# Intel Core i7-3960X and i7-3930K CPUs Transitioning to C2 stepping in January



## Cristian_25H (Dec 12, 2011)

As previously reported, Intel's first wave of Sandy Bridge-E processors have VT-d (Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O) disabled due to an errata in the C1 stepping. That issue couldn't be resolved in time for the launch but it's getting fixed with the C2 stepping which is set to start rolling out to customers on January 20th, 2012 (samples have already been delivered).

The CPUs moving to the C2 stepping are the hexa-core Core i7-3960X (3.3 GHz) and Core i7-3930K (3.2 GHz). Beside the fixed VT-d, the C2 chips will feature new S-spec and MM numbers so a BIOS update for current motherboards will likely be required.





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## Bundy (Dec 12, 2011)

Good news, maybe this might help drop the price of the current stepping from its stratospheric heights.


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## claylomax (Dec 12, 2011)

How about i7 3820? Are they going to skip C1 for this cpu? Will it also be released (i7 3820) on the 20th of January?


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## (FIH) The Don (Dec 12, 2011)

srsly, they should give a rebate on the new stepping if ppl already bought their 600-1000$ cpu's

i think that by selling off the first revision they fuck ppl over , make money, then they can release refined versions

boooo-fucking-hooo Intel


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## LiveOrDie (Dec 12, 2011)

Bundy said:


> Good news, maybe this might help drop the price of the current stepping from its stratospheric heights.



I doubt that it will just replace it why saying at the same price till the C1 fade out. 




The C1 only had a small problem which didn't affect normal pc users so why would they refund people when all the C2 does it fix a simple problem D0 will be the big Overclocker?


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## qubit (Dec 12, 2011)

Yup, whoever bought these early chips are gonna start kicking themselves now, especially given the price they paid for them...


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## LiveOrDie (Dec 12, 2011)

qubit said:


> Yup, whoever bought these early chips are gonna start kicking themselves now, especially given the price they paid for them...



Why who uses VT-d?


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## (FIH) The Don (Dec 12, 2011)

its nto just the vt-d

new revisions usually come with better overclocking abilities, less voltage needed, and sometimes they are even cooler

remember CO vs DO with the x58 chips?


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## the54thvoid (Dec 12, 2011)

qubit said:


> Yup, whoever bought these early chips are gonna start kicking themselves now, especially given the price they paid for them...



Not me 

I wanted to get one so i did.  I don't use the tech at issue and I'm happy with a SB chip to overclock.  People who dive in first do it because they want to and they know the downfalls.

And the price wont shift much at all.


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## LiveOrDie (Dec 12, 2011)

(FIH) The Don said:


> its nto just the vt-d
> 
> new revisions usually come with better overclocking abilities, less voltage needed, and sometimes they are even cooler
> 
> remember CO vs DO with the x58 chips?



Even so with the short period of time between the two i don't expect much or any improvement intels aim was to fix vt-d and get the revision out asap for company's that use this feature.


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## qubit (Dec 12, 2011)

the54thvoid said:


> Not me
> 
> I wanted to get one so i did.  I don't use the tech at issue and I'm happy with a SB chip to overclock.  People who dive in first do it because they want to and they know the downfalls.
> 
> And the price wont shift much at all.



If you don't care for those features, then sure, you'll be ok.


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## LiveOrDie (Dec 12, 2011)

Also take this into account your forgetting some think Ivy Bridge which ill be upgrading to, So will may other people so this C0 will do me though till then .


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## radrok (Dec 12, 2011)

Since my CPU has yet to arrive (Italy lol) I might just cancel the order and wait for a full Xeon chip :|


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## Hayder_Master (Dec 12, 2011)

(FIH) The Don said:


> its nto just the vt-d
> 
> new revisions usually come with better overclocking abilities, less voltage needed, and sometimes they are even cooler
> 
> remember CO vs DO with the x58 chips?




it's only one time happen, usually new arrive CPU's have higher VID, remember LGA 775, also i try it too with 1156 with I7 860, i was have first release of 860 001 it have 1.15v VID, my friend have 002 it have 1.2v VID, and i can run it at 3.8ghz using 1.1975 less than 1.2v.


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## repman244 (Dec 12, 2011)

Live OR Die said:


> Why who uses VT-d?



Just because you don't use it, doesn't mean that it's a useless feature. And you would expect a high end chip to include such features.

