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Intel Core i7 4960X (Ivy Bridge E) Reviewby Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/3/2013 4:10 AM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Ivy Bridge
- Ivy Bridge-E
120 Comments
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wsaenotsock - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkHow does Intel's closed-loop cooling package compare to say, Corsair's or other similar products? Reply
chizow - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkProbably within 1-2C of similar "extra wide" 120x37mm closed-loop coolers. Looks like Intel's solution is made by Asetek going by it's block and mounting design, so I'd compare it against the Antec 920 for starters. Reply
Samus - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkStill running i7-950 system (was an i7-920 back in 2008) and all I've upgraded since building it is a small bump in CPU speed, added water cooling, and installed two GTX660's in place of two GTX460's installed in 2010, which replaced the Radeon 4870x2 from the original 2008 assembly date. I've also replaced the original 500GB Seagate Boot Drive from 2008 with an Intel 160GB X25-M in 2010. Still use the same SSD to this day.
Same motherboard, same 6x2GB G.skill DDR3-1600 modules (that cost $600 back in 2008) and same PC Power & Cooling 750-QUAD.
I've added a USB 3.0 PCIe controller as well.
Overall, this is the longest (5 years) I've ever owned a system that retained the same motherboard. The irony is Intel discontinued Socket 1366 so fast it wasn't even funny. It was actively supported less than 2 years, and only 2 generations of chips (using the same architecture and process) were made within a year of each other, essentially giving this socket a 15-month lifetime.
But 5 years later, a system built on this socket is still faster than 90% of the production systems today. Reply
Assimilator87 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkYeah, for 1366 owners, there's absolutely no reason to upgrade, especially with overclocking. At least you got one generation of upgrades, unlike 1156 owners who got completely screwed.
P.S. The second gen upgrade on 1366 (Westmere) was a new architecture and process. They shrunk down from 45nm to 32nm and added AES instructions. Reply
Inso-ThinkTank - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - linkI'm a current 1156 socket owner running I7 875K @ 4.2. My rig is still running strong, but I'm ready for an upgrade. Just purchase a 4960x with 16 gig of Corsair Dominator Platinum at 2400 and the Asus Black Edition mobo. Hope the spending is worth it. Reply
evilspoons - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkWhat does this have to do with chizow's comment about the closed-loop cooler?? Reply
JPForums - Thursday, September 05, 2013 - link
What does this have to do with chizow's comment about the closed-loop cooler??
Absolutely nothing. I'm guessing it was just an easy way to get posted near the top.
Probably within 1-2C of similar "extra wide" 120x37mm closed-loop coolers. Looks like Intel's solution is made by Asetek going by it's block and mounting design, so I'd compare it against the Antec 920 for starters.
If I recall correctly, the 920 is 49mm thick. Also, I've found that fan selection can make more than a little difference. I would not expect the Intel cooler to match Antec's 920, given their history of racing to the bottom with cooler components. That said, it should beat the 620 and similar 120x120x25mm closed loop systems (assuming they didn't screw up the fan selection in epic manner). Reply
foursixty - Saturday, April 05, 2014 - linkI run a i7950 at 4.07 ghz with a overclocking thermaltake cooler, 3x 580's and 12 gb ddr, am now upgrading to the i74960x, thermaltake water 3.0 and 2 x asus gtx 780ti sli, 32 gb ddr3. the old rig is still going strong and will use it for a simulator pc as i have a g27 sitting doing nothing. Great machine and has served me well!~ Reply
foursixty - Saturday, April 05, 2014 - linkjust might add for the asus sabertooth x79, i74960x, 32gb 2400 ddr3, and 2 asus gtx 780ti oc cards is a $4000 upgrade, been doing a lot of overtime so i thought i would update while i got the extra cash Reply
just4U - Friday, September 06, 2013 - linkCorsairs closed loop and Intel's appear to be built by the same company.. Some of Corsair's earlier attempts were noisy whereas you didn't really have that problem with Intel's. Overall I think it's a pretty solid contender with very few faults. There is better on the market obviously... but it's decent for it's price. Reply
Snoopykins - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkExcellent review. I must say the reviews Anand himself writes always seem to be spot on. One question, where does the 22 months number come from? Is that the scheduled/rumored/leaked release date of Haswell-E? If so, isn't that going to be even more behind than Ivy-E? I'm assuming Skylake will have been out for longer than Haswell has been out now, no? Also, do we know that Skylake will support DDR4? I've heard Haswell-E will.
