Intel 3770K or 3960X ?

[abcc]

hi, been for my next cpu, building new system from scratch again.

for my Cpu , i been reading and following up for 2 years, been with out a pc for 2 years too lol.

i have 2 Cpu's in mind, the new Intel 3770K which may come out in March or April, i like that its 77w tdp
or should i get the Intel i7-3960X 130w tdp

Thanks

 

[amuffin]

Depends on what you do

 

[truegenius]

if you think that you can use extra cores, cache, channel and have extra money then 3960 is the way to go
otherwise 3770k

 

[a4mula]

When should someone buy a 3960X?

When they're tired of waiting for the 3930K to come back into stock. Otherwise it's a complete and total waste of $400.

You're trying to compare apples and oranges here. The 3770K is going to be a quad-core die shrink of the 2600K on 1155. Meanwhile the 3930K is a hexacore on 2011.

While there's little doubt that you'll squeeze higher clocks out of IB, it's still not going to bridge the pure performance gap of the 6 core system on a more robust platform.

Figure out first if you need 1155 or 2011. From there you can narrow your selection down. For me personally I'd take the quad-core 3820 on X79 over IB all day long, even if it does mean fractional performance loss, just because I know I've got the pci-e lanes to expand down the road.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

The Intel® Core™ i7-3960x Extreme Edition processor is our top of the line processor and its value is really found in heavily multi-threaded application that take advantage of high memory bandwidth. Since most games don't fit this need the benchmarks on the Intel Core i5-2500K, Intel Core i7-2600K and the Intel Core i7-3960x Extreme Edtion are all very close together in performance on a gaming system.

So start by looking at what you are going to be doing with this system and then make your choices based on that data.

 

[alvine]

get the 3770k when it comes out and put the 400 dollars towards a nice graphics card

 

[abcc]

hi, do have the money for it, kind of wanted to build a very good system and almost not have to upgraded it for like 5 years. was also waiting for the Ati HD7990 to come out. was going to be using it for gaming and video editing. at first was concern about the tdp of it being at 130, since i sometimes leave the system over night processing or downloading. Thanks for the responces and advices.

 

[amuffin]

If you have it over night, the proessor will downclock itself so minimal power will be used (downloading) 3770k will have a tdp of 77w!

 

[deadjon]

Have people forgotten about the 3930K?

There is NO value to be found in the 3960X - NONE.

I vote the 3770K anyway, it'll be £240 when released I think. The 3930K is £400 and the 3960 is £800

 

[sarinaide]

Neither, WAIT FOR IVYBRIDGE.

Intel slap a X in front call it extreme yet there is nothing extreme about it. Feature rich but not performance rich, blow $2000+ on this platform will have you crying in a year when Haswell makes SB-e look anything but. Don't get baited by the watered down server platform cookie monster.

 

[deadjon]

Neither, WAIT FOR IVYBRIDGE.

Intel slap a X in front call it extreme yet there is nothing extreme about it. Feature rich but not performance rich, blow $2000+ on this platform will have you crying in a year when Haswell makes SB-e look anything but. Don't get baited by the watered down server platform cookie monster.

The 3770K is Ivy Bridge.

Read the post before answering.

Oh and the LGA2011 platform IS feature rich and fast.

Oh and you're implying someone who is in the 3960X Price range wont upgrade as and when he wants?

Implying that normal Haswell won't have the same issues SB and IVB? (Cut down platform, lack of PCI-E Lanes, Limited expansion ports etc etc)

The roadmap suggests there will be 130W EE's of the Haswell platform. This indicates a continuation of the Gen 1 Core Arch - LGA 1155 (Mid) - LGA 1366 (Enthusiast) idea that is still being used and will be used in IVB (IVB-E)

Oh and IVB will be an under performer when it comes to GPU performance in comparison to SB-E in terms of the Ultra high-end market (2 7990s) as the limited 20 PCI-E 3.0 lanes will be saturated entirely.

Basically, if you want ULTRA high end (Tri and Quad fire), go 3930K

If you want to save some dosh, and still have a powerful system go IVB with the 3770k.

Remember most games are still GPU limited and at the highest resolutions those extra PCI-E lanes are going to come in handy.

 

[sarinaide]

Is tri and quad even necessary? not to mention the other unnecessary costs that go with it, PSU and GPU's. Quad channel is rather redundant, with Haswell it will have DDR4 support. The X79 platform is by and large pointless unless you are wealthy and money means nothing.

The OP wants a system to last for 4-5 years, a Sandybridge will give that easily, xtreme is more like overkill with little noticable gains. By the time PCI-e 3.0 becomes usefull or quad channel the SB-e will be reduntant and replaced by something new. Simply put the only reason Intel peddled this platform was to make money, they slapped it inbetween the SB and IB yet it at the best of times is marginally better.

 

[deadjon]

Its not difficult to understand.

If OP ever wants to go 7990 Quadfire on IVB he will have 2 PCI-E 3.0 slots @ 8x8x

Each GPU will be using the equivalent of 4x/4x/4x/4x

This in turn = PCI-E 2.0 x8

We already know PCI-E 2.0 x8 bottlenecks a 7970, especially when overclocked and even more so when @ 5760x1080.

If he went SB-E he could have both those PCI-E 3.0 slots @ x16

This would entirely eliminate the bottleneck giving him that tiny little bit of extra performance that when you're spending that much money, is essential.

[EDIT] - Have you seen the Eyefinity benches for some of the newer games? they make 6990 Quadfire cry with AA on. 7990 Quadfire might be able to keep above 60FPS @ 5760x1080 with Ultra settings, DOF and max AA on Metro 2033. I know 7970 Crossfire cant keep an average of 50FPS on Metro 2033 @ 2560x1600 with no AA...

