HARDWARE

Meet Intel’s Core i7-3820 (Part 3)

1/19/2013 9:19:02 AM

Bring on the benchmarks!

We pass judgment on the patched FX-8150 and Core i7-3820

For our CPU showdown, the pretty much used the exact same hardware that we used in our Holiday 2011 CPU showdown. The AMD tests were run on an Asus Crosshair V Formula board, the Core i7-2600K on a Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3, and the LGA2011 part on an Asus P8X70 Deluxe.

The only differences from the tests run several months ago were BIOS updates to the AM3+ and LGA2011 platforms. Otherwise, we used Windows 7 Professional, a 150GB WD Raptor hard drive, 8GB of DDR3/1600, and a stock GeForce GTX 580, all running the same drivers. For the AMD rig, we reran our tests with both of the hotfixes installed.

GeForce GTX 580

GeForce GTX 580

The verdict? It’s a mixed bag. But let’s face it, we shouldn’t expect miracles in the first place. AMD has already said the patch adds maybe 1 or 2 percent in some tests and nothing in others. That’s about what we saw: Some of the tests offered maybe a couple of ticks of additional performance, while others were the same. Still others showed the pre-patched state being faster. Does that mean the patch is hurting performance? No. more likely we’re seeing the normal variances in performance that happen in any benchmark. We are, after all, talking about 1 to 2 points – that’s pretty much within the margin of error for most tests. That’s likely to disappoint the already dejected AMD faithful who were hoping the patch would give more serious benefits, such as the 10 percent boost predicted from Windows 8, with its fully updated thread scheduler. The bad news is that even with a 10 percent bump in performance from Windows 8’s improved scheduler, it’s not enough to put the chip in real contention with the Core i7-2600K, 2700K, and certainly not the new Core i7-3820. Even worse, by the time Windows 8 hits the shelves, Intel will likely have moved on to its 22nm Ivy Bridge CPUs. Ivy Bridge won’t be a big jump forward on the x86 side of the fence, but it’s going to be significant in terms of integrated graphics and power consumption. Still, for anyone running an AMD FX chip, there’s no real reason not to install the patch, lest you leave any additional performance on the table.

The real battle here is between the 2600K and 3820 parts. When you consider that both chips use what are essentially the same execution cores, any performance difference can be attributed to cache, clock, and memory bandwidth differences. Some of it may also come from motherboard differences, but there’s nothing to be done there, as both chips require different motherboards.

We expected this showdown to be close, but our tests, at least with this configuration, showed the Core i7-3820 to have some pretty healthy leads in the benchmarks. It didn’t win across the board, but we saw everything from virtual ties to 14 percent performance boosts. For example, in Sony Vegas the Core i7-3820 achieved a considerable bump of 12 percent, in HandBrake about 8 percent, and in Valve’s particle test a 9 percent lead over the 2600K. Where does the extra performance come from? Certainly part of it is from the i7-3820’s 4 percent clock-speed advantage, but the rest we legitimately give to the memory bandwidth and cache differences between the chips. It’s clear to us that the Core i7-3820 is the winning part.

The big question is whether the 3820’s better performance is worth the price differences elsewhere in the system. That’s really up to you.  We continue to think that LGA1155 is a pretty awesome platform for a lot of people. It offers everything from $37 Celerons to $332 Core i7-2700K parts, and within a few months you’ll probably have Ivy Bridge parts to pick from, too. Where Core i7-3820 takes over is at the high-end where you truly need a six-core part or a ton of RAM. Where would you need those six-cores or that much RAM? Work. If your day job is pushing pixels in video, 3D rendering, or any other app where more cores means more free time for you, building on the LGA2011 platform makes sense. If you can’t afford a hexa-core processor, the Core i7-3820 lets you build a box with plenty of headroom for the future. We’d also select the Core i7-3820 if we were running a Radeon HD 7970 card. As the sole PCIs 3.0 card out today, we’d want that 10 percent performance bump you get from the faster PCIe 3.0 interface. We’d also go with the Core i7-3820 if we wanted to build either a tri-SLI or tri-CrossFireX rig, where additional PCIe lanes matter.

