Alright, so, overall I have to admit that those benchmarks were pretty boring. I sort of thought that might turn out to be the case when I heard that Ivy Bridge-E would be roughly the same six-core configuration, updated with a lightly-tuned architecture.
But, like all of the other processor reviews I work on, I made it a point to log power consumption as our scripted suite ran. I didn’t expect the results to be particularly noteworthy—after all, Intel is saying that Core i7-4960X has the same 130 W TDP as the Core i7-3930K.

In the chart above, data points are recorded every two seconds, and the end of the run is truncated to fit as much information as possible in the space available. Regardless of where each CPU seems to finish the complete suite, 30 minutes of idle time are tacked onto the end before our script automatically shuts the systems down. As a result, the average and total efficiency measurements include a long period of time where absolutely nothing is happening.
Without question, Core i7-4960X is more power-friendly than the 150 W Core i7-3970X, seen in green. But even the Core i7-3930K (in yellow) appears to register higher energy use during our suite.
To get a better idea of what the line graph really means, we average each processor’s results from the time we start the test until our log shows zero power use.

The system averages for each setup fall almost exactly where they should. The 77 and 84 W Ivy Bridge and Haswell CPUs drive the machines averaging the least power consumption. The 95 W Core i7-2700K and 100 W A10-5800K place third and fourth. Intel’s 130 W Core i7-3930K and -4960X take the next two spots, followed by AMD’s 125 W FX-8350 (which should probably be in front of the LGA 2011-based parts). Finally, Core i7-3970X lands in the back, swinging its sweaty 150 W TDP around.
Of course, the -3970X uses that big power budget to get things done faster. Let’s multiply the time it takes to cruise through our suite by average power use to give us efficiency in Wh.

Crazy, right? We already know that the Core i7-3970X is fast. But it needs so much power to get there that the Sandy Bridge-E processor isn’t very efficient in the process. Only AMD’s FX-8350 and A10-5800K use more energy getting through our benchmark suite.
The average consumption numbers showed us that Intel’s Core i7-3930K uses a lot less power than the flagship model, but is so much slower as a result of its cut-back shared L3 cache and lower frequency that it, too, ends up less efficient than Ivy Bridge-E. Even the Core i7-2700K shows up behind the Core i7-4960X.
It’d be almost impossible for the six-core -4960X to outperform Intel’s latest quad-core parts decisively enough to beat them in an efficiency race. But despite the single-threaded apps and half-hour idle period added to our log, Ivy Bridge-E does remarkably well.
EDIT: Minor error:
Shouldn't that be Broadwell?
Lol now time to spend $1000 to save on my power bill.
The 6 cores ivyBridge-e "K" version is the real thing.
and I dont get it , how Tomshardwae fails to say about the SandyBridge-e not having PCIE 3.0 support , while the ivy-E has PCIe 3.0 support . this is a Big factor here.
The 6 cores ivyBridge-e "K" version is the real thing.
and I dont get it , how Tomshardwae fails to say about the SandyBridge-e not having PCIE 3.0 support , while the ivy-E has PCIe 3.0 support . this is a Big factor here.
they did say it. You didn't read the beginning of the review. Of course pci-e 3.0 is a gimmick and not a reason to buy a new 2011 mb and ib-e chip... and it will remain a marketing gimmick untill gpus can actually be bottlenecked by pci-e 2.0 x16... high end gpus barely bottleneck on pci-e 2.0 x8 atm... it will be a little while (another generation or 3) before gpus will NEED pci-e 3.0.
That's pretty much saying it did it unofficially.
Besides, you have to look hard to find something bottlenecked by PCIe2.0x8; even high-end GPUs won't run into bandwidth limitations.
you people think this is a Gaming only Machine?
try to buy PCIe 3.0 8x/4x Raid Card for example ... they are around starting at $300
LAN cards as well , and coming cards etc ..
and who knows ? maybe Titan 2X cards apper
And Many people Compalind about their SandyBridge-e not supporting PCIe 3.0 speed..
as for the lack of USB3.0 and few Sata3 ports , this is a 40 Lanes CPU , just buy that 4X PCIe usb 3.0 card and add it problem solved.
I'd like to see a situation in which you need 4GB/s each way SAS/SATA, but can't afford a Xeon based platform
LAN cards. At 500MB/s each way (for an PCIe2.0x1 card, plus you're more likely to use an x4 card). You got something with 10GbE?
Even a Titan 2x could run on PCIe2.0x16.
Most people don't like running many addin cards. Besides, where's the room given the expected use of this platform is multi-GPU systems?
you people think this is a Gaming only Machine?
try to buy PCIe 3.0 8x/4x Raid Card for example ... they are around starting at $300
LAN cards as well , and coming cards etc ..
and who knows ? maybe Titan 2X cards apper
And Many people Compalind about their SandyBridge-e not supporting PCIe 3.0 speed..
as for the lack of USB3.0 and few Sata3 ports , this is a 40 Lanes CPU , just buy that 4X PCIe usb 3.0 card and add it problem solved.
psh... there ARE pci-e 2.0 x16 boards with multiple card support you know. And pci-e 2.0x16 is identical speed to pci-e 3.0 x8... just as pci-e 3.0 x4 is equal to pci-e 2.0 x8... and as we pointed out, pci-e 2.0 x8 is about the upper limit for gpu to mb interface speed at the moment, and pci-e 2.0 x16 is well beyond any gpu to max out as of now.
There is one exception; the Haswell processors for laptops are much more efficient and provide huge increases in run time without losing any speed. But for desktops, Haswell appears to be a complete bust.
I'd be intrigued to see the sales figures for Intels high-end chips today compared to say eight years ago.
considering they're selling 6 cores for 1000, they wouldn't sell a 8 core for less then 1500 (probably 2k)... anyone expecting less is kidding themselves. this will remain true as long as AMD is uncompetitive.
You can pay $200 and get 90FPS or pay $800 to get 95-100FPS.
Intel's high-end chips are dead men walking really. More and more niche as time goes on.