[H]Intel Ivy Bridge-E Core i7-4960X IPC and OCing Review

[moonbogg]

Hard to blame Intel, who else can do better? It almost seems like they are victims of their own success at this point, maybe they should have sandbagged previous releases more so there would be more room for improvement. The Golden Age of rapid CPU advancement would seem to be either over, or in a deep stall.

Yeah that's true enough. I should remind myself that almost no one treats CPUs as a hobby. They work until they don't, then they are replaced. Can't expect Intel to cater to the odd ball hobbyist too much.

 

[mikk]

This, then?

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/551?vs=287

Yes. But there is a 200 Mhz difference in clock speed (100 Mhz SC).

Yeah, my bad.

Still as Crashtest posted, it's more than 3%.

Different clock speeds. Once again, IPC difference between SB and IVB is not more than 2-4% in average. Your 10% claim is way off.

 

[AtenRa]

2.5 years after SB(240mm2) and 16 months after Ivybridge (160mm2). And yet with a node shrink and a nice 256mm2 die, the 6-core still costs $555. Unless i see a 6-core at $250.00 my 3770K will be the last Intel CPU i have bought.

And people were saying that monopolies/lack of competition is better for the consumer

On a different note,

I will definitely recommend the 4820K over 4770K all the way. At least you will be able to upgrade to a 6-core CPU, with 1150 you are always stack at 4core + HT.

ps: Core i7 4770K is according to Intel's website a 84W TDP and not 95W TDP as it shown at the PDF slides

 

[Grooveriding]

The performance improvement is so poor that as an overclocker this could actually be a downgrade if it does not overclock as well as your SB-E. Sad.

 

[moonbogg]

The performance improvement is so poor that as an overclocker this could actually be a downgrade if it does not overclock as well as your SB-E. Sad.

If you are at 4.8 right now then yeah, that would be a gamble alright.

 

[Homeles]

And people were saying that monopolies/lack of competition is better for the consumer

Hooray for straw man arguments.

Also, if anybody was arguing that, it was Shintai, which, being a single person, makes your claim that "people" were saying it to be false. If you got that from what I was arguing, despite making it thoroughly clear that it wasn't, I don't know what to tell you.

I will definitely recommend the 4820K over 4770K all the way. At least you will be able to upgrade to a 6-core CPU, with 1150 you are always stack at 4core + HT.

How many people actually upgrade their CPU while holding onto the same motherboard?

The performance improvement is so poor that as an overclocker this could actually be a downgrade if it does not overclock as well as your SB-E. Sad.

It's essentially the equivalent of 200 extra MHz if one has a SNB-E clocked at 4.5, so yeah, there's definitely not much headroom. The IMC is stronger though, and would allow for better memory overclocks. However, as has always been said, it's definitely not good enough to give up your Sandy Bridge for.

 

[Nec_V20]

I think I'm officially on the Haswell bandwagon now. IPC is where it's at for 99% of us. If I don't end up with a 4770K, Haswell-E, here I come.

After building my 1366 with an i7-965 I got a really great deal on an i7-990x and I wasn't at all tempted to move to a 2011 platform.

Haswell did however pique my interest and I have build a 4770k system for myself with a Gigabyte Z87X-UD5H board (not that I need it) and aside from the higher temps than I am used to I really quite like it.

Although it does get hotter when under heavy load it really throttles back on energy consumption when I am doing things like writing a post such as this.

I now have torn loyalties between Grizwald7 (i7-990x) and Grizwald8 (i7-4770k) and don't know which one I will use as my main machine going forward.

 

[crashtech]

After building my 1366 with an i7-965 I got a really great deal on an i7-990x and I wasn't at all tempted to move to a 2011 platform.

Haswell did however pique my interest and I have build a 4770k system for myself with a Gigabyte Z87X-UD5H board (not that I need it) and aside from the higher temps than I am used to I really quite like it.

Although it does get hotter when under heavy load it really throttles back on energy consumption when I am doing things like writing a post such as this.

I now have torn loyalties between Grizwald7 (i7-990x) and Grizwald8 (i7-4770k) and don't know which one I will use as my main machine going forward.

Yeah, the 990X is no slouch, that's for sure, but the 4770K's single threaded performance blows it away. I guess it depends on what you do, perhaps keep the 990X for content creation or very compute-heavy jobs, and use the 4770K for everything else.

 

[AdamK47]

4960X here I come.

 

[Remobz]

So for people who have an i3 2120 and just need a CPU upgrade for playing games mainly, should they still get a Haswell?

 

[blackened23]

So for people who have an i3 2120 and just need a CPU upgrade for playing games mainly, should they still get a Haswell?

Yup

 

[BallaTheFeared]

2011 is server/workstation/epeen class, it's a poor choice overall for gaming (due to its price/performance) except some fringe cases, but even 1150 handles tri fine with or without PLX.

 

[Arachnotronic]

4960X here I come.

Good man. I'm going with the 4930K.

 

[Nec_V20]

Yeah, the 990X is no slouch, that's for sure, but the 4770K's single threaded performance blows it away. I guess it depends on what you do, perhaps keep the 990X for content creation or very compute-heavy jobs, and use the 4770K for everything else.

There is nothing about a 2011 that gives me more (except benchmarks) than my 1366 i7-990x gives me, on the other hand the 4770k does give me more for less than the 990x gives me.

I wish that I were that rational. I love my older child and am not willing to throw him overboard for his younger brother.

I am thinking of boxing the 4770k up and just updating him now and again until something goes catastrophically wrong with my 990x

 

[Ketchup]

The performance improvement is so poor that as an overclocker this could actually be a downgrade if it does not overclock as well as your SB-E. Sad.

In all fairness (that may be the wrong term, he he), when I used look at [H] reviews, they always got lower overclocks than anybody else reviewing the same item. I am sure they would say it is because they are the only ones who didn't get something binned, but I started not paying any attention to that part, even when I still frequented their site.

One example, I looked at the review they did on the 2500k and 2600k. With a 2500k they got 200 MHz less on water cooling than I did on a cheap air cooler. And I don't think I was even pushing mine as hard as some of y'all would.

 

[aigomorla]

4960k will be a hexcore :thumbsdown:

and intel has the E series which is a 8 core...
and 10core variants are rumored to be out there...

*sigh*

is intel really telling me to quit overclocking if i want the big boys?
cuz the overclocking group is feeling very dull unless we are allowed to unleash those bigger boys which are locked.

 

[JimmiG]

In all fairness (that may be the wrong term, he he), when I used look at [H] reviews, they always got lower overclocks than anybody else reviewing the same item. I am sure they would say it is because they are the only ones who didn't get something binned, but I started not paying any attention to that part, even when I still frequented their site.

One example, I looked at the review they did on the 2500k and 2600k. With a 2500k they got 200 MHz less on water cooling than I did on a cheap air cooler. And I don't think I was even pushing mine as hard as some of y'all would.

Overclocking is not an exact science. Maybe they just have bad luck with their chips. It's better than the other way around, like the hand-picked review samples Intel sent out for the Haswell reviews...

Also it may be due to more rigorous stress testing. They mentioned 18 hours of Prime95 in the review. I'm sure many reviewers are under time constraints and only have time to make sure the system boots and survives a few benchmarks without BSODs.