Intel Octacore i7-5960X Haswell-E Review Part I

CPU by leeghoofd @ 2014-08-29

August 29, 2014 the launch date of another of Intel's finest desktop processors. This time the enthusiast range gets a complete overhaul! Bye bye Ivy Bridge-E, welcome 22nm successor Haswell-E and it is more than a new processor architecture; DDR4 memory support is finally here. Now in contradiction to other launch articles and due to time constraints the exploring of Intel's latest marvel will be spread out over a few parts. Having just received the sample from Intel a few days back it was nearly impossible to properly explore the new architecture. First of all our official Intel sample was lost for over a week in the Benelux Bermuda Triangle; secondly the main motherboard manufacturer which promised us a board for this article had hardly any sample stock. This Haswell-E launch seemed a bit doomed from the start. So in Part 1 we will just provide you with a quick comparison versus the previous generations we have in the MadShrimps Lab. Enlighten you with some insights on how the brand new DDR4 memory behaves versus the high end Quad Channel DDR3 counterparts. More testing is in progress and results will be covered in upcoming updates.

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Test Setup and Methodology

Both our enthusiast platforms comprised of the following parts:


 

TEST SETUP LGA2011:

  • Intel Core i7 3960X/4930K
  • Noctua DH-15
  • ASUS Rampage Extreme IV (4401 bios)
  • 8GB Corsair Dominator PC12800C8 (4 x 2GB) Platinum 2666C10/2800C11 (4 x 4GB)
  • AMD 7970HD Catalyst 14.4 driver
  • Western Digital 1TB Green Caviar
  • Corsair HX 1050 PSU
  • Micrcool Banchetto 101
  • Windows 7 Professional 64Bit SP1 fully patched.

TEST SETUP LGA 2011-v3:

  • Intel Core i7-5960X
  • Noctua DH-15
  • Unknown motherboard
  • 16GB Corsair Vengeance 2800C16 LPX
  • AMD 7970HD Catalyst 14.4 driver
  • Western Digital 1TB Green Caviar
  • Corsair HX 1050 PSU
  • Micrcool Banchetto 101
  • Windows 7 Professional 64Bit SP1 fully patched.

 

 


We will run through a small array of 2D tests, being single and/or multi-threaded. A few synthetic 3D benchmark and game titles. A quick comparison of the DDR4 versus DDR3 and clock per clock head to head between the i7-5960X and the Ivy Bridge-E  i7-4930K equipped with several high end DDR3 kits.

In the upcoming part 2 we hope to include results of the two other Haswell-E models, to include liquid and liquid nitrogen cooled results and go a bit deeper into the tweaking of your X99 platform.

 

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