Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme Coming Near You in Q4
Information coming out of Turkish website DonanimHaber has Intel set to release its new top-end Core i7-3970X in Q4 2012. With the enthusiast-class Ivy Bridge-E not set to appear until sometime in 2013, it looks like the LGA 2011 socket will have something for under the Christmas tree this year!
The rumored i7-3970X is expected to ship with clock speeds of 3.50 GHz (Turbo Boost of 4.00 GHz). The six-core chip is based on the 32 nm "Sandy Bridge-E" silicon, and the LGA 2011 platform. With it being based on the 32 nm Sandy Bridge architecture, users should expect similar overclocking abilities as current generation Sandy Bridge processors. The processor shouldn't run into the thermal woes that plagued the release of Intel's newer Ivy Bridge CPUs this past May.
In addition, its feature-set is consistent with that of the Core i7-3960X, with 15 MB shared L3 cache, HyperThreading, and unlocked base-clock multiplier. DonanimHaber expects the TDP to be pushed up to 150W, though. Assuming the claims are true, expect the Core i7-3970X to supplant the $1,000 Core i7-3960X when it drops in the fourth quarter of this year.
Even though I would never buy one, or could even afford one, it would be a sweet CPU with CF or SLI though.
Looks like I'll be picking this one up.. but I dont see any reason anyone else would.
I mentioned this in the 3960x review, but I don't think there's any TDP headroom left for an octa core at 32nm while maintaining the higher clocks expected of i7's. When you look at the eight core Xeons they're all clocked significantly lower, the highest being clocked at 3.1GHz with a 150W TDP.
This makes sense, given the different target markets for the two lineups. The Xeons put more emphasis on wide execution, and the workloads tend to benefit much more from absolute thread count as opposed to absolute clocks. While thread count is still important for the LGA 2011 i7's, it's ultimately targeted at consumer/semipro applications which still tend to favor higher clocks (this is quickly changing though). It's basically a balance between Xeon and LGA1155 i7's. I would certainly like to see an octa-core i7, but like I said in that initial 3960x review, it probably won't be possible until Ivy Bridge-E.
It's 200MHz, but I think the biggest thing to take away from this is that we probably won't be seeing Ivy Bridge-E anytime soon.
My bad, 200MHz it is. And yes, you're right, we probably won't see Ivy Bridge-E soon, if ever.
And that's definitely another thing to consider. Does this suggest there won't be an Ivy Bridge-E, at all? That would certainly hurt the longevity of the LGA2011 platform.
did you find any dinosaur bones in your case?
Do we not expect to see Haswell out next year?
Your PC is still probably better than 97% of the world. Be thankful for what you have and make sure you give away your parts when you upgrade to someone who will enjoy t[hem.
Exactly.
Considering that Ivy was more of a efficiency upgrade with just a tad more performance i doubt that the Ivy-E will be total buster for the -e series.
Two cores? Looxury. I were slaving away on Pentium 4 'til earlier this year.
Mind you, I got this 3970's baby brother, for a 16x improvement in performance, so I can't complain now. ;-)