Intel Second Generation Core i7 3820 Review

ccokeman - March 15, 2012
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Specifications:

2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Comparison	Core™ i7-3960X Processor Extreme Edition	Core™ i7-3930K Processor	Core™ i7-3820 Processor
Number of Processor Cores	6	6	4
Number of Simultaneous Threads with Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology	12	12	8
Intel® Smart Cache Size	15 MB	12 MB	10 MB
Processor Base Frequency	3.3 GHz	3.2 GHz	3.6 GHz
Memory Frequency	1600 MHz	1600 MHz	1600 MHz
Intel® Turbo Boost Technology	2.0	2.0	2.0
Number of DDR3 Memory Channels	4	4	4
Overclocking Enabled	Yes	Yes	Yes
Intel® Express Chipset	X79	X79	X79
Socket	LGA2011	LGA2011	LGA2011

Features:

Four Core/8 Thread Processing: Provides four complete execution cores in a single processor package, delivering 8 computing threads to help operating systems and applications deliver additional performance, so users can experience better multitasking and multi-threaded performance across many types of applications and workloads.
Massive PCIe Graphics Bandwidth: Provides up to 40 lanes of PCIe bandwidth for PCI Express* devices, which can include graphics cards, storage controllers, and additional LAN devices. This processor has more than 2X the PCIe lanes vs. other 2nd Generation Intel Core desktop processors.
Four Channel Integrated Memory Controller: An integrated memory controller with four channels of DDR3 1600 MHz offers memory bandwidth up to 51.2 GB/s. Combined with the processor’s efficient prefetching algorithms, this memory controller’s lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for data-intensive applications.
Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology: Delivers two processing threads per physical core for a total of 12 threads for massive computational throughput, allowing highly threaded applications to get more work done faster.
Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0: Dynamically increases the processor’s frequency as needed by taking advantage of thermal and power headroom when operating below specified limits. Get more performance automatically, when you need it the most.
Intel® Smart Cache: This large last-level cache enables dynamic and efficient allocation of shared cache to all six cores to match the needs of various applications for ultra-efficient data storage and manipulation.
Intel AVX Processor instructions that significantly improve floating point performance.
Intel HD Boost: Includes the full SSE4 instruction set, significantly improving a broad range of multimedia and compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4-optimized applications.