And usually the new stepping brings other improvements as well like *(FIH) The Don* already said.


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## Lionheart (Dec 12, 2011)

I wants an 8 core ^_^


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## fullinfusion (Dec 12, 2011)

glad I waited...


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## Lilo0o (Dec 12, 2011)

I might be wrong, but according to Intel, VT-d functionality is not disabled in SB-E (C1):
http://ark.intel.com/products/63697/Intel-Core-i7- 3930K-Processor-(12M-Cache-3_20-GHz)
And according to the specification update, the VT-d errata has already been fixed for C1 steping:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/core-i7-lga-2011-specification-update.html


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## LiveOrDie (Dec 12, 2011)

repman244 said:


> Just because you don't use it, doesn't mean that it's a useless feature. And you would expect a high end chip to include such features.
> 
> And usually the new stepping brings other improvements as well like *(FIH) The Don* already said.



Ether way i dont care im happy with my CPU and once Ivy Bridge-E comes out ill upgrade my CPU.


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## mediasorcerer (Dec 13, 2011)

I think the pricing is outrageous for these chips, is the performance really that much better than previous i7 chips? So much so that its double, cos theyre double the price!!!


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## techtard (Dec 13, 2011)

The prices are higher because this is supposed to be the Professional platform, for people who use their computers to actually make money.
They make tons of money selling these to people who use workstation level platforms.
They also make tons of money off n00bs who don't know what they're doing.

Gamers who buy these are either: 
1) Ignorant and think more expensive = better
2) Need a new E-peen extension
3) Or they like to push technology to the limits with overclocking, extreme benching, and the like.

So if you are just an average user, or a gamer stick with the SB i3 or i5 series. 

The only benefit I can see in this platform is if you are running Pro level graphics cards (Firestream/Firepro from AMD, or Quadro & Tesla from nVidia.) plus are running an enterprise level SSD or extreme RAID setup. And you like to get your work done as fast as possible.


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## -=SNIPER=- (Dec 14, 2011)

intel to offer C1 to C2 CPU Swap??

http://tbreak.com/forums/topic/65500-intel-core-i7-3960x-and-3930k-to-get-c2-stepping-in-january/


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## 15th Warlock (Dec 14, 2011)

-=SNIPER=- said:


> intel to offer C1 to C2 CPU Swap??
> 
> http://tbreak.com/forums/topic/65500-intel-core-i7-3960x-and-3930k-to-get-c2-stepping-in-january/



I don't use VT-d, but am interested in the new S-spec and how might affect the OCing on the new stepping, I read the PDF linked in your message, but how does Intel plan to implement this? Should I contact Newegg directly?


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## radrok (Dec 14, 2011)

15th Warlock said:


> I don't use VT-d, but am interested in the new S-spec and how might affect the OCing on the new stepping, I read the PDF linked in your message, but how does Intel plan to implement this? Should I contact Newegg directly?



Probably, you just have to tell Newegg that Intel applies this policy and you should be fine


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## LiveOrDie (Dec 14, 2011)

Will this be world wide ? what will they do with all the old C1 CPUS LOL


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## radrok (Dec 14, 2011)

I don't think you'll be seeing any difference between the two steppings other than the VT-d support, really.
If you don't need VT-d you don't need a C2 stepping.


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## radrok (Dec 14, 2011)

Also I think the best OC will come out with D0, sorry for double post, I wanted to edit 
Feel free to delete this.


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## repman244 (Dec 14, 2011)

Live OR Die said:


> what will they do with all the old C1 CPUS LOL



Rebrand them and sell them back as C2 stepping?


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## Aquinus (Jan 28, 2012)

Weather you realize it or not, Windows 7 will virtualize individual processes to protect private application memory. Virtualization helps everyone if you realize it or not. The people who will find this the most useful will most likely be administrators and developers who run virtual machines. If you're getting LGA2011 for gaming, you're just an idiot because this platform has a lot fo raw power for applications that actually are multithreaded, and thread-for-thread, this is almost just as fast as a 2600K.


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## cadaveca (Jan 28, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> If you're getting LGA2011 for gaming, you're just an idiot because this platform has a lot fo raw power for applications that actually are multithreaded, and thread-for-thread, this is almost just as fast as a 2600K.



I beg to differ. In multi-GPU gaming, I get far higher frames on my 3960X than my 2600K could ever hope to give me.

