Hey Adam, do you play Arma series? If so, could you bench the new CPU with your GPUs in that game as there have been discussions on our forums that this game is CPU demanding. It would be interesting to see how the Gulftown compares.
Also, can you link up some pics of your CPU @ load to see what temperatures it reaches on the H80 @ 4.5-4.75ghz?
Not everyone, but a lot of people are. That's true. A lot of people have been building computers for a LONG time. For example, in hindsight, looking back, was there any difference between buying an Athlon XP1600+ vs. say XP2000+? Nope, both became obsolete just as fast. What about Pentium 4 "C" 2.4 vs. 2.6 vs. 2.8 vs. 3.0ghz? Nope. All of those topped out at around the same 3.2-3.4ghz, also became obsolete equally fast. What about Core 2 Duo E6300/E6400/E6600/E8400? Nope, all of those CPUs also becames equally obsolete despite overclocking to 3.4ghz+. Same can be said for i7 920-960, and will be said of i5 2400/2500k/2600/2700k, etc.
There is nothing wrong with a person buying a 3960 over 3930 or a 3930 over a 2600k or a 2600k over a Phenom II X4 965. It all depends on their budget, perception of value, income, and what they want out of this hobby, what programs they use, etc.
I think people who buy a $900+ processor aren't necessarily considered with "value", at least not in a traditional sense. I mean 3930 costs almost half and is only 4% slower or so. I just think with consolozation of games and most programs NOT being able to take advantage of more than 4 cores, we are bound to see people question any value in a 6-core CPU, regardless whether it is sold by AMD or Intel. That's a fair game bth. I also don't think a person buying a core i3 and overclocking is any less of an enthusiast than someone buying a $1000 Core i7-3960K. They just have different priorities, incomes (all those other points I listed). Like the argument for buying a 3960 for games only and pairing it with 2 GPUs cannot be made at all, but what if you play games with 3 GPUs and encode video at the same time?
I think a lot of people are actually interested in how much faster SB-E is in overclocked states over the older overclocked 980/990X. I think it's fair to say that "feel" wise is pretty subjective when actual performance benchmarks are widely available. In programs where 6 C/12T CPU can be used to its fullest,
SB-E smokes 2500k/2600k CPUs. Also, one can clearly see that its faster than an overclocked 980/990X.
Of course there is nothing wrong with getting a 3960K even if the performance difference is only 15% over the 980X.
I don't think you should jump to conclusions that people are jealous automatically. Perhaps, they really want to know how much performance increase is necessary out of a CPU to "feel" the difference daily? Is it 10%? 15%? 20%? 25%< etc. Personally, I'd rather see actual benchmarks rather than go by "feel" since that tends to be pretty subjective.