Anywho, thanks for the excellent review, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Reply
eiriklf - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - link22 months is about the time between the releases of sandy bridge extreme and ivy bridge extreme Reply
1Angelreloaded - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkHaswell-e will if they move to a new socket and board DDR4 probably won't be compatible with DDR3 DIMM sockets. Reply
hrrmph - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkYep, that was a great review.
It's not often that I think that a review really nails it all (at least for what I need), but this one did it. Very balanced, taking shots at the weak points, while also thoroughly explaining what is good about it, and who it might benefit.
X79 is adequate only if you are willing to load your machine up with lots of add-in controller cards.
Intel will really need to up their game on the chipset when Haswell-E gets here. Reply
jasonelmore - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkmost modern x79 boards have all the add on controllers soldered onto the motherboard. Cards are not needed. Reply
just4U - Friday, September 06, 2013 - linkWith so few new things coming out in the desktop division these days Im sure Anand is quite fine to getting back into the trenches to do the odd review. Used to be (or so it seemed) every other day we were getting glimpses at exciting new things but these days that appears in the form of tablets and smartphones /w the desktop industry being somewhat stagnant in my opinion. Reply
dishayu - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkAt this rate, as Anand suggests, Haswell-E will come out around/after Skylake based Desktop parts(assuming that is still on track for 2015 release). I am convinced that it would have been a better approach to skip Haswell-E altogether and jump straight to Skylake-E in 2015. This logic is further supported by the fact that next gen will require a new socket design (since Haswell comes with FIVR). Reply
jasonelmore - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkthere is still a node jump to go through. Most of the time this delays projected release dates. Broadwell may be late. Reply
Kevin G - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkSince there is going to be a Haswell refresh in 2014, I'd expect Haswell-E to be introduced around the same time: roughly a year from now. The delay of Broadwell on the desktop will allow Haswell-E to catch up in cadence a bit.
The new question is when Broadwell-E will arrive: with Skylake or vanilla Broadwell on the desktop? Reply
f0d - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linknice cpu for those that have an older platform (like 1156 or 1366 maybe) but as someone that already owns a 2011 socket cpu im still hoping they will eventually release 8 or even 10/12 core cpu's so i can encode vids faster
cmon intel release those 8/10/12 core cpu's for the enthusiast platform.! Reply
ShieTar - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkWhats the point? A 10-core only runs at 2GHz, and a 8-core only runs at 3 GHz, so both have less overall performance than a 6-core overclocked to more than 4GHz. You simply cannot put more computing power into a reasonable power envelope for a single socket. If a water-cooled Enthusiast 6-core is not enough for your needs, you automatically need a 2-socket system.
And its not like that is not feasible for enthusiasts. The ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS, the EVGA Classified SR-X and the Supermicro X9DAE are mainboard aiming at the enthusiast / workstation market, combining two sockets for XEON-26xx with the capability to run GPUs in SLI/CrossFire. And if you are looking to spend significantly more than 1k$ for a CPU, the 400$ on those boards and the extra cost for ECC Memory should not scare you either.
Just go and check Anandtech own benchmarking: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6808/westmereep-to-s... . It's clear that you need two 8-cores to be faster then the enthusiast 6-cores even before overclocking is taken into account.