SKT2011 is high-end computing, for sure, but gaming with multiple VGAs and monitors needs that grunt and bandwdith too.


I'm sorry, but calling people idiots isn't exactly within forum rules. Technically, you'd be missing a big part of why 2011 is good for gaming too, so you might want to reconsider your statement.


And yes, I can back my claim up with benchmarks. I dropped 2600K and the G1.Sniper2 for gaming, although i do miss how quiet that rig was.

On a lighter note, I'm eager to try a new stepping, know of several peopel keeping an eye out for them, yet here we are at the end of January, and none to be found. I wanna pick up a 3930K. C'mon, Intel, lets get stock on shelves.!


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## edgedemon (Jan 28, 2012)

For those in the UK, OCUK are selling the C2 stepping for the 3930K as I bought one...


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## Aquinus (Jan 29, 2012)

Go to Guru3d.com's website and check out their CPU/GPU Scaling review and you will see how wrong you are in 90% of all. Most games won't use that many threads and higher clocks speeds and lower memory latencies are going to give you the best gains. At high resolutions your taxing your GPU much harder than the CPU, so unless your planning on running games at low resolutions with SLI or Crossfire(...and why?), it won't help as much.

I have a degree in Computer Science and I'm a Systems Administrator. I like to think that I know what I'm talking about since I work with hardware on a daily basis, but any person who knows what they're talking about will tell you that SB-E is overkill for games as they are today.

I apologize for calling the author an idiot, but seriously, do some research before you start calling people out.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-cpu-scaling-performance-review/

...and to quote the review:


> If anything, this little article proofs once again that investing money in a faster graphics card will gain you better game performance compared to investing in a faster CPU. The performance difference in-between a 1000 USD Core i7 3960X compared to a 320 USD Core i7 2600K processor is extremely small, something you'd never notice unless measured. So we say, stick to a modern mainstream quad-core processor and the differences really aren't that big in the overall framerate, especially at 1920x1080/1200. Yes we know it's that weird penumbra, the higher you go in resolutions, the slower your processor may be. Remember, once you pass 1920x1080/1200 the GPU is almost always the bottleneck, not your processor.



Edit: Also unless you're running crossfire 7970s, this is a very realistic perspective on CPU scaling as it is just as fast as many current multi-gpu solutions. Also, benchmarks are designed to push everything in your system hard, that is their purpose, I'm talking about games and real world applications.



cadaveca said:


> I beg to differ. In multi-GPU gaming, I get far higher frames on my 3960X than my 2600K could ever hope to give me.
> 
> SKT2011 is high-end computing, for sure, but gaming with multiple VGAs and monitors needs that grunt and bandwdith too.
> 
> ...


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## PaulieG (Jan 29, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Go to Guru3d.com's website and check out their CPU/GPU Scaling review and you will see how wrong you are in 90% of all. Most games won't use that many threads and higher clocks speeds and lower memory latencies are going to give you the best gains. At high resolutions your taxing your GPU much harder than the CPU, so unless your planning on running games at low resolutions with SLI or Crossfire(...and why?), it won't help as much.
> 
> I have a degree in Computer Science and I'm a Systems Administrator. I like to think that I know what I'm talking about since I work with hardware on a daily basis, but any person who knows what they're talking about will tell you that SB-E is overkill for games as they are today.
> 
> ...



Thing is, this is a tech enthusiast site. Many of us want the additional power, additional eye candy, and we will push the envelope to squeeze every ounce we can. So, the argument of a "real world" perspective will fall on deaf ears here. It's not really a matter of need on a forum like this. So while in a sense, what you say is true, it really doesn't apply here. If you think about it, if all we thought about was need, most of us would still be on 775 quad systems with no more that a 6870 or 460 gpu.


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## radrok (Jan 29, 2012)

The 3960X is probably slightly better on performance Core Vs Core because of the higher L3.
I wouldn't be surprised if this difference will be more marked when Intel releases a full 20MB L3 Ivy-E, also I don't think that if you pay more money for a handful of FPS you are an "idiot" the term is enthusiast and there is nothing to be afraid of, why must people judge what others do with their money/free time? As long as you are having fun then who cares


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## qubit (Jan 29, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> On a lighter note, I'm eager to try a new stepping, know of several peopel keeping an eye out for them, yet here we are at the end of January, and none to be found. I wanna pick up a 3930K. C'mon, Intel, lets get stock on shelves.!



