960X Preview: Ivy Bridge-E, Benchmarked

[icypyro]

I call bullshit on the power consumption numbers. I highly doubt that a processor with a 125w TDP would consume more power than a processor with a 150w TDP. Also, why the hell are you comparing a 200$ processor with $300+ ones? If anything, it shows the 8350 can hold its own since it beat out the i7s in quite a few of the benchmarks, or got close at the very least. Throw an i5 in there, and see how it does up against the 8350. But anyways, good to see that Intel is at least doing something instead of just sitting around waiting for AMD to improve...

 

[icypyro]

I call bullshit on the power consumption numbers. I highly doubt that a processor with a 125w TDP would consume more power than a processor with a 150w TDP. Also, why the hell are you comparing a 200$ processor with $300+ ones? If anything, it shows the 8350 can hold its own since it beat out the i7s in quite a few of the benchmarks, or got close at the very least. Throw an i5 in there, and see how it does up against the 8350. But anyways, good to see that Intel is at least doing something instead of just sitting around waiting for AMD to improve...

 

[nforce4max]

Very unimpressive gains over Ivy-Bridge and disappointed even though what I got wouldn't hold a candle to this. I don't upgrade if the gains are hardly even single digit when the costs are so high. Better off just buying the Xeons and nuking them instead or picking up a second hand Sandy for a lot less.

 

[ojas]

tomshardware ... Stop with the intel propaganda. Show real results. The results for FX-8350 are incorrect!!! Neither the info here is correct nor the CPU chart!!! i3 is better than fx8350 > WTF

FX 8350 is even better than 3570k. Be real! Stop s*cking!

Trolling, i hope.

First off, yes it is largely a gaming machine. If not, it would likely be using Xeons.

I'd like to see a situation in which you need 4GB/s each way SAS/SATA, but can't afford a Xeon based platform

LAN cards. At 500MB/s each way (for an PCIe2.0x1 card, plus you're more likely to use an x4 card). You got something with 10GbE?

Even a Titan 2x could run on PCIe2.0x16.

Most people don't like running many addin cards. Besides, where's the room given the expected use of this platform is multi-GPU systems?

Yeah look at all those games that use more than 4 cores...

My question is "how does it overclock"? Is it using the same crappy thermal paste as IVB/Haswell or did Intel go back to spending the extra penny on fluxless solder?

THIS. One relevant and sane question, thank you.

They could have fitted 8 cores within the 130W TDP, given the architecture is 30% more efficient.
Hopefully this will be an OC beast.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they wanted to target servers and power efficiency this time? That's been their theme all year...but next year, 8 looks to be on the cards.

I call bullshit on the power consumption numbers.

I call bullshit on your understanding of TDP. TDP is not a measure of power usage.

Also, and this goes out to all AMD fans out there - please stop all the crying. It's just getting old... Another CPU release, another round of crying AMD fans screaming about unfair tests and Intel bias.

Exactly. It's annoying.

 

[ubercake]

Too bad about the Intel attitude. Seems like other sites are in the same boat as well.

What happened?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they wanted to target servers and power efficiency this time? That's been their theme all year...but next year, 8 looks to be on the cards.

Usually, more cores at a lower clock gives you lower power consumption for the same total performance - why many servers use 8-core chips clock in the 2GHz range. Single-thread performance is useless, but that doesn't matter in a server.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Wasn't this easy enough to predict by observing the modest improvements trend set forth by Sandy to Ivy and then to Haswell?

I Think Haswell-E will be better since its rumored to do more cores vs IB-E is. 2011 was always meant for extreme enthusiasts, OCers and workstations, not the mainstream gamers. Even two more cores will make Haswell-E a upgrade option.

But no one was expecting IB-E to be a monster. Just a simple bump up with a bump down on power consumption. But by the looks of the power consumption numbers it looks more efficient than a i7-3930K which means overclocking might be easier to do on IB-E, especially if they have the IHS soldered on.

tomshardware ... Stop with the intel propaganda. Show real results. The results for FX-8350 are incorrect!!! Neither the info here is correct nor the CPU chart!!! i3 is better than fx8350 > WTF

FX 8350 is even better than 3570k. Be real! Stop s*cking!

I agree. I hate globalist Intel. And it costs an arm and a leg...

Yet AMD has only had their FABs in Germany and now relies on a company based around the globe for CPUs.

There is nothing wrong with a company taking advantage of the global market as it does benefit us. AMD does it too.

As for the Arm and a leg, I guess its worth $900 for a 5GHz CPU that uses 2x the power of the 4970K yet still delivers less performance?

Every company will charge a "arm and a leg" when they can. AMD did with the HD7970 ($600 at release) and did with the Athlon 64 FX CPUs when they were dominating the market ($1000). Its all about who has the better performance.

 

[hixbot]

Wow. 30% more efficient means with power consumption means use a less powerful light bulb in one of the lamps you use every day. No real performance increase compared to its predecessor. This is depressing. GPU competition right now is awesome. Makes powerful GPUs inexpensive. Now that Intel has passed AMD too much they dont even have to compete with price or performance upgrades. Intel is garbage for what price they charge for some of their processors. Granted, there are several awesome $180 and less options, but anything higher then that and you are paying for BEATS by Dre price premium. We all know how mediocre those are. Sorry. I am done ranting now.

I don't know what planet you're living on, but the GPU market is far from competitive. AMD is releasing no new GPU products in 2013, and Nvidia is releasing old tech. There has not been a significant increase in GPU performance per dollar in almost almost 2 years.

 

[marraco]

yawn²

 

[Marcus52]

I just don't see the point in making an Ivy Bridge-E. Move on to Haswell-E, please.

