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Intel Keeps Enthusiasts On Its Most Modern Design With Haswell-E

Intel Core i7-5960X, -5930K, And -5820K CPU Review: Haswell-E Rises
By , Igor Wallossek

The Ivy Bridge-E launch (almost exactly one year ago) was disappointing for a number of reasons. Not only did the Core i7-4960X offer little beyond what we were already getting from -3970X, but it had the gall to surface three months after Intel started selling its Haswell-based Core i7-4770K. Adding insult to injury was the already-old X79 Express chipset, outclassed in almost every way by the mainstream Z87 platform.

Simply put, power users have a hard time accepting last-generation’s technology as new when there’s already something shinier to anticipate.

Intel is already buzzing about Broadwell. But it’s technically taking the wraps off of Haswell-E while Haswell is still relevant. The distinction may seem trivial, but I guarantee that enthusiasts care. And although X99 Express doesn’t introduce any groundbreaking functionality, it at least integrates thorough USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s support.

That may sound like a tepid assessment of Haswell-E, but the truth is I’m giddy to have my hands on real high-end hardware again. Imagine a mixing bowl. Sift the idea of Intel’s first desktop-oriented eight-core CPU based on its most modern architecture. Add a new memory technology. An updated chipset. Solder-based thermal interface material improving your chances of a solid overclock. And sprinkle in LGA 2011-3, which we’re told will support Intel’s next-gen high-end desktop chip. Folded all together, those ingredients are actually quite tasty.

My impression of the three Haswell-E-based models isn’t completely uniform, though.

While eight Haswell cores are envy-inducing, near thousand-pound processors are reality for a fortunate few. The silver lining is that you can get similar performance with an unlocked multiplier for half as much money compared to what you used to have to pay for an Xeon E5-2687W v2—Ivy Bridge-based with eight cores. Power users able to exploit what a Core i7-5960X offers will certainly enjoy its exclusivity as they plow through taxing workloads.

But the -5960X wouldn’t be my first choice for a gaming-oriented system anyway. Its core count typically doesn’t benefit 3D frame rates, while lower base and Turbo Boost frequencies are sometimes felt as lower performance and greater frame time variance. Plus, there’s the whole price tag issue. That’s why I often look to Intel’s second-best solution as favorites. The Core i7-3930K and -4930K held onto their six cores and sold for a lot less money. I liked them a lot.

This time around, Intel’s stack is organized differently. Stepping down to the -5930K means losing two cores right off the bat. There is no intermediate eight-core option. So, if the rest of the Haswell-E line-up consists of six-core CPUs, why not drop another notch to the Core i7-5820K? Some enthusiasts will thumb their noses at Intel for cutting 12 lanes of third-gen PCI Express from its 40-lane controller, but as differentiators go, that one’s pretty tame. Twenty-eight lanes gives you room to run one 16-lane graphics card, two in x8-mode with plenty of connectivity left over, or even three cards on x8 links. And for less than £50 more than a Core i7-4790K, you get six cores, 15 MB of shared L3 cache, a bit of insulation against the future, four channels of DDR4, and ample PCIe. This time around, I’m going with the Core i7-5820K as my smart choice.

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  • 1 Hide
    wireframed , 29 August 2014 18:24
    Well, that's a bit of a mixed bag. The review was nice, though.

    Personally, the 3DS and After Effects benchmarks were of most interest, since they are what I spend most of the CPU time on. (3DS in particular, right now I'm logging dozens of CPU hours a day on 3DS alone). It's pretty clear that unless the platform costs of Haswell-E are much higher than IB-E, going with the old won't make sense. The 5930k beats the 4960X. which is at least 50% more expensive.

    I've been waiting forever for an upgrade to my i7 930 based workstation, and I didn't feel like jumping on an IB-E a couple months before a brand-new HEDT platform is released.

    I had hoped Haswell-E would be a bit more impressive, but OTOH, investing in a DDR4 platform now might be a good idea, given my workstations typically have 3-4 years in them. At the very least, a drop-in upgrade to Broadwell-E would be nice to have as an option.

    Now to see how big a pounding I'll take in Denmark for X99/DDR4/Haswell-E... :o 
  • 0 Hide
    haider95 , 30 August 2014 17:56
    sweepstakes only for US users?
  • 0 Hide
    Robi_g , 30 August 2014 22:06
    Text on the competition PC says EVGA motherboard, but the picture has an ASrock one.
  • -1 Hide
    Robi_g , 30 August 2014 22:06
    Text on the competition PC says EVGA motherboard, but the picture has an ASrock one.
  • -1 Hide
    Robi_g , 30 August 2014 22:07
    Text on the competition PC says EVGA motherboard, but the picture has an ASrock one.
  • -1 Hide
    BigBadBeef , 2 September 2014 05:45
    I am an enthusiast and even I say "NO" to this marketet prototype. I will not participate as Intel's guinea pig.
  • 0 Hide
    LePhuronn , 4 September 2014 14:59
    Although I agree with the logic behind the "smart choice" at the end of this article, in the real world the PCI-E lane count for gaming is a moot point. X99 is NOT a gaming platform. It is a workstation and productivity platform. Regardless of how much you hobble your CPU, you're still paying £300 for the motherboard and £400 for comparatively paultry amounts of RAM, so the price of overall Haswell-E adoption is very high.

    Therefore anybody who's going to load up on GPUs enough to worry about PCI-E lanes will have sufficient money to drop in a 5960X on principle. Anybody who's adopting X99 for productivity purposes will not skimp on core count and also go 5960X, especially considering they're likely to go at least 32GB RAM and therefore shelling out a lot of money. Those producing on CUDA cards may not even go X99 at all because 1150 Haswell has more than enough power to run the software. Folders and CUDA Miners similarly will want all GPUs running at full tilt so will likely invest in the 5960X to get all the PCI-E lanes.

    So really, the only "smart choice" is 5960X or don't go X99 at all.
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