I tell ya, don't just wait for C2, but wait for the fully enabled 8 core.  That'll be the mark of a true enthusiast (with deep pockets, hehe). 



Paulieg said:


> Thing is, this is a tech enthusiast site. Many of us want the additional power, additional eye candy, and we will push the envelope to squeeze every ounce we can. So, the argument of a "real world" perspective will fall on deaf ears here. It's not really a matter of need on a forum like this. So while in a sense, what you say is true, it really doesn't apply here. If you think about it, if all we thought about was need, most of us would still be on 775 quad systems with no more that a 6870 or 460 gpu.



Yup, so true. That's why I recently upgraded my perfectly functional E8500 for a 2700K. Moar power! Moar threads! bla bla bla. Nerdgasmic stuff. 

It's also why, when I have a GTX 580, I've just bought a GT 520 2GB (_are you mad?! they say. Well, possibly)._ The reason being that I'm curious to see how my 580 with it's memory maxed out compares to the weedy 520 at the same settings with its memory not maxed out. Also, I've got the top and the bottom of the 5xx range, which I like having, but don't tell anyone. 

Yeah, I don't need any of this, real world be damned.


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## radrok (Jan 29, 2012)

qubit said:


> I tell ya, don't just wait for C2, but wait for the fully enabled 8 core. That'll be the mark of a true enthusiast (with deep pockets, hehe).



I hope it'll be out soon


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## Aquinus (Jan 29, 2012)

If you read my flaming post (sorry again,) but I did say if you're buying LGA2011 *just* for gaming. In that respect it's over-kill. The point I was making was against this statement:



> I beg to differ. In multi-GPU gaming, I get far higher frames on my 3960X than my 2600K could ever hope to give me.



That is just simply not true, and that is what I was getting at. Don't get me wrong, I'm planning on getting a LGA2011 system. I know that a 2500K or 2600K in all realism would do what I need, but I would still like a 3930k and 32gb of ram anyways.


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## qubit (Jan 29, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> If you read my flaming post (sorry again,) but I did say if you're buying LGA2011 *just* for gaming. In that respect it's over-kill. The point I was making was against this statement:
> 
> 
> 
> That is just simply not true, and that is what I was getting at. Don't get me wrong, I'm planning on getting a LGA2011 system. I know that a 2500K or 2600K in all realism would do what I need, but I would still like a 3930k and 32gb of ram anyways.



TPU wouldn't employ cadaveca as our hardware reviewer if he didn't know what he was talking about, so if he says that performance is better, then you can take that as the truth. Note that he did qualify that the difference really becomes apparent with multiple graphics cards in the system. Presumably, this is to get over the driver overheads of running them.

If you've tested a similar setup and didn't see such gains, then you would have a much more productive conversation if instead of telling him that he doesn't know what he's talking about, you 'compared notes' ie discussed the finer points of your two systems, such as things like specific BIOS settings, driver settings, overclocks and all that good stuff. Doing that would be likely to close the gap and lead to agreement quite quickly.

TPU is a fantastic forum and you'll get a lot out of it if you put the effort to treat people right and stay within the forum rules. 

Welcome to TPU.


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## radrok (Jan 29, 2012)

Performance difference is there, probably mostly due to the additional lanes, even though I don't like using Tom's it was the first that came up to my mind.


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## PaulieG (Jan 29, 2012)

radrok said:


> Performance difference is there, probably mostly due to the additional lanes, even though I don't like using Tom's it was the first that came up to my mind.
> http://media.bestofmicro.com/0/A/314938/original/battlefield 3 1680.pnghttp://media.bestofmicro.com/0/B/314939/original/battlefield 3 1920.pnghttp://media.bestofmicro.com/0/C/314940/original/battlefield 3 2560.png



I knew there was some minimal difference, but nowhere near worth the price difference b/t platforms.


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## radrok (Jan 29, 2012)

Yeah, Ideally you'd be better off with an i7-3820 to gain the PCIe lanes and 24/7 single stage phase change (this if the chip overclocks like a 2600k), but that's extreme


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## Aquinus (Jan 29, 2012)

qubit said:


> TPU wouldn't employ cadaveca as our hardware reviewer if he didn't know what he was talking about, so if he says that performance is better, then you can take that as the truth. Note that he did qualify that the difference really becomes apparent with multiple graphics cards in the system. Presumably, this is to get over the driver overheads of running them.
> 
> If you've tested a similar setup and didn't see such gains, then you would have a much more productive conversation if instead of telling him that he doesn't know what he's talking about, you 'compared notes' ie discussed the finer points of your two systems, such as things like specific BIOS settings, driver settings, overclocks and all that good stuff. Doing that would be likely to close the gap and lead to agreement quite quickly.
> 
> ...



