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Intel i7 3820 gets priced - available for pre-order

Overclocking Core i7-3820

The Core i7-3820 hits respectable frequencies as easily, but it requires a slightly different approach. Because it’s neither an X- nor a K-series SKU, the -3820 is constrained by “limited overclocking.” In short, it scales up to six 100 MHz bins beyond its maximum Turbo Boost clocks. With three or four cores active, it hits 4.3 GHz. When one or two cores are busy, it jumps to 4.4 GHz.

That leaves performance on the table, though, making it necessary to exploit the strap ratios incorporated into the X79 Express platform. ASRock’s X79 Extreme4-M doesn’t expose them explicitly, though we’ve asked the company to add the ratios, and it now plans to. However, manually specifying 125 MHz, for example, allows the PCI Express and DMI buses to remain within spec.




Interestingly, our -3820 didn’t want to run at 4.5 GHz, but it worked at 4.625 and 4.75 GHz using 37x and 38x multipliers. Still finicky, it wouldn’t complete the entire benchmark suite, even with a longevity-unfriendly 1.44 V driving it. But my expectations for this one weren’t high anyway. And if you need a quad-core chip, I don’t see any reason to buy a high-end platform (X79), quad-channel memory kit, and a locked processor when the Z68/Core i7-2600K combo is cheaper, still very capable, and equipped with Quick Sync support.
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-3930k-3820-test-benchmark,3090.html

in current games it makes little difference, but in terms of raw horsepower it's quite interesting

I like the idea of having an X79 based PC sitting ready to take pcie 3.0 and 8 core LGA2011 processor...
my plan is GTX580 SLI and possibly tri-sli when the next gen cards come out and everyone dumps their 580's on ebay, skip a generation entirely

although it's not a "K" processor, X79 support base clock OC'ing and even an early engineering sample supports 4.6Ghz

this is very reminiscent of the E8500/Q6600 debacle all those years ago... all the reviews and forums said that an E8500 dual core overclocked better and showed better performance/price, but here I am 5 years later still rocking a Q6600 and show me 1 person still running an E8500 and trying to hook it up to a GTX580
 
Davefran said:
Interestingly, our -3820 didn’t want to run at 4.5 GHz, but it worked at 4.625 and 4.75 GHz using 37x and 38x multipliers. Still finicky, it wouldn’t complete the entire benchmark suite, even with a longevity-unfriendly 1.44 V driving it. But my expectations for this one weren’t high anyway. And if you need a quad-core chip, I don’t see any reason to buy a high-end platform (X79), quad-channel memory kit, and a locked processor when the Z68/Core i7-2600K combo is cheaper, still very capable, and equipped with Quick Sync support.
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I suppose they have to do something with those processors that have three or four faulty cores, so I guess it sort of makes sense from Intel's perspective to try to sell them as quad cores. I agree with your point of view though, it's difficult to see any reason to buy this over a Core i7-2600K unless you need lots of memory throughput but no more than four cores.
 
I was thinking of getting one just because I want X79 for SLI and also the fact that it will outlast a Z68 - stick in the cheapest 2011 processor I can now and then upgrade to the last / fastest / more expensive 2011 processor later (e.g. ivy bridge-e or whatever comes next if it's still compatible).

having said that I've got an empty credit card beckoning to me so I've just ordered a 3930K for christmas, damn my own eyes
 
TBH even with this realitivly cheap CPU compared to the rest the fact the boards and ram are still quite dear sets it back :(
 
FiXiT said:
Will the current i7’s 2600k\2700k be discontinued when these are released?
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No, Sandy Bridge-E is not a replacement for the existing Sandy Bridge range of processors. Ivy Bridge, which is due early next year, will take the place of Sandy Bridge as the mainstream range on socket 1155. There are rumours that there will be an Ivy Bridge-E on socket 2011 late next year.
 
There's a review of this processor on Anandtech. He draws the same conclusion that most of us have; it's a very niche product. I can't see many people bothering with it, especially with Ivy Bridge just around the corner.
 
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