Maybe with Haswell-E we can get 8 cores with >3.5GHz into <130W, but with Ivy Bridge, there is simply no point. Reply
f0d - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkwho cares if the power envelope is "reasonable"?
i already have my SBE overclocked to 5.125Ghz and if they release a 10core i would oc that thing like a mutha******
that link you posted is EXACTLY why i want a 10/12 core instead of dual socket (which i could afford if it made sense performance wise) - its obvious that video encoding doesnt work well with NUMA and dual sockets but it does work well with multi cored single cpu's
so i say give me a 10 core and let me OC it like crazy - i dont care if it ends up using 350W+ i have some pretty insane watercooling to suck it up (3k ultra kaze's in push/pull on a rx480rad 24v laingd5s raystorm wb - a little over the top but isnt that what these extreme cpu's are for?) Reply
1Angelreloaded - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkI have to agree with you in the extreme market who gives a damn about being green, most will run 1200watt Plat mod PSUs with an added extra 450 watt in the background, and 4GPUs as this is pretty much the only reason to buy into 2011 socket in the first place 2 extra cors and 40x PCIe lanes. Reply
crouton - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkI could not agree with you more! I have a OC'd i920 that just keeps chugging along and if I'm going to drop some coin on an upgrade, I want it to be an UPGRADE. Let ME decide what's reasonable for power consumption. If I burn up a 8/10 core CPU with some crazy cooling solution then it's MY fault. I accept this. This is the hobby that I've chosen and it comes with risks. This is not some elementary school "color by numbers" hobby where you can follow a simple set of instructions to get the desired result in 10 minutes. This is for the big boys. It takes weeks or more to get it right and even then, we know we can do better. Not interested in XEON either. Reply
Assimilator87 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkThe 12 core models run at 2.7Ghz, which will be slightly faster than six cores at 5.125Ghz. You could also bump up the bclk to 105, which would put the CPU at 2.835Ghz. Reply
Casper42 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - link2690 v2 will be 10c @ 3.0 and 130W. Effectively 30Ghz.
2697 v2 will be 12c @ 2.7 and 130W. Effectively 32.4Ghz
Assuming a 6 Core OC'd to 5Ghz Stable, 6c @ 5.0 and 150W? (More Power due to OC)
effectively 30Ghz.
So tell me again how a highly OC'd and large unavailable to the masses 6c is better than a 10/12c when you need Multiple Threads?
Keep in mind those 10 and 12 core Server CPUs are almost entirely AIR cooled and not overclocked.
I think they should have released an 8 and 10 core Enthusiast CPU. Hike up the price and let the market decide which one they want. Reply
MrSpadge - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - link6c @ 5.0 will eat more like 200+ W instead of 130/150. Reply
ShieTar - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkFor Sandy Bridge, we had:
2687, 8c @ 3.1 GHz => 24.8 GHz effectively
3970X, 6c @ 3.5 GHz => 21 GHz before overclocking, only 4.2 GHz required to exceed the Xeon.
Fair enough, for Ivy Bridge Xeons, the 10core at 3 GHz has been announced. I'll believe that claim when I see some actual benchmarks on it. I have some serious doubts that a 10core at 3 GHz can actually use less power than an 8 core at 3.4 GHz. So lets see on what frequency those parts will actually run, under load.
Furthermore, the effective GHz are not the whole truth, even on highly parallel tasks. While cache seems to scale with the number of cores for most Xeons, memory bandwidth does not, and there are always overheads due to the common use of the L3 cache and the memory.
Finally, not directly towards you but to several people talking about "green": Entirely not the point. No matter how much power your cooling system can remove, you are always creating thermal gradients when generating too much heat on a very small space. Why do you guys think there was no 3.5GHz 8 core for Sandy Bridge-EP? The silicon is the same for 6-core and 8-core, the core itself could run the speed. But INTEL is not going to verify the continued operation of a chip with a TDP >150W.
They give a little leeway when it comes to the K-class, because there the risk is with customer to a certain point. But they just won't go and sell a CPU which reliably destroys itself or the MB the very moment somebody tries to overclock it. Reply
psyq321 - Thursday, September 05, 2013 - linkI am getting 34.86 @Cinebench with dual Xeon 2697 v2 running @3 GHz (max all-core turbo).
Good luck reaching that with superclocked 4930/4960X ;-) Reply
piroroadkill - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkAll I really learn from these high end CPU results is that if you actually invested in high end 1366 in the form of 980x all that time ago, you've got probably the longest lasting system in terms of good performance that I can even think of. Reply
madmilk - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIf you invested in the 980 or the 970 (not the extreme ones) you got an awesome deal. Three years old, $600, overclockable, and within 30% of the 4960X on practically everything. Reply
bobbozzo - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkTrue, but my Haswell i5-4670k was around $200 for the CPU (on sale), and under $150 for an ASUS Z87-Plus motherboard.