Thank you. I actually don't usually work with consumer hardware, I mostly work with servers so I usually see Xeons, so I just read reviews on them. I'm just saying that I'm seeing reviews that disagree with that statement. Now I don't have the information for running multiple GPUs, but in the past I've noticed that the EE and the extra cores doesn't usually perform that much better over the first few chips below it as far as games are concerned. Games just simply aren't multithread to that extent. Clock for clock, SB and SB-E are architecturally the same, with a little extra latency on the L3 on the SB-E EE because of the size (3 ns? It's not a lot.) So if you have an i7 2600k and a 3960X both clocked at the same frequency, I would be surprised to see how many games perform better with the 3960X. That's also keeping other components the same, such as memory (clearly the SB-E would run quad-channel memory, which is a plus, but for games isn't really necessary. It's more bandwidth, but that doesn't always mean faster.) I think I recall reading that the 3960x is actually two SB dies on the same chip, but with two cores disabled and laser cut.

I don't really want to drag this out, but I'm just saying that it doesn't add up and that I can't imagine the gains are really _that_ noticeable and I see nothing to support the contrary.


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## Aquinus (Jan 29, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Thank you. I actually don't usually work with consumer hardware, I mostly work with servers so I usually see Xeons, so I just read reviews on them. I'm just saying that I'm seeing reviews that disagree with that statement. Now I don't have the information for running multiple GPUs, but in the past I've noticed that the EE and the extra cores doesn't usually perform that much better over the first few chips below it as far as games are concerned. Games just simply aren't multithread to that extent. Clock for clock, SB and SB-E are architecturally the same, with a little extra latency on the L3 on the SB-E EE because of the size (3 ns? It's not a lot.) So if you have an i7 2600k and a 3960X both clocked at the same frequency, I would be surprised to see how many games perform better with the 3960X. That's also keeping other components the same, such as memory (clearly the SB-E would run quad-channel memory, which is a plus, but for games isn't really necessary. It's more bandwidth, but that doesn't always mean faster.) I think I recall reading that the 3960x is actually two SB dies on the same chip, but with two cores disabled and laser cut.
> 
> I don't really want to drag this out, but I'm just saying that it doesn't add up and that I can't imagine the gains are really _that_ noticeable and I see nothing to support the contrary.



...and at frame-rates that high, I consider <2fps increase at high resolutions minimal.


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## qubit (Jan 29, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Thank you. I actually don't usually work with consumer hardware, I mostly work with servers so I usually see Xeons, so I just read reviews on them. I'm just saying that I'm seeing reviews that disagree with that statement. Now I don't have the information for running multiple GPUs, but in the past I've noticed that the EE and the extra cores doesn't usually perform that much better over the first few chips below it as far as games are concerned. Games just simply aren't multithread to that extent. Clock for clock, SB and SB-E are architecturally the same, with a little extra latency on the L3 on the SB-E EE because of the size (3 ns? It's not a lot.) So if you have an i7 2600k and a 3960X both clocked at the same frequency, I would be surprised to see how many games perform better with the 3960X. That's also keeping other components the same, such as memory (clearly the SB-E would run quad-channel memory, which is a plus, but for games isn't really necessary. It's more bandwidth, but that doesn't always mean faster.) I think I recall reading that the 3960x is actually two SB dies on the same chip, but with two cores disabled and laser cut.
> 
> I don't really want to drag this out, but I'm just saying that it doesn't add up and that I can't imagine the gains are really _that_ noticeable and I see nothing to support the contrary.



Oh, absolutely. SB-E has the same threading performance and the same core as SB, but Intel have just bolted on more cores and increased memory bandwidth to handle them, plus those benches have indeed shown performance as nearly the same between SB & SB-E. All I'm saying is that if cadaveca happens to have a configuration which shows a clear difference between the two, it would make for an interesting and productive conversation to see exactly why he's seeing it.


