Intel Core i7-3930K

When advising people on buying most performance-oriented components, we usually recommend taking a single step back from the top of the line: There?s frequently a bigger difference in price than in capability between the bleeding edge and the next best. That?s unquestionably the case with the Intel Core i7-3930K, the second most powerful CPU in Intel?s Sandy Bridge?Extreme line. No, it doesn?t have all the bells and whistles and shoot-the-moon speed characteristics of the line?s flagship model, the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition. But coming in at almost half the price ($583 list versus $999 list), it will prove for all but the most hard-core die-hards to be The Chip You Want if you?re committed to Intel?s knock-'em-dead X79 Express platform.

Even on paper, the differences between the two CPUs look ridiculously slight. The Core i7-3930K has 12MB of cache to the faster chip?s 15MB, and a clock rate of 3.2GHz instead of 3.3GHz that can rise to a maximum of 3.8GHz instead of 3.9GHz when Turbo Boost is enabled. But that?s about it. Both chips use Intel?s 32nm production process, both have six CPU cores that can manage up to 12 processing threads at a time thanks to Hyper-Threading, and both have TDPs of 130 watts. This chip, like the Core i7-3960X, requires an X79 Express motherboard with an LGA2011 socket; a discrete video card, as the chip sports no integrated graphics system (despite its use of the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture, which provided one on the Core i7-2600K and Core i5-2500K); and a separate cooler, as Intel does not bundle one with any CPU in this line.

Most enthusiasts will consider these small prices to pay?and paying them will be a pleasure given how much you save over the Core i7-3960X for what amounts to nearly equivalent performance. We saw with the non-Extreme Sandy Bridge Core i5-2500K last generation that you can still draw remarkable performance from a next-in-line chip, and our benchmark tests show that Intel has continued that welcome tradition here.

As evaluated on a test system using an Asus P9X79 Deluxe motherboard, the Core i7-3930K applied a dozen filters and effects to an image in Adobe Photoshop CS5 in 2 minutes 53 seconds, as opposed to the Core i7-3960X?s 2 minutes 48 seconds. Video conversion using the open-source program Handbrake took 1 minute 8 seconds, whereas on the Core i7-3960X it was only two seconds faster. In the CineBench R11.5 rendering task, the slower chip?s scores (10.17 for multiple cores, 1.53 for a single core) were just a hair behind those of the faster one (10.48 and 1.57, respectively). The Core i7-3930K?s results on the Futuremark 3DMark 11 physics test (10,958 and a frame rate of 34.78 frames per second, or fps) were barely behind those of the Core i7-3960X (11,509 and 36.54fps). On the full-system Futuremark PCMark 7 benchmark, the scores followed exactly the same pattern: The overall score was 3,643 versus 3,594, with the individual tests similarly matched.

Our tests calibrated for more component-level performance, AIDA64, SiSoftware Sandra 2012, and Geekbench 2.2, proved just as conclusive: There is almost no performance differential between the Core i7-3930K and the Core i7-3960X that most users will find significant enough to be worth the extra $416 or so it will cost to get them. You should note, however, that you also won?t save a significant amount on energy usage: In our measurements conducted with an Extech Datalogger, the Core i7-3930K?s 122.5-watt draw at idle and 233.7-watt draw under full load was not far removed from Core i7-3960X?s respective 124.1-watt and 243.2-watt draws. But if you?re building a system using either of these CPUs (and the likely video cards and other hardware they?ll require), your energy bill is probably not the first thing on your mind.

We?re hard pressed to come up with too many negatives about the Intel Core i7-3930K: It?s a gorgeously balanced CPU that will net you a super-fast computer without sending you on a super-fast trip to the poorhouse, too, and that makes it easily worth an Editors? Choice award in our book. Those who simply cannot settle for anything less than the maximum allowable CPU speed will, of course, prefer the Core i7-3960X, and find those few additional drops of performance worth the money. But everyone else is probably better off with the Core i7-3930K: Whether or not you see fit to overclock it (and if you do, the unlocked multiplier guarantees that you won?t have any trouble pushing it past the Core i7-3960X?s base speed), it?s an amazing processor at an amazing price.

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