Conclusion

With Ivy Brdige-E Intel offers an upgrade for the existing socket LGA2011 platform. In this case the manufacturer doesn't force you to buy an entirely new platform, which is actually a good thing, that helps you save quite some money. Unfortunately the X79 chipsatz still offers only two native SATA 6 Gbps ports, which is just not what you want, when you can have a cheaper Z87 platform, that offers six SATA 6 Gbps ports. Apart from that the Core i7-4960X is by far not even ten percent faster than it's predecessor Core i7-3960X. In fact, only in WinRAR that Core i7-4960X was able to excel. So in other words, Intel didn't pull any magic tricks with Ivy Bridge-E when it comes to performance. In this case, slowly but certainly, the question is starting to arise, if this new Core i7-4960X would really be worth spending more than 900 Euro. Before we come to this, let's first talk about power consumption. When it comes to high-end desktop CPU's - in our opinion - this is a point which isn't too important. When you're willing to spend a small fortune on a CPU, then you can certainly afford the electricity bill at the end of the month. Still, when it comes to idle power consumption the values are almost 50 Watts lower than what we got testing the predecessor. Under load things look a bit different, since the Core i7-4960X, was the one CPU that needed the most power under these conditinos. It was a whopping 258 Watt.

Something else that is worth mentioning - unfortunately - is the memory controller. According to specs it should be capable of running memory at DDR3-1866. In our case, even at 1.75 volt, instead of the usual 1.65 volt, we had to fight with stability issues, which is why we decided to test this CPU with the memory set to DDR3-1600. From our point of view this is disappointing news, but it could be that we got a very bad sample, where the integrated memory controller has an issue.

Finally, we made it to the point where we talk about pricing and if this CPU is worth the money it costs. If you already own a Sandy Bridge-E processor, there is no need for an upgrade. If you plan buying a new system, which should feature the fastest CPU money can buy, then the Core i7-4960X is the only option you have. It's that simple.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 8 - SuperPi / WPrime
Page 2 - Specifications	Page 9 - WinRar
Page 3 - Test Setup	Page 10 - Crysis
Page 4 - Futuremark	Page 11 - Resident Evil 5
Page 5 - Cinebench	Page 12 - Street Fighter 4
Page 6 - SiSoft Sandra 1	Page 13 - Power consumption
Page 7 - SiSoft Sandra 2	Page 14 - Conclusion

Author : Marc Büchel, m.buechel@ocaholic.ch