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## cadaveca (Jan 29, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Go to Guru3d.com's website and check out their CPU/GPU Scaling review and you will see how wrong you are in 90% of all. Most games won't use that many threads and higher clocks speeds and lower memory latencies are going to give you the best gains. At high resolutions your taxing your GPU much harder than the CPU, so unless your planning on running games at low resolutions with SLI or Crossfire(...and why?), it won't help as much.
> 
> I have a degree in Computer Science and I'm a Systems Administrator. I like to think that I know what I'm talking about since I work with hardware on a daily basis, but any person who knows what they're talking about will tell you that SB-E is overkill for games as they are today.
> 
> ...



First, I'm not going to knock another review site. But what I will say is that perhaps I have a different perspective, and different usages than what some people employ. That doesn't mean either of us is wrong, it's merely that I prefer to look at the situation differently.

The main difference in my perspective, which has been my perspective for years now, and posted on these forums over the years, is that when running multiple VGAs with high resolutions, it's not raw CPU core speed that matters...it's memory bandwidth.

So, with that in mind, any perspective that explores performance differences, mainly focusing on raw core performance, or the multi-threaded nature of applications, isn't going to portray the same perspective that I have.


You are right..core perforamnce makes little difference. IN fact, although many sites do not explore this, I feel that the real differences between CPUs in gaming isn't based on mathematical poweress, but is actually more focused on CACHE performance. Of course, because the heirachy of cache design within an OEMs product lines only differs slightly, the actual appearance of core perforamnce in gaming only differs slightly.

I agree 2 FPS is minimal, and unimportant.

But take a look here:







What's going on here? we have a much "slower" CPU, AMD's APU line, giving nearly 50% more performance than the high-end 1100T. Of course, these are not INtel results, but the same plays true. In system configurations that are memory bottle-necked, the 3960X excels.

Perhaps Core performance in gaming, and explorations of such, is a wasted task? If you want to present a certain perspective, yes, it works. But rather than focus on a single aspect, I like to look at hte whole picture, and the whole picture, including my daily use of a 3960X, quite accurately gives me more performance than any other platform does...


And you are right. The extra cores are NOT what gives that performance.


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## radrok (Jan 29, 2012)

So I guess I was right about the L3 Cache and PCIe lanes, didn't think about the bandwidth on SB-E since SB already has a massive bandwidth with "only" dual channel 
Also Dave do you know why many bench suites do not see the additional bandwidth quad channel should yield?


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## cadaveca (Jan 29, 2012)

Yeah, I'm not saying that every application is going to be faster in a large way. But usage scenarios that do take advantage of the extra bandwidth that the platform provides, do excel. There are beenfits to be had, but I connot deny that the average user isn't going to benefit from it. Those that run 3 or 4 VGAs, and multiple monitors...yes, they will.

I mean really, 1155 is Intel's entry-level platform, IGP included. It is a killer entry level paltform though, without a doubt, and will provide 99% of users will more power than they need. I am not one of those users.

The extra power consumption is a tough pill to swallow, but like I care. For the games I play, it's better. 

SiSoft Sandra is the only bench right now that shows the extra Bandwidth. It's just about the algorithms used for the tests that are at fault. Many need updates, but I do use Sandra in my memory reviews, so you can see the difference there, at least.


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## radrok (Jan 29, 2012)

I have my x79 build on hold because I wasn't sure about the performance gains after taking a look at the creativity section on various reviews, I think I'd better wait for the full 8/16.
The only thing that makes me puzzled is that SB-EP Xeons won't OC because they don't have the BCLK untied.
What do you think? I mostly use V-Ray and it's a thread swallower (literally )


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## cadaveca (Jan 29, 2012)

Really, if you want affordable highly threaded, FX-8150 is the CPU of my own choice. Cost/Perforamnce is damn good.

If it must be X79, 3930K with and OC warranty, with 4.8 GHz is damn snappy. Xeons, with no OC, and no OC warranty, are not something I'd personally consider.


For mutli-GPU gamers on X79, the 4-core with HT, if priced right, would be the CPU to get, because as mentioned the extra cores don't offer much, overall.


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## claylomax (Jan 29, 2012)

qubit said:


> TPU is a fantastic forum and you'll get out of it if you don't put the effort to treat people right and stay within the forum rules



Fixed it for you!


