SB-E 3820 Overclocking guide.

[Alkalinepro5]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5276/intel-core-i7-3820-review-285-quadcore-sandy-bridge-e

4.63Ghz overclock on a semi-locked chip is quite impressive. I've been thinking of updating to SB-E, but with 6-core CPUs I found to be too expensive.

I'm very impressed by this chip which is a fair bit quicker than the 2500/2600K in gaming due to the larger 10MB cache, and it costs less than a 2600K according to Anandtech.

This seems a far more viable option compared to Ivybridge which is lower specced. (smaller cache etc)

Also going SB-E means if you want to get some crazy CPU's (IB-E) later down the road then that options open!

 

[Alkalinepro5]

How do you work that one out?

Based on the link you posted at 3.6GHz stock speed there's very little difference between it and a 3.3GHz i5-2500K and a 3.4GHz i7-2600K.

All 3 will overclock to 4.6GHz so if overclocking makes any difference the i5-2500K and i7-2600K will make up for any small deficit due to the higher percentage overclock.

Greater cache could be useful though, and it is slightly faster in games compared to the 2600K at stock, and I can't see why that trend wouldn't continue at OC.

Also you get to reap the benefits of X79, and its cheaper than outgoing SB and no doubt cheaper than IB.

 

[Alkalinepro5]

I see three reasons why you'd want the Core i7 3820:

1. You need PCIe 3.0 today and/or you need more PCIe lanes than a Core i7 2600K can provide,

2. You need tons of memory bandwidth for a particular application,

3. You want a 2600K but you need a platform that can support more memory (32GB+).

*Shamelessly ripped from Anand*

 

[Alkalinepro5]

SB-E is PCIe 3.0???

Conflicting info here!

 

[Alkalinepro5]

I think I'm going to go for an X79+3820 setup over SB/Ivy.