 

[ojas]

Probably would have been nice to be 8-core. Isn't the actual die on these things just a cut-down 12-core chip? Think I read that somewhere.

EDIT: Minor error:

surface alongside Haswell-based 9-series chipsets

Shouldn't that be Broadwell?

No, Broadwell won't launch for desktops. Haswell refresh is like what the GTX 500 series was to GTX 400, or 700 to 600, i.e. tweaks.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they wanted to target servers and power efficiency this time? That's been their theme all year...but next year, 8 looks to be on the cards.

Usually, more cores at a lower clock gives you lower power consumption for the same total performance - why many servers use 8-core chips clock in the 2GHz range. Single-thread performance is useless, but that doesn't matter in a server.

True enough, but what i meant was, with big IVB, their theme would be/is almost identical performance at a lower power, just like everything else this year. IVB-E parts are, after all, binned EP parts. Extreme edition parts aren't meant for servers themselves (their target usually being power users, rich enthusiasts), but they would be derived from the same process.

 

[clonazepam]

An addition I would love to see to any article of this type... I would like to know what overclock would be necessary for any one of the processors, in order for it to come in first place against the rest of the chips at stock settings.

It's just a dream.

I don't want to pay your labor to find out, nor do I want you to spend the time to answer that, delaying this article, and all the future ones in the works. It is something I'd really like to see though.

 

[vinhn]

Nah, too expensive for a 10% marginal increase. The next infrastructure should be good.

 

[hero1]

So better off getting a 3930K and R4F...waiting for Haswell-E to come around!

 

[warezme]

Dieter from Sprokets would say to Ivy Bridge, "Your story has become tiresome".

 

[hero1]

Intel is just sitting back and relaxing when it comes to high-end consumer chips since AMD has nothing to offer that can compete with the likes of 3770K or 3930K and up. I wish somehow someone bought AMD and fired up the competition.

 

[Raheel Hasan]

***** who are talking about fps gains from 3570k to 4960x. These e-processors are not for gaming they are for heavy multi threaded applications and in those app there is a huge diff between 3570k and 4960x

 

[mapesdhs]

Chris, you really need to add some more RAM in order to make those
AE results useful. Also, re the chess test, if you think modern CPU
speed is a mark of how tough a computer opponent can be, try playing
Collosus Chess 4.0 on a Commodore 64, it'll kick your ass.

Ian.

 

[hannibal]

I allso think that the most interesting thing is if this CPU has thermal paste like normal Ivy or not...
If it is like Sandy, it may actually be close to Sandy when overcloking. I supose that it will get hotter faster than Sandy, but it has some advantage from the beginning (eat less electricity), so they can actullually be very near each others when overclocking. If this use thermal paste, then Sandy will allso overclock better than this. If so, it is better to buy old Sandy-E if you can get it in good price, if not... Well there is nothing new to see here.

 

[aaab]

about all i'd expect. shame really, but it looks like the enthusiast market is at a standstill till AMD starts to compete again.

There is a lot of people saying stuff like this. Intel do actually have to compete with themselves! A CPU lasts a long time. If intel just completely stopped bringing out better CPU's, they would lose money because no one would need to upgrade.

 

[RedJaron]

Wake me up when they gonna sell 12 core i-somethings for 400 bucks

considering they're selling 6 cores for 1000, they wouldn't sell a 8 core for less then 1500 (probably 2k)... anyone expecting less is kidding themselves. this will remain true as long as AMD is uncompetitive.

It's also a matter of die size and good silicone yields. The shrink to 22nm helps, but how much would the die grow by throwing two extra cores on? At that point, you might run into Titan-like problems where the bigger chip means useful yields and availability go down while driving the price up even more.

 

[Azn Cracker]

hah so glad i bought a 2500k a while back. It still has great performance and I have been enjoying it for over 2 years

 

[mapesdhs]

... If intel just completely stopped bringing out better CPU's, they would lose money because no one would need to upgrade.

That's the "mistake" Intel made with the 2500K, it was too good. I use the word 'mistake' in the
context of that being from Intel's point of view, wheras I look at it as simply their not producing
something equivalently better after the 2500K. The 3570K and 4570K are not remotely worth it.
As I posted elsewhere, after several chipset changes and yet another socket change, the gain
from 2700K to 4770K is only 15%, which is pathetic.


Azn Cracker writes:
> hah so glad i bought a 2500k a while back. It still has great performance and I have been
> enjoying it for over 2 years

Exactly, and if you're only running it at 4.5 or so then you still have some oc headroom to
play with (better cooler, up to 5+), and after that there's the option of 2600K, 2700K or
presumably lid-modded IB.

Bloomberg reports gloomy Intel news on the back of declining PC sales in the wake of
tablets taking over the low-end, but if Intel doesn't bother making desktop options genuinely
better then they've only themselves to blame if the decline spreads further up the desktop
performance scale. I get why they're focusing on the mobile/tablet space, that's where the
money is atm, but it's a market that can rapidly saturate and fluctuate wildly from unexpected
competition. Even more than I was expecting, HW makes it so clear that lack of competition
from AMD has been very damaging to the PC market.

Oh if only a corp with money could take over AMD and give 'em a kick up the arse. IBM, where
are you? Either that or we need an Elon Musk of the CPU world to shake things up.

Ian.

 

[amoralman]

No overclocking?
No de-liding?
A little disappointed. Guess it will come eventually.

 

[cats_Paw]

So far there are not even 4 core aplications out there, so Intel dosent bother. Just improves things a bit each now and then, and charges the same price. Ar this rate, they will start to see their income drop fast.

Untill we get games using 4+ cores, i dont see this moving at all.