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## PaulieG (Jan 29, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Yeah, I'm not saying that every application is going to be faster in a large way. But usage scenarios that do take advantage of the extra bandwidth that the platform provides, do excel. There are beenfits to be had, but I connot deny that the average user isn't going to benefit from it. Those that run 3 or 4 VGAs, and multiple monitors...yes, they will.
> 
> I mean really, 1155 is Intel's entry-level platform, IGP included. It is a killer entry level paltform though, without a doubt, and will provide 99% of users will more power than they need. I am not one of those users.
> 
> ...





cadaveca said:


> Really, if you want affordable highly threaded, FX-8150 is the CPU of my own choice. Cost/Perforamnce is damn good.
> 
> If it must be X79, 3930K with and OC warranty, with 4.8 GHz is damn snappy. Xeons, with no OC, and no OC warranty, are not something I'd personally consider.
> 
> ...



So, Dave, what is the benefit of x79 vs P67/Z68 besides the extra bandwith? Beyond gaming with multi gpus, what usage scenarios would justify choosing x79 over the significantly cheaper platform? I've tried to come up with a shred of justification to do the upgrade, just like I do with every new platform. However, finding this justification has been more difficult than usual. Really not being rhetorical here...


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## radrok (Jan 29, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Really, if you want affordable highly threaded, FX-8150 is the CPU of my own choice. Cost/Perforamnce is damn good.
> 
> If it must be X79, 3930K with and OC warranty, with 4.8 GHz is damn snappy. Xeons, with no OC, and no OC warranty, are not something I'd personally consider.
> 
> ...



The FX would be a downgrade for me, my 980x does 4.4-4.5 GHz easily so that's why I was hesitant on X79, I guess I'm going to wait a little more.


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## cadaveca (Jan 29, 2012)

Paulieg said:


> So, Dave, what is the benefit of x79 vs P67/Z68 besides the extra bandwith? Beyond gaming with multi gpus, what usage scenarios would justify choosing x79 over the significantly cheaper platform? I've tried to come up with a shred of justification to do the upgrade, just like I do with every new platform. However, finding this justification has been more difficult than usual. Really not being rhetorical here...



That's an easy question. There is no use outside of that specific scenario, for the users that tend to be here on TPU. That's why I have the 3960X...it's not useful for W1zz in GPU reviews using a single card, and his already posted CPU compare shows that in that regard, the 1366 platform is still more than viable for most users.


This is cutting edge stuff. unless you live on the edge of high-end performance, and have those sort of performance needs, SKT 1155 is more than adequate. The only reason I'm using the 3960X it is becuase it was free. As soon as I can get a quad for this socket, I'm gonna. I'm not even overclocked right now, as the higher power consumption just isn't worth it, and CPU performance @ stock is enough for me, getting ~70FPS or more(usually 140 FPS or so in BF3 with 6950 Crossfire at stock, with stock shaders. With 1155, that dips below 60 quite often.

I mean, I kinda stopped really using an OC'ed system for gaming largely becuase of the realization that for what I want, memory bandwidth is more important. Plus, at stock, the difference between minimum framerates and maximums is much smaller, leading to a smoother gameplay expereince for me.



			
				radrok said:
			
		

> The FX would be a downgrade for me, my 980x does 4.4-4.5 GHz easily so that's why I was hesitant on X79, I guess I'm going to wait a little more.



If you have that, I see no need for you to upgrade at all.


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## PaulieG (Jan 29, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> That's an easy question. There is no use outside of that specific scenario, for the users that tend to be here on TPU. That's why I have the 3960X...it's not useful for W1zz in GPU reviews using a single card, and his already posted CPU compare shows that in that regard, the 1366 platform is still more than viable for most users.
> 
> 
> This is cutting edge stuff. unless you live on the edge of high-end performance, and have those sort of performance needs, SKT 1155 is more than adequate. The only reason I'm using the 3960X it is becuase it was free. As soon as I can get a quad for this socket, I'm gonna. I'm not even overclocked right now, as the higher power consumption just isn't worth it, and CPU performance @ stock is enough for me, getting ~70FPS or more(usually 140 FPS or so in BF3 with 6950 Crossfire at stock, with stock shaders. With 1155, that dips below 60 quite often.
> ...



Thing is, I'm all about "bleeding edge". I've been an early adopter for years, because the curiosity of new platforms just drives me crazy, both with AMD and Intel. Hell, I even bought a couple of Bulldozer chips to play with. I'm not feeling that way with this platform though. I guess it's a matter of limited performance increase and features over SB that just does not justify spending double the price of a 2600K, even from the perspective of a dedicated enthusiast. Still, it's killing me that there's a new platform, and I won't give into temptation.


