Friday, July 22nd 2011
Core i7-3960X About 47% Faster On Average Than Core i7-990X: Intel
Slides of a key presentation to Intel's partners was leaked to sections of the media, which reveal Intel's own performance testing of the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition, the top-model of the socket LGA2011 "Sandy Bridge-E" processor series. Meet the family here. In its comparison, Intel maintained the Core i7-990X Extreme Edition socket LGA1366 processor as this generation's top offering. It was pitted against the Core i7-3960X in a battery of tests that included some enthusiast favourites such as Cinebench 11.5, POV-Ray 3.7, 3DMark 11 physics, Pro-Show Gold 4.5, and some OEM favourites such as SPECint_rate base2006, SPECfp_rate base2006, and SiSoft SANDRA 2011B multimedia and memory bandwidth.
From these test results, the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition is pitched to be about 47.25% faster on average, compared to Core i7-990X Extreme Edition. Intel is attributing the performance boost, apart from the normal IPC increase, to the 33% higher bandwidth thanks to the quad-channel DDR3 IMC, and the new AVX instruction set that accelerates math-heavy tasks such as encoding. The Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition is an upcoming socket LGA2011 six-core processor that is clocked at 3.30 GHz, with Turbo Boost speed of up to 3.90 GHz, with 12 threads enabled by HyperThreading technology, and 15 MB L3 cache. It will release by either late 2011 or early 2012.
Source:
Donanim Haber
From these test results, the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition is pitched to be about 47.25% faster on average, compared to Core i7-990X Extreme Edition. Intel is attributing the performance boost, apart from the normal IPC increase, to the 33% higher bandwidth thanks to the quad-channel DDR3 IMC, and the new AVX instruction set that accelerates math-heavy tasks such as encoding. The Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition is an upcoming socket LGA2011 six-core processor that is clocked at 3.30 GHz, with Turbo Boost speed of up to 3.90 GHz, with 12 threads enabled by HyperThreading technology, and 15 MB L3 cache. It will release by either late 2011 or early 2012.
116 Comments on Core i7-3960X About 47% Faster On Average Than Core i7-990X: Intel
A cherry picked 3960X LGA2011 is up to 47% faster than a stock 990x LGA1366.
Edit, I'd really like to see more benchmarks take advantage of the AVX encoding to flex it's muscle. When S.B. was released it sounded interesting, but hasn't made any real impact, I hope Intel can push this simple enhanced instruction set to the front of the marketing line.
Intel have said around a 20% increase per-clock over current Sandy Bridge CPU's for Ivy Bridge.
Intel:
Tick = New process node + "old" architecture on new node
Tock = New architecture.
Realistically Ivy Bridge will off better performance at the same price point thanks to increased clocks speeds. The new AVX instruction set will no doubt give a boost in very specific programs (just like AVX does now for AV encoding) but I wonder how this will translate into real world performance.
As for LGA2011 - WANT! :twitch:
Gonna have to collect a whole lot more cans to obtain all this unnecessary speed and power:laugh: a.m. who.... the one up war continues. Please no more delays.... please
more benchmarks .. . . ..