It's running on air cooling at 4.5/4.5/4.5/4.4GHz.
I wasn't expecting it to be as fast for gaming as an i7-4770k, but looking at the gaming benchmarks in this article, I'm extremely pleased that I did not spend more for the i7. Reply
althaz - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkI had a launch model Core 2 Duo (the E6300) that with overclocking (1.86Ghz => 2.77Ghz) was a pretty decent CPU until last year (when I replaced it with an Ivy Bridge Core i5). That's what? Six years out of the CPU and it's still going strong for my buddy (to whom it now belongs). Reply
Kevin G - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - link"My biggest complaint about IVB-E isn't that it's bad, it's just that it could be so much more. With a modern chipset, an affordable 6-core variant (and/or a high-end 8-core option) and at least using a current gen architecture, this ultra high-end enthusiast platform could be very compelling."
I think that you answered why Intel isn't going this route earlier in the article. Consumers are getting the smaller 6 core Ivy Bridge-E chip. There is also a massive 12 core chip due soon for socket 2011 based servers. Harvesting an 8 core versions from the 12 core die is an expensive proposition and something Intel may not have the volumes for (they're not going to hinder 10 and 12 core capable dies to supply 8 core volumes to consumers). Still, if Intel wanted to, they could release an 8 core Sandy bridge-E chip and use that for their flag ship processor since the architectural differences between Sandy and Ivy Bridge are minor.
The chipset situation just sucks. Intel didn't even have to release a new chipset, they could have released an updated X79 (Z79 perhaps?) that fixed the initial bugs. For example, ship with SAS ports enabled and running at 6 Gbit speeds. Reply
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - link"The big advantages that IVB-E brings to the table are a ridiculous number of PCIe lanes , a quad-channel memory interface and 2 more cores in its highest end configuration."
I'm going to pick on you a little bit here Anand, because I think it is important that we convey an accurate image to Intel about what we as end-users want from the hardware they design. 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes is NOT "ridiculous". In fact, for my purposes I would call it "inadequate". Sure, "my purposes" are running 3 2560x1440 screens @ 120Hz and that isn't the average rig today, but I want to suggest it isn't far off what people are now asking for. We should be encouraging Intel to give us more PCIe connectivity, not implying we have too much already. :) Reply
canthearu - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkActually, you would find that you are still badly limited by graphics power, rather than limited by system bandwidth.
A modern graphics card doesn't even stress out 8 lanes PCIe 3.0.
I'm also not saying that it is a bad thing to have lots of I/O, It isn't. However you do need to know where your bottlenecks are. Otherwise you spend money trying to fix the wrong thing. Reply
The Melon - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkNot all high bandwidth PCI-e cards are graphics cards.
I for one would like to be able to run 2x PCIe x16 GPU's and at least 1 each of LSI SAS 2008, dual port DDR or QDR Infiniband, dual port 10GBe and perhaps an actual RAID card.
Sure that is a somewhat extreme example. But you can only run one of the expansion cards plus 2 GPU before you run out of lanes. This is an enthusiast platform after all. Many of us are going to want to do Extreme things with it. Reply
Flunk - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkNow you're just being silly, sending $10,000 on a system without any real increase in performance for anything you're going to do on a desktop/workstation is just stupid.
Besides, if you're being incredibly stupid you'd need to go quad Xeons anyway (160 PCI-E lanes FTW). Reply
Azethoth - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkOn the one hand, good review. On the other hand, my dream of a new build in the "performance" line is snuffed out. It just seems so lame making all these compromises vs Haswell, and basically things will never get better because the platform target is shifting to mobile and so battery life is key and performance parts will just never be a focus again. Reply
f0d - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linki feel the same way
the future doesnt look too bright for the performance enthusiast - i dont want low power smaller cpu's i want BIG 8/12 core cpus and i dont really give a crap about power usage Reply
Rick83 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIf you really want that number of cores, Ivy Bridge E5/E7 Xeons are going to deliver that, in the 150W power envelope. This is useful in the server market, but will only sell in homeopathic quantities in the desktop market. Still, you should be able to find them in retail around Christmas. Knock yourself out!
