$599.99
www.intel.com
Sometimes, being #1 can be overrated—and overpriced. Witness Intel’s present flagship, the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition, a gleaming slab of LGA 2011 awesomeness that, with a 3.9 GHz Turbo Boost ceiling, sets you back $1050 on Newegg. We have to wonder, is there some arbitrary margin Intel feels compelled to make on its top-end chips that now requires a $1050 price instead of the traditional $999.99? The extra $50 almost feels like you’re tipping the company for drink refills. Anyway. Why worry about that at all when you can opt for the $600 more sensible #2 offering, the Core i7-3930K?

Ignore the fact that our model is holding the Extreme Edition's box. It's the only one we could get our hands on prior to buying our own Core i7-3930K for Intel Core i7-3930K And Core i7-3820: Sandy Bridge-E, Cheaper.
With the second-place chip, you give up only 100 MHz in both the standard and peak Turbo Boost modes. It still features six physical cores, a 130 W TDP, LGA 2011, a 32 nm fab process, and a quad-channel DDR3-1600 memory architecture. Naturally, neither of these Sandy Bridge-E-based chips include integrated graphics, but you do get 40 lanes of third-generation PCI Express connectivity to which you can attach a ton of discrete graphics muscle. One spot in which the -3930K takes a slight hit is in its use of 12 MB of shared L3 cache, as opposed to the -3960X’s 15 MB. But check out the benchmarks in the story linked above; the cache deficit really doesn't hurt that badly.
The -3930K is an unlocked monster. Do you really care that the chip is a 3.2 GHz part instead of 3.3 GHz, when you can set it at 4.-something GHz and not even break a sweat? No. Quite honestly, the -3960X is either a vanity purchase or the domain of a professional workstation user unwilling to overclock for fear of instability. We’re quite content to get most of the flagship’s speed plus all of the expected extras (Hyper-Threading, VT-x and VT-d, AES-NI, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep, and more) for nearly half the price.
- CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
- Motherboard: MSI 990FXA-GD80
- Memory: PNY XLR8 MD8192KD3-1600-X9
- Power Supply: SilverStone Strider Gold Evolution 1000 W
- SSD: Crucial m4 256 GB
- Graphics Card: Gigabyte GV-R695OC-1D
- CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K
- Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
- Memory: G.Skill RipjawsZ F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZHD (4 GB x 4)
- Chassis: SilverStone Raven RV03
- Zotac Infinity Edition ZT-50102-30P GeForce GTX 580
- Noctua NH-D14 SE2011
- Creative Labs Recon3D PCI Express Fatal1ty Professional Edition
Mine was the one with the 4 SSD.
My floppy disk totally turned to a hard disk drive.
I can't wait for part 2 already.
Depends on if you use an aftermarket cooler or the stock one
Why are some things suggested in this guide mostly the worst value you could get for that sum of cash?
For starters:
-MSI 990FX-GD80 wouldn't be my top pick. That would go to a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD(x) board. Why bother getting a board that's more expensive than the best processor for the platform (or one whose lower-end boards don't catch fire).
-i7-3930K? Ivy's just around the corner and will run on 150 dollar boards that do more than X79 could think of.
-Silverstone 1000W PSU? Seasonic's already got their X-1050, which has 80+ Platinum certification instead of gold for the same cost.
Some things I guess I just don't understand, then. You list some parts that have really good value, such as that RAM and Powercolor graphics card along with the 955BE, and then go to the polar opposite. I don't see the reason for that.
Get a life you freak
Get a sense of humor you rude little man.