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## cadaveca (Jan 29, 2012)

Paulieg said:


> Thing is, I'm all about "bleeding edge". I've been an early adopter for years, because the curiosity of new platforms just drives me crazy, both with AMD and Intel. Hell, I even bought a couple of Bulldozer chips to play with. I'm not feeling that way with this platform though. I guess it's a matter of limited performance increase and features over SB that just does not justify spending double the price of a 2600K.



That's it exactly. I mean, I don't feel there's any need to point out the obvious, that for rendering and such, computational-heavy workloads, X79 excels, for sure.

Unfortunately, 1155 has little bus adjsutment, and on 2011, bus adjustments have no noticble impact on cache or memory performance, so even the extra available clocking isn't really all that useful, either. Core performance on 2011 doesn't affect memory bandwidth much, either, like it does on 1155, so even overclocking only has so much benefit on 2011, when it comes to gaming. I mean, of course it's faster when OC'd, but power consumption jumps so quickly, it's hard to justify

For me, I want three GPUs, to go with my three monitors for Eyefinity. Single monitor, 1155 is more than adequate.


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## radrok (Jan 29, 2012)

I think this chip REALLY needs a 22nm shrink if it's hot as Dave says, imagine what would have happened if they released a complete SB-E die, 8/16 with unlocked multi and the frequency of the 3960X.
Would TDP have been 150W or higher? I believe the SB-EP 8c part is 150W so it may have been higher.


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## cadaveca (Jan 29, 2012)

Probably more like 170-180W, based on my crappy sample.

And that is STOCK.

Xeons have more cores, but core frequency is much lower 2.1 - 2.6 GHz, I think? NOt 100% sure on that, TBH, like i said, no OC, means no use for me. NOt that I personally OC, but I need chips that will push boards properly so you guys can see what's what. 

I don't really care who's faster, more expensive..that's up to you and your wallet. Every CPU has it's pros and cons.


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## PaulieG (Jan 29, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Probably more like 170-180W, based on my crappy sample.



Damn.


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## cadaveca (Jan 29, 2012)

130w divided by 6 cores, multiplied by 8 cores = 178w. probably a bit less in real-world, due to the shared NB and such, but still...not that much less.


Why do ya think those that already have chips are interested in revisions?  It's very clear that power consumption holds the SKT 2011 platform back a fair bit in 24/7 clocking. 4.3 GHz on air on all cores may be pushing it for a lot of chips. Most boards have 4.3 GHz for "Auto-clock"


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## Aquinus (Jan 30, 2012)

22nm die shrink of SB-E will be IVB-E but with tri-gate transistors. Just keep in mind that smaller circuitry makes for higher resistance, so similar voltages will result in more heat. (I can run my Phenom II 940 at 1.575v on air safely (granted I have a massive cooler), I don't think you would want to do that with a 32nm chip.) But we don't know. There might be 3 sources and 3 drains, but there is still 1 22nm wire.

Also Xeons are designed for highly parallel workloads that require an extremely reliable platform. Memory is CRC'ed using ECC so any errors that crop up in memory (which already is very uncommon in server platforms,) can usually get corrected, but for this, memory performance takes a hit. But since workloads are highly parallelized and you have 4 memory controllers per CPU (or two depending if it is a lesser or low-voltage model), you have a massive amount of raw power. It's a matter of being able to utilize the resources the server has, so ECC usually isn't an issue. It's what these chips were designed to do, but even in server environments, you will find that for a web server, a single request will most likely be single threaded if its a script in PHP or something like that, but it's the 50 people trying to run a script at the same time which is where the Xeon shines.

Edit: I'm also curious how Intel plans on getting around the quantum tunneling issue at sizes <= 16nm circuitry, but that's just a tangent.

Edit 2:


> 130w divided by 6 cores, multiplied by 8 cores = 178w. probably a bit less in real-world, due to the shared NB and such, but still...not that much less.


Keep in mind that the CPU has many shared components, like the L3 cache, memory controller, and DMI so it doesn't quite scale like that. Also if this is really is based on a Xeon die, then a CPU with all 8 cores activated would be *downclocked* to match the 130-watt TDP. You won't see higher TDPs in servers.


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