Xeon E5-2600 vs 3960X vs 2600K - Intel 8 Core vs 6 Core vs 4 Core Gaming Performance
Category : 2012
Published by Marc Büchel on 19.03.12
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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Test setup
| Motherboard | ASUS Rampage IV Formula |
| Processors | |
| Memory | Kingston HyperX H2O @ 1'600 MHz CL 9-9-9-24 |
| Grapics Cards | |
| Storage | Corsair Force 3 120 Gigabyte |
| Power Supply | Enermax Max Revo 1350 Watt |
Software
- Futuremark 3DMark 11
- Performance
- Performance
- 1920 x 1080
- Shaders High
- Tessellation Extreme
- Max AA
- Max AF
- 1920 x 1080
- Tessellation High
- 1920 x 1080
- Max Details
- Max AA
- DX10
- 1920 x 1080
- Max Details
- Max AA
- Max AF
- 1920 x 1080
- Max Details
- Max AA
- 1920 x 1080
- Max Details
- Max AA
- 1920 x 1080
- Max Details
- Max AA
- Max AF
- 1920 x 1080
- Max Details
- Max AA
- Max AF
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3DMark 11 - 3DMark Vantage
| 3DMark 11 Total | 3DMark 11 - Graphics | 3DMark 11 - Physics | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 8'219 | 7'745 | 13'660 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 8'123 | 7'656 | 13'002 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 7'836 | 7'773 | 8'705 |
| 3DMark Vantage Total | 3DMark Vantage - Graphics | 3DMark Vantage - CPU | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 32'769 | 30'645 | 41'514 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 34'673 | 33'236 | 39'836 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 28'368 | 30'589 | 23'239 |
Discuss this article in the forums. [pagebreak]
Unigine Heaven - Furmark - Stone Giant
| Unigine Heaven - Points | Unigine Heaven - fps | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 1'042 | 41.4 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 1'061 | 42.1 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 1'038 | 41.2 |
| Furmark - Points | Furmark - fps | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 2'577 | 43 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 2'582 | 43 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 2'583 | 43 |
| Stone Giant - fps | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 87 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 87 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 85 |
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Crysis - Resident Evil 5
| Crysis - fps | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 52.19 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 53.06 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 50.67 |
| Resident Evil 5 - fps | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 172.6 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 175.2 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 146.8 |
Discuss this article in the forums. [pagebreak]
Call of Juarez - Far Cry 2
| Call of Juarez - fps | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 71.30 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 71.90 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 68.30 |
| Far Cry 2 - fps | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 102.15 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 109.49 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 90.04 |
Discuss this article in the forums.
Street Fighter 4 - World in Conflict
| Street Fighter 4 - fps | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 222.89 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 231.16 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 185.50 |
| World in Conflict - fps | |
| Intel Xeon E5-2600 8 Core | 94 |
| Core i7-3960X 6 Core | 101 |
| Core i7-2600K 4 Core | 87 |
Discuss this article in the forums. [pagebreak]
Conclusion
In fact, we were quite surprised that none of the benchmarks scaled with the 16 threads the Xeon CPU has to offer. Not even 3D Mark 11, which should support up to 16 Threads showed a substantial increase in performance, although this benchmark supports up to 16 threadas. We even tried reinstalling the benchmark several times and we also reinstalled Windows to make sure there were no mistakes we could have caused. Running Task Manager in the background showed that in 3D Mark 11 and 3D Mark Vantage CPU Benchmarks all threads get load, but the load is only between 80 to 90 percent. Anyway, it looks like 3D Mark 11 and 3D Mark Vantage really don't make use of the full potential of an 8 core, 16 thread CPU. Therefore the advantage compared to a hexa core Core i7-3960X is roughly five percent. Compared to a quad core Core i7-2600K the difference is bigger by quite a margin. In this case it is well more than 35 percent. But never the less, twice as many cores for a third more performance is quite a bad result.Concerning gaming benchmarks one can see that the number of cores doesn't matter. Most games these days support no more than eight threads. Therefore when a CPU has eight threads it mainly scales with clock frequency or additional L3 cache or even faster memory. Especially older titles will show this kind of behaviour because in this case the graphics card wont be the only limiting factor anymore.
Our concluding remark is that instead of buying an extremely expensive CPU,
better go for a high-end GPU. Sure, this applies for a gaming system and not for
a rendering machine. Let's finish this article with a small calcualtion. A Core
i7-3960X costs roughly three times as much as a Core i7-2600K. If we're generous
there is an overall performance advantage of ten percent concerning the Core
i7-3960X. Paying three times as much for ten percent more gaming performance
really is nonsense.
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