Xeon E5-2600 vs 3960X vs 2600K - Intel 8 Core vs 6 Core vs 4 Core Gaming Performance
Published by Marc Büchel on 19.03.12Page:
In this article we're going to check what's the difference in real life gaming performance between an Intel octa core, hexa core or quad core CPU. Furthermore in the system there is a Radeon HD 7970 graphics card form XFX. We're curious if there will be a measurable performance gap between these CPUs regarding modern games or if it simply makes no difference if you have four or eight cores in your gaming rig.
Specifications
| Xeon E5-2600 | i7-3960X | i7-2600K | |
| Codename | Sandy Bridge EP | Sandy Bridge E | Sandy Bridge |
| Socket | LGA 2011 | LGA 2011 | LGA 1155 |
| Manufacturing | 32 nm | 32 nm | 32 nm |
| Transistors | 2.27 Billion | 2.27 Billion | 995 Million |
| Die-size | 435 mm2 | 435 mm2 | 265 mm2 |
| Clock | 3.00 GHz | 3.30 GHz (Turbo 3.90 GHz) | 3.30 GHz (Turbo 3.80 GHz) |
| Cores / Threads | 8C / 16T | 6C / 12T | 4C / 8T |
| Turbo | Yes (2.0) | Yes (2.0) | Yes (2.0) |
| Bus Speed | 100 MHz | 100 MHz | 100 MHz |
| Memory | DDR3 | DDR3 | DDR3 |
| Memory controller | Quad Channel | Quad Channel | Dual Channel |
| QPI | 6.4 GT/s | 6.4 GT/s | |
| L1 Execution Cache | 32 KByte | 32 KByte | 32 KByte |
| L1 Data Cache | 32 KByte | 32 KByte | 32 KByte |
| L2 Cache | 256 KByte | 256 KByte | 256 KByte |
| L3 Cache | 20 MB shared | 15 MB shared | 8 MB shared |
| TDP | 150 Watt | 130 Watt | 95 Watt |
| C1E technology | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Enhanced Intel Speed Step | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Virtualisation | Vanderpool | Vanderpool | Vanderpool |
| Instruction sets | MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3 SSE4.2, AVX, AES EM64T |
MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3 SSE4.2, AVX, AES EM64T |
MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3 SSE4.2, AVX, EM64T |
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Core i7-3820 and Core i7-3930K Radeon HD 7970 Gaming Performance |
Core i7-3770K and Core i7-2600K Radeon HD 7970 Gaming-Performance-Difference
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