Making the comparison

Core i7-2600K

Core i7-2600K

Core i7-2600K

§  Clock: 3.46GHz

§  Cores/ Threads: 4/8

§  PCMark7 Score: 3,450

§  PCMark7 Lightweight: 2,612

§  PCMark7 Productivity: 2,269

§  Cinebench 10 Single-core: 6,011

§  Cinebench 10 Multi-core: 23,315

§  Cinebench 11.5: 6.84

§  POV Ray 3.7 (sec): 218.93

§  Bibble (sec): 137

§  Fritz Chess Benchmark: 13,065

§  Intel Burn Test (GFlops): 89.7

§  Sony Vegas Pro 10 (sec): 2,752

§  ProShow Product (sec): 1,063

§  MainConcept (sec): 1,120

§  CyberLink Espresso 6.5 using CPU (sec): 379

§  CyberLink Espresso 6.5 using GPU (sec): 329

§  7-Zip 64MB load, 12 threads (MIPS): 19,046

§  7-Zip 64MB load, max core threads (MIPS): 19,288

§  wPrime 4-thread, 1024M: 349.27

§  wPrime 6-thread, 1024M: 293.16

§  wPrime 8-thread, 1024M: 248.3

§  wPrime 12-thread, 1024M: 271.2

§  HandBrake (sec): 336

§  Sandrea (GB/s): 17.6

§  Valve particle Test (fps): 179

§  Dirt 2 (fps): 189

§  Far cry (fps): 202.39

§  3DMark2011 Score: P6469

§  3DMark2011 GPU: 6,186

§  3DMark2011 Physics: 8,184

§  3DMark2011 Combined: 6,671

Core i7-3820

Core i7-3820

Core i7-3820

§  Clock: 3.6GHz

§  Cores/ Threads: 4/8

§  PCMark7 Score: 3,443

§  PCMark7 Lightweight: 2,598

§  PCMark7 Productivity: 2,306

§  Cinebench 10 Single-core: 6,209

§  Cinebench 10 Multi-core: 24,456

§  Cinebench 11.5: 7.46

§  POV Ray 3.7 (sec): 202.01

§  Bibble (sec): 129

§  Fritz Chess Benchmark: 14,190

§  Intel Burn Test (GFlops): 87

§  Sony Vegas Pro 10 (sec): 2,448

§  ProShow Product (sec): 1,004

§  MainConcept (sec): 730

§  CyberLink Espresso 6.5 using CPU (sec): 309

§  CyberLink Espresso 6.5 using GPU (sec): 306

§  7-Zip 64MB load, 12 threads (MIPS): 21,485

§  7-Zip 64MB load, max core threads (MIPS): 21,590

§  wPrime 4-thread, 1024M: 353.5

§  wPrime 6-thread, 1024M: 265.5

§  wPrime 8-thread, 1024M: 228.1

§  wPrime 12-thread, 1024M: 245

§  HandBrake (sec): 311

§  Sandrea (GB/s): 37.84

§  Valve particle Test (fps): 196

§  Dirt 2 (fps): 188.8

§  Far cry (fps): 220

§  3DMark2011 Score: P6653

§  3DMark2011 GPU: 6,267

§  3DMark2011 Physics: 9,477

§  3DMark2011 Combined: 6,759

FX-8150 Patched

AMD FX-8150

AMD FX-8150

§  Clock: 3.6GHz

§  Cores/ Threads: 8

§  PCMark7 Score: 2,912

§  PCMark7 Lightweight: 2,152

§  PCMark7 Productivity: 1,903

§  Cinebench 10 Single-core: 4,006

§  Cinebench 10 Multi-core: 20,414

§  Cinebench 11.5: 6.01

§  POV Ray 3.7 (sec): 213.1

§  Bibble (sec): 128

§  Fritz Chess Benchmark: 11,567

§  Intel Burn Test (GFlops): 29

§  Sony Vegas Pro 10 (sec): 3,312

§  ProShow Product (sec): 1,164

§  MainConcept (sec): 946

§  CyberLink Espresso 6.5 using CPU (sec): 430

§  CyberLink Espresso 6.5 using GPU (sec): 426

§  7-Zip 64MB load, 12 threads (MIPS): 19,904

§  7-Zip 64MB load, max core threads (MIPS):20,361

§  wPrime 4-thread, 1024M: 448

§  wPrime 6-thread, 1024M: 353

§  wPrime 8-thread, 1024M: 293

§  wPrime 12-thread, 1024M: 322

§  HandBrake (sec): 347

§  Sandrea (GB/s): 17.6

§  Valve particle Test (fps): 107

§  Dirt 2 (fps): 115.4

§  Far cry (fps): 107

§  3DMark2011 Score: P6146

§  3DMark2011 GPU: 6,194

§  3DMark2011 Physics: 6,335

§  3DMark2011 Combined: 5,580

FX-8150 Pre-patch

§  Clock: 3.6GHz

§  Cores/ Threads: 8

§  PCMark7 Score: 2,838

§  PCMark7 Lightweight: 2,222

§  PCMark7 Productivity: 1,957

§  Cinebench 10 Single-core: 4,080

§  Cinebench 10 Multi-core: 20,277

§  Cinebench 11.5: 5.79

§  POV Ray 3.7 (sec): 213.08

§  Bibble (sec): 136

§  Fritz Chess Benchmark: 11,704

§  Intel Burn Test (GFlops): 29

§  Sony Vegas Pro 10 (sec): 2,663

§  ProShow Product (sec): 1,171

§  MainConcept (sec): 902

§  CyberLink Espresso 6.5 using CPU (sec): 429

§  CyberLink Espresso 6.5 using GPU (sec): 412

§  7-Zip 64MB load, 12 threads (MIPS): 20,400

§  7-Zip 64MB load, max core threads (MIPS): 20,773

§  wPrime 4-thread, 1024M: 469

§  wPrime 6-thread, 1024M: 357.07

§  wPrime 8-thread, 1024M: 293.7

§  wPrime 12-thread, 1024M: 328.08

§  HandBrake (sec): 345

§  Sandrea (GB/s): 17.7

§  Valve particle Test (fps): 108

§  Dirt 2 (fps):120

§  Far cry (fps):111.23

§  3DMark2011 Score: P6138

§  3DMark2011 GPU: 6,167

§  3DMark2011 Physics: 6,426

§  3DMark2011 Combined: 5,569

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