Conclusion

With Sandy Bridge E, Intel presents an entirely new platform in the high-end desktop segment, whereas the new CPUs need to be placed in the Socket LGA 2011 and not in the Socket LGA 1366 like it was with X58. In short Intel has made the same architectural changes like they've already done with Sandy Bridge but this time they did it for their high-end desktop CPUs. The difference between Sandy Bridge E and Sandy Bridge is that the E-models get more of everthing: they get more cores, more threads, more cache and a wider quad channel memory interface. They even get 40 PCI-Express lanes.

Once more it is astonishing: the new Core i7-3960X is able to outperorm any other CPU and claim the first rank in all the benchmarks we made it run through. The Core i7-3930K only had to take a beating in two benchmarks. There was SuperPi 32m where the Core i7-2600K was faster and there was WinRAR where the AMD FX-8150 was able to score better. Intel once more succeeded in creating a CPU that put desktop performance to higher level.

But as always when a CPU is really fast it's also really expensive. Therefore the extreme version, the Core i7-3960X, also comes with an extreme price tag of 999 US-Dollar. But interestingly the Core i7-3930K comes with a very attractive price of 555 US-Dollar. Although this isn't cheap it fills a gap which a lot of desktop enthusiasts are willing to spend their money.

An other downside of these powerful CPUs is the power they draw. When we equipped our test system with Intels flagship CPU Core i7-3960X we almost couldn't believe how much power it needed to operate. In this case we can only say that a user who is going to spend 999 US-Dollar on a CPU wont care about the electricity bill. With the Core i7-3930K things look a bit better but it still need a lot of power to run, which means that Intels Core i7-2600K CPUs are way more energy efficient.

Compared to Intels X58 platform using socket LGA 1366 CPUs the new Sandy Brdige E processors mounted on an X79 chipst with socket LGA 2011 really is an upgrade, performance wise. If you should be looking for maximum performance and you're willing to buy a quad channel memory kit, then this platform is the right way to go. Users who demand for maximum energy efficiency are better off with an LGA 1155 setup.