Newbie Intel CPU Question

[davidst99]

Hi,

I'm curious why are the new LGA 2011-3 Intel CPUs clock lower then the 1150 CPUs? Are they more efficient or is it a new architect? Thanks.

David

 

[Burpo]

Yes, more efficient, faster RAM & More cores..

 

[davidst99]

Yes, more efficient, faster RAM & More cores..

Ok Cool. Thanks for the info!

 

[erunion]

Not a new architecture. They have more cores, so dont clock as high.

 

[davidst99]

Does that mean that certain applications that only use one core, such as some games, won't run as fast? Thanks.

David

 

[erunion]

Does that mean that certain applications that only use one core, such as some games, won't run as fast? Thanks.

David

Correct. Lga 2011 is for people who need more cores and/or more ram. Its not necessarily going to be faster than an i7 4790k in every game.

 

[davidst99]

Ok I see, thanks for the info about the new CPU

David

 

[Pheesh]

I'm curious why are the new LGA 2011-3 Intel CPUs clock lower then the 1150 CPUs? Are they more efficient or is it a new architect? Thanks.

same architecture, but more cores, so for the most part should expect same clock per clock performance.

Regarding base clocks: I would look at the clocks being lower on the 2011-3 offerings as more an indication of what clocks were necessary to fit within 140W TDP envelope rather than what those chips are capable of. i.e. if you get these chips you should be overclocking them and likely will be able to approach same/similar clocks as 1150 cpus with appropriate cooling. The benefit is obviously that you can have 2-4 additional cores and 4-8 additional threads with 2011-3 at similar clocks.

Regarding your comment about games- most newer games are utilizing more cores now, so those will see benefits from the additional cores. For games only utilizing ~2 cores you shouldn't be at a disadvantage assuming you overclock.

If you play games, want some level of future proofing and don't plan to overclock, then get an i7-4790k

 

[davidst99]

same architecture, but more cores, so for the most part should expect same clock per clock performance.

Regarding base clocks: I would look at the clocks being lower on the 2011-3 offerings as more an indication of what clocks were necessary to fit within 140W TDP envelope rather than what those chips are capable of. i.e. if you get these chips you should be overclocking them and likely will be able to approach same/similar clocks as 1150 cpus with appropriate cooling. The benefit is obviously that you can have 2-4 additional cores and 4-8 additional threads with 2011-3 at similar clocks.

Regarding your comment about games- most newer games are utilizing more cores now, so those will see benefits from the additional cores. For games only utilizing ~2 cores you shouldn't be at a disadvantage assuming you overclock.

If you play games, want some level of future proofing and don't plan to overclock, then get an i7-4790k

Thanks for the great info. I primary use my desktop for work and I require a couple of VMs with about 6-8GB of RAM each. The X99 looks interesting because I can add 64 GB of RAM. I do play games on my downtime. I just invested in 2x GTX 980s. It's good to know I can over clock this new CPU.

 

[frowertr]

If you're going with x99 get an E5-1660 v3. Nearly priced the same as the 5960x and will also overclock.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'm curious why are the new LGA 2011-3 Intel CPUs clock lower then the 1150 CPUs? Are they more efficient or is it a new architect? Thanks.

Piggybacking on what others have said:

Suppose you have a single core CPU, and a 100W TDP budget. Great! That one CPU core can hit whatever frequency it would like to get to 100W.

Now suppose we want to have two cores. At full load, each core will only be able to produce 50W of heat if we're in the same TDP envelope. For a quad-core we only get 25W per core, for a hex-core we get ~17W per core, and for an octo-core we are stuck with only 12.5W per core! Even with aggressive binning by intel, it's quite hard to make a octo-core hit the same frequencies as a quad-core when in the same total TDP envelope, each core of the quad-core gets twice the thermal allowance. This isn't the end of the story. By aggressively binning, cpu manufacturers can build octo-cores that require less voltage for their target frequency so they can perform better in a fixed thermal envelope. Intel's turbo-boost allows you to apply additional voltage to get higher clocks when not every core is active, thus allowing a single core of an larger core-count chip to eat a much bigger fraction of the TDP (and in same cases, even exceed TDP!) than it would normally be allowed under a full core load.

 

[escrow4]

Look at GameGPUs recent benchmarks. The 5960X is at the top in nearly every recent game and its stock clocked:

Clock speed will help with minimums, but its not like you need 4.4GHz in every game. A 5820K @ 4.0GHz (or slightly lower to ease off the voltage) will give just as good performance with the added headroom of 2 real cores. I run my 5930K at the top turbo bin of 3.7GHz across all 6 cores with no voltage increases and they actually run slightly cooler than my old 4770 non K @ 3.7GHz. There isn't any difference in game to a heavily overclocked i7. Bottom line, more cores over clock speed is what you want in 2015.