 

[sarinaide]

Four 7970's, Case and PSU will drop a good $2700 odd alone, then you have a Motherboard and CPU dropping another $1200 odd, Quad Channel RAM quite pricy too. Yes he will get a monster but in a year or two it will be valueless considering the money spent on it. Technology is moving to quickly and the timing of this platform is bad, if it was released after or before Skylake it would have been feasible.

All in all the IVB build is the most economically sound investment of the two and will perform by and large comparibly.

 

[deadjon]

We are talking to someone who doesn't really care about how much it costs.

 

[sarinaide]

In that case a 3960X for the heck of it.

 

[Spazturtle]

In recent benchmarks and tests the 3770k has out performed the 3960X. Also the 3770k can over overclocked to 5GHz on air at 1.2v

 

[amuffin]

In recent benchmarks and tests the 3770k has out performed the 3960X. Also the 3770k can over overclocked to 5GHz on air at 1.2v

3770K is not even released, where did you get your information?

 

[blackhawk1928]

hi, do have the money for it, kind of wanted to build a very good system and almost not have to upgraded it for like 5 years. was also waiting for the Ati HD7990 to come out. was going to be using it for gaming and video editing. at first was concern about the tdp of it being at 130, since i sometimes leave the system over night processing or downloading. Thanks for the responces and advices.

I don't know where you live, but in the case of the United States, 99% of energy bill is your Heat/AC, kitchen appliances and dryer, and water heater. The other 1% is pretty much all your electronics, TV's, lights, computer...etc.

The difference between your different wattage will be so minimal. Assuming both CPU's are running 24/7 at maximum wattage...which probably will rarely happen as its designed for full load.

Oh and lets be clear that TDP means Thermal Design Power...its the energy your cooling system needs to dissipate, not exactly power from the wall of your component I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Lets assume for a second that one CPU will be running 24/7 at a constant 75watt power and the other will be at 130watt (just pretend). And lets say they will be at 100% load all the time.

If your kilowatt hour for example is $0.20, then your total monthly savings (732hours) would be $2...from sources online, kilowatt hours are mostly much cheaper than $0.20 and your components will unlikely be running at high load for long times, so your savings will probably amount to a few cents a month. Which likely will be less than half of one percent of your energy bill (especially if you have an electric water heater).

Are you allowing a few cents influence your decision on your CPU?

 

[abcc]

dang, thats pretty good observation , thanks for clearing it out for me the TDP , i was confuced on it. My last CPU i bought was the AMD 4000 64-bit , was about $750 lol , and if anyone still interested in it i think i can take half off. Did i mention it comes with its original box ?? i sold it to my dad 2 years ago, and been waiting all this time for the right Cpu and video card.
Now for my system, im really just waiting for Ati to realease their Radeon HD 7990 , once i see a release date for it ill start ordering every part for my system.

Thanks for every advice and help, Very Very much appriciate it !!!!

 

[a4mula]

In recent benchmarks and tests the 3770k has out performed the 3960X. Also the 3770k can over overclocked to 5GHz on air at 1.2v

Nobody is arguing that clock for clock IB is going to outpace SB-e in most cases. For the record it should also be noted that current SB and SB-e chips are capable of hitting 5ghz on air as well.

The consideration here comes down to quad-core vs hexacore and there is nothing IB is going to bring to the table in its die-shrink that is going to give it an advantage in this regard. 4c/8t at 5.0 still won't touch 6c/12t at 4.5.

The other (and more important) consideration is platform. 1155 is a limited chipset. It's restricted to 16 ondie-pci-e lanes and while IB will bring pci-e 3.0 to the table, it still does nothing to address the lanes. While the average pc user or even gamer might not consider this a limiting factor, their mind might quickly change once SSDs break the current SATA 6Gb/s barrier, which will happen this year. As an 1155 owner you're going to have to decide at this point if you'd rather have a 2nd gpu, or a pci-e SATA Express card. You won't have both.

LGA2011 is the current generations 1366. 1155 is the current generation's 775. Just look at the past to see how well 1366 endured while 775 faded quickly into the sunset. For longevity, future support, pci-e 3.0 now, 40 ondie lanes, future octacore and haswell support LGA2011 is the only chipset to consider.

 

[jfizzle4321]

Nobody is arguing that clock for clock IB is going to outpace SB-e in most cases. For the record it should also be noted that current SB and SB-e chips are capable of hitting 5ghz on air as well.

The consideration here comes down to quad-core vs hexacore and there is nothing IB is going to bring to the table in its die-shrink that is going to give it an advantage in this regard. 4c/8t at 5.0 still won't touch 6c/12t at 4.5.

The other (and more important) consideration is platform. 1155 is a limited chipset. It's restricted to 16 ondie-pci-e lanes and while IB will bring pci-e 3.0 to the table, it still does nothing to address the lanes. While the average pc user or even gamer might not consider this a limiting factor, their mind might quickly change once SSDs break the current SATA 6Gb/s barrier, which will happen this year. As an 1155 owner you're going to have to decide at this point if you'd rather have a 2nd gpu, or a pci-e SATA Express card. You won't have both.

LGA2011 is the current generations 1366. 1155 is the current generation's 775. Just look at the past to see how well 1366 endured while 775 faded quickly into the sunset. For longevity, future support, pci-e 3.0 now, 40 ondie lanes, future octacore and haswell support LGA2011 is the only chipset to consider.

Thank you because I had somebody berating me for getting a 3820 on the Rampage IV vs a Maximus IV with the 2600k even though the difference is $70.

 

[abcc]

Best answer selected by abcc.