Really IB-E is a free product for Intel, which is the only reason it made it to market at all. They need the 6-core dies for the medium density servers anyway, which is where they actually make sense over SB-Xeons, due to the smaller power envelope/higher efficiency. The investment to turn that core into a consumer product on an existing platform is almost zero, short of a small marketing budget, and possibly a tiny bit of (re-)validation.
This was never a product designed for the enthusiast market, and is being shoe-horned into that position. Due to the smaller die Intel can probably make better margin over SB-E, which is the only reason to introduce this product in the sector anyway, and possibly to get some brand awareness going with the launch of a new flagship.
From an economical point of view it makes no sense for Intel to have an actual enthusiast platform. Haswell refresh will be unlikely to bring more cores either (and without the extra I/O they would be a bit hobbled, I imagine), so possibly with Skylake there will be a 6-core upper mainstream solution. Still unlikely from an economical point of view, as Intel would probably prefer sticking to two dies, and going 6/4 may not be economical, whereas selling 6-core CPUs as quads (as they do with 48xx) doesn't work that well in the part of the market that generates reasonable volume. Reply
f0d - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkthe problem with xeon is that you cant overclock them so my 5ghz SBE would be close to as good as a 8/10 core xeon
i dont really care about why intel are not releasing high core count cpu's i just know i want them at a decent price ($1k and under) and overclockable - these 6 core ones just dont make the cut anymore
i just hate the direction cpu's are going with low power low core count highly integrated everythiing, 5 years ago i was dreaming of 8 core cpu's being standard about now but we still have 4 (6 with sbe) core cpu's as standard which blows and per core performance hasnt really changed much going from sandy bridge to haswell
i dont care about power and heat just give me the performance i want to encode highest quality handbrake movies in less than 24 hours.!! Reply
ShieTar - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - link"All" you want is Intel to invest a massive development effort in order to produce for the first time an overclocking CPU with a TDP of around 200W, with silicone for which their business customers would pay 2k$ to 3k$, and sell it to you and the other 500 people in your niche for less than 1k$?
Intel already offer you a solution if you need more processing power than the enthusiast solution gives you: 2 socket workstation boards, 4 socket server boards, 60-core co-processor cards. Reply
f0d - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - link2 socket is inefficient for my workloads
they could just release a xeon that is unlocked and let me do what i want with it - its not like the workstation/server guys would overclock so its not like intel would be losing any money
no development needed
2-3k? i can already buy 8 core SBE for 1k - why not let me oc that? Reply
wallysb01 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkMany would overclock when Intel is charging hundreds of dollars for just small GHz bumps. You won't seem the academic or large corporation clusters doing it, but the small businesses with just a handful of workstations? They might.
Look at the 2660 v2 2.2GHz at $1590 and the 2680 v2 2.8GHz at $1943. That's $353 for 600MHz. On a dual processor system its $700, then you have to pay the markups from those actually selling the computers (ie Dell/HP), which takes $700 to $1000 or more. One small little tweak and you're saving yourself $1000, while not stressing the system all that much (assuming you don't go crazy and try to get 3.5GHz from that 2.2GHz base chip). Reply
mapesdhs - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - link
The catch though is that the mbds used for these systems don't have
BIOS setups which support oc'ing, and the people who use them aren't
generally experienced in such things. I know someone at a larger movie
company who said it'd be neat to be able to experiment with this,
especially an unlocked XEON, but in reality the pressures of time, the
scale of the budgets involved, the large number of systems used for
renderfarms, the OS management required, etc., all these issues mean
it's easier to just buy off the shelf units and scale as required (the
renderfarm at the company I'm thinking of has more than 7000 cores
total, mostly based on Dell blade servers) and management isn't that
interested in doing anything different or innovative/risky. It's easy
to think a smaller company might be more likely to try such a thing,
but in reality for a smaller company it would be a much larger
financial risk to do so. Bigger companies could afford to try it, but
aren't geared up for such ideas.
Btw