Intel has been enjoying a rather successful few years. After the launch of their first generation Core processors Intel managed to slide neatly by AMD who had been running rings around the Pentium 4 CPU. Things did not stop there though, Intel continued to build on their success working to improve their caching model and the when they were finally ready they dropped the Second Generation of the Core Processor on the Market; this time with an Internal Memory Controller to go with their improved caching. This extended the gap between Intel and AMD a few more feet and lead on to other new products including Lynnfield and then Sandy Bridge with its own GPU built right into the processor die. With the success of these new processors Intel could have just sat back and waited until AMD caught up. Instead they are continuing to move forward and are now brining a new Flagship CPU to the Core i7 lineup. The official name will be the Core i7 3960X and also comes with a new chipset, memory standard, and socket. So let’s take a look at this new chuck of silicone and see if it deserves its place at the top of the heap.
Value -Intel is going to push this right into the same pricing slot that was occupied by the 980X before. This is the typical move on Intel’s part and it helps to keep the pricing structure stable. But the question you have to ask is; Is this CPU worth $990? Well that is a tough one to answer. On the one hand it is close to a thousand dollars of your hard earned money that you will have to layout (even more once the resellers add their cut). This is a lot of money to shell out for a CPU knowing that you still need to pick up a motherboard and a quad channel kit of memory. Now, on the other hand if you are a video or animation professional, perform a lot of simulation or just want more power than anyone else out there then this is a CPU that will certainly meet your needs. There is no doubt at all that the 3960X will pay for itself in any workstation level capacity and we are sure that once the rest of the manufacturers drop their motherboards we will see the gaming performance come online as well.Conclusion -Intel’s latest CPU is an impressive device. With almost twice the available memory bandwidth as the 980X you should see a nice improvement in almost any application you run. No, this will not translate into gaming (for the most part) but then again if you are willing to drop the kind of money needed for this processor then we are pretty certain that you will be able to afford a good GPU (or GPUs) for it as well. However, for almost every other application you will see a very healthy improvement, this includes CPU demanding applications like Lightwave and even After Effects. Of course the cost of getting one of these is going to be a factor, but Intel did think of that. You will be able to pick up a slightly reduced version of this CPU (12MB cache instead of 15MB) for around $600 once it hits the stores. You will not get exactly the same level of performance that you see here, but it will be close and should still out perform even the 980X. In the end the new Core i7 lineup will be a very worthy addition to the top end of Intel’s CPU lineup.Discuss this in our Forum
