Intel Releases Core i7 ''Sandy Bridge-E'' Processors

[dualmeister]

Intel Core i7 ''Sandy Bridge-E'' Socket 2011 Processors released today

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.

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[scotty777]

Hmmm, this will bring a price drop for the current processors.

4 channel DDR3? What possibly could need that much data transfer?

Either way, an i5 will be more than adequate for gaming, and general processing for the next year or two.

 

[Archer]

Hmmm, this will bring a price drop for the current processors.

It will?? First time I'm hearing that one - the chips are aimed at completely different markets, there is zero need for any price drops

 

[dualmeister]

4 channel DDR3? What possibly could need that much data transfer?

In some cases yes.

Although it's still not a great value, the 3960X provides a solid incremental improvement over the Core i7-990X in our overall performance index. Peel back a layer, and you'll find that the 3960X also clears up any questions about whether the Sandy Bridge-based Core i7-2700K might be faster in lightly threaded applications. At its best, the 2700K can only hope to match the 3960X's performance in such cases—and it's no contest at all when lots of threads are in play. If there's a memory bandwidth limitation in the mix, the 3960X has the potential to far surpass the prior-gen Core i7-990X, as we saw in the Euler3D computational fluid dynamics simulation.

Intel Core i7-3960X review

But as Archer said, aimed at a completely different market.

 

[TJ99]

It will?? First time I'm hearing that one - the chips are aimed at completely different markets, there is zero need for any price drops

I agree with this, the new chips will just be in the "stonkingly, incredibly, ****ingly, phenomenaly expensive" - market segment, as the old X58 ones were. Like R10 000 for a CPU. Current pricing isn't likely to be affected.

 

[killadoob]

Awesome stuff . xmas bonus and January upgrade and hopefully amd will have the 7 series out by then but i doubt it.

It will?? First time I'm hearing that one - the chips are aimed at completely different markets, there is zero need for any price drops

What market are 300 dollar chips aimed at aimed at?

 

[scotty777]

It will?? First time I'm hearing that one - the chips are aimed at completely different markets, there is zero need for any price drops

I was thinking the 3820 might be more in the range of the 2600k, so I figured they might shift things around a little bit. Sorry, was just spit balling

 

[killadoob]

I was thinking the 3820 might be more in the range of the 2600k, so I figured they might shift things around a little bit. Sorry, was just spit balling

No you are spot on dude, i am not sure what segment a 300 dollar cpu would fall into, surely the 2600k? they will have to drop the pricing or risk not selling that stock.

 

[xera]

BOOM, goes bulldozer as it hits a rock solid sand bank!

Wow, time to sell my i7-2600K ?

 

[Archer]

No you are spot on dude, i am not sure what segment a 300 dollar cpu would fall into, surely the 2600k? they will have to drop the pricing or risk not selling that stock.

That is fail reasoning. I'll say it again - different market segments. LGA2011 = basically workstation/performance. LGA1155 = gamer. Or did you not notice how the even 2500k occasionally beats a $1000 chip in games? Now tell me, will a gamer spend $600 on a CPU/mobo/RAM that is difficult to OC, or $500 on a system that can be OC'd with ease? But provide a source for these price drops on SB parts and I'll happily admit I'm wrong. Hint: you wont find any until at least January since the 3820 is only being released then

Seriously everyone, there is zero need to upgrade from Sandy Bridge to this if you spend most of your time gaming. Basically, unless you make your money doing renders, LGA2011 is overpriced.

 

[killadoob]

Well it seems fairly obvious intel would not drop the pricing on 2600 or 2500 because they have not released the cpu that will target that market. So now we wait and see but hey at least they have cpu's that work well with windows 7. They obviously don't like developing for the future.

I am not sure it is over priced, perhaps for people who won't make use of it but as you point the expensive cpu's are not for gamers. That 300 dollar cpu will be the one i buy for my gaming rig and the 600 dollar for my work pc .

 

[techead]

yoh thats pricey

 

[Rudimental]

I am not sure it is over priced, perhaps for people who won't make use of it but as you point the expensive cpu's are not for gamers. That 300 dollar cpu will be the one i buy for my gaming rig and the 600 dollar for my work pc .

Total waste of money buying the 3820 for a gaming PC. It is only partially unlocked, meaning it will only go to 4.3Ghz max, has a much higher TDP than SB, and the extra PCIE lanes and memory bandwidth are of no benefit to gaming. Motherboards also looks to be ~50% more expensive than SB.

Can't see why anyone would buy a SB-E for a gaming machine unless they just had the money to burn.

 

[killadoob]

Total waste of money buying the 3820 for a gaming PC. It is only partially unlocked, meaning it will only go to 4.3Ghz max, has a much higher TDP than SB, and the extra PCIE lanes and memory bandwidth are of no benefit to gaming. Motherboards also looks to be ~50% more expensive than SB.

Can't see why anyone would buy a SB-E for a gaming machine unless they just had the money to burn.

I shall wait for January and then see what they offer, i may even keep my i7 920 as well but i always get the upgrade bug so i doubt it will happen. Worst case scenario there is a price drop and i buy the 2600k but for now i will wait as there is no rush

 

[scotty777]

Total waste of money buying the 3820 for a gaming PC. It is only partially unlocked, meaning it will only go to 4.3Ghz max, has a much higher TDP than SB, and the extra PCIE lanes and memory bandwidth are of no benefit to gaming. Motherboards also looks to be ~50% more expensive than SB.

Can't see why anyone would buy a SB-E for a gaming machine unless they just had the money to burn.

Well, it does mean that the extra PCI-e lanes means you can have 2 x16 lanes... so for graphics cards you might see a marginal improvement...

However, I did see something interesting. Intel's new SSD's will run off PCI-e lanes (I can't remember if it's 8x or 4x... damn ). Check out the intel 720 SSD's...

So I suppose... if you think about it, you could probably run Quad SLI/crossfire, at x16 per lane card, and then have a monsterously fast SSD for gaming (I read 2200MB/s , please correct me if I'm wrong)...

So Yes, if you have the money, and you want to literally run everything on max, on 3 screen, with load times so sort you have to keep our eyes open to see the loading screen... Then I think these new processors will be worth it .

Otherwise, perhaps you are right, maybe there won't be a price drop... but again, I was spit balling .

 

[killadoob]

I saw anandtech did some testing and a couple games had much higher FPS using the 2 16 lanes.

 

[dualmeister]

OK so it might be better to wait a bit before buying.

The latest Sandy Bridge-E 6 core processors have just been released, to excellent reviews. However, the architecture is designed for 8 cores, so these current i7-3960X & i7-3930K processors actually contain those 8 cores, but with two turned off in order to enable them to fit within a manageable 130 W power envelope. Hence there's quite a bit more potential to be released and soon. Therefore, anyone looking to invest in the premium-priced SB-E platform right now, should note that these processors are at the initial C1 stepping and have the VT-d hardware virtualization issue and PCI-E 3.0 compatibility uncertainty. The VT-d problem will be a real show stopper where hardware acceleration of a virtual machine is a must, so it shouldn't be ignored.

VR-ZONE brings us news that the fully unlocked SB-E 8 core chips will be released as the long awaited Xeon E5 family of processors, which will be built on the C2 stepping, solving the above issues. However, being 8 core, these will be very power hungry indeed, consuming around 150 W at just 3 GHz with all 8 cores active and 20 MB of L3 cache. At 2.5 GHz though, the new processors are expected to fit within the 95 W power envelope.

Being "Xeon" processors, they are primarily intended to be used in multi-socket configurations in servers and very high end desktops for businesses that need this kind of raw power. Of course, the other market that these E5 processors are aimed at, are the hardcore PC enthusiasts who have very deep pockets and want the ultimate power in their desktops at any price. It's rumoured that such people might be using these powerhouse systems for more than just playing Sudoku, doing a bit of word processing and browsing the internet, but these are unconfirmed at the time of publication.

Later on in 2012, Ivy Bridge-E is expected to be released, which will be an optical shrink of SB-E, while also using Intel's new 22 nm tri-gate transistors. This will bring significant performance improvements, including an increase to 10 cores and 250 MB L3 cache. TechPowerUp has more details on this generation, here. So, with these new high wattage processors eventually becoming more mainstream, could we see the return of the ill-fated BTX (Balanced Technology Extended) form factor case, introduced by Intel around seven years ago? Only time will tell.

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[scotty777]

OK so it might be better to wait a bit before buying.



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250MB L3 cache , what the? Will there really be any real world need for that much cache?