Intel Core i7-3930K And Core i7-3820: Sandy Bridge-E, Cheaper

12:00 AM - December 9, 2011 by Chris Angelini Table of contents 1. Core i7-3930K And -3820 Get Reviewed 2. Overclocking Sandy Bridge-E On A Budget 3. Test Setup And Benchmarks 4. Benchmark Results: PCMark 7 5. Benchmark Results: 3DMark 11 6. Benchmark Results: Sandra 2011 7. Benchmark Results: Content Creation 8. Benchmark Results: Productivity 9. Benchmark Results: Media Encoding 10. Benchmark Results: Crysis 2 11. Benchmark Results: DiRT 3 12. Benchmark Results: World Of Warcraft 13. Core i7-3930K And -3820: Stock Versus Overclocked 14. Core i7-3930K and -2600K: Making The Tough Choice 15. Core i7-3930K: The Smart Sandy Bridge-E Choice

Core i7-3960X is undeniably fast. But at more than $1000, it’s hardly an option for most enthusiasts. We got our hands on the Core i7-3930K and Core i7-3820 to gauge their overclocked performance and determine if they’re able to best the flagship part.

Editor's Note: As you'll see by the end of this story, we liked the Core i7-3930K for its specific purpose quite a bit. It's a pleasure, then, to offer four of these CPUs to our readers. Of course, we realize that the platform is still pricey, so we also have a quartet of Intel DX79SI motherboards and as many 120 GB SSD 320 drives. Four lucky winners will walk away with a trio of parts to get them started on their next machine. Read to the end of this story for your chance to win!

We love to lust after the latest hardware, no matter the cost. But when it comes time to buy, sexy takes a back seat to sensible. That’s why a thousand-dollar processor like Intel’s Core i7-3960X doesn’t really add up. According to Intel’s official price list, you can get the Core i7-3930K for exactly $416 dollars less, sacrificing 3 MB of shared L3 cache and 100 MHz in the process. There’s an Epic Meal Time phrase I could use to illustrate the intelligence of that trade-off, but I’ll just leave it as: smart.

And so today’s story is brought to you by a couple of different ideas. First, we got our hands on the other two LGA 2011-based parts: Core i7-3930K and Core i7-3820. We’ll give you the performance data on those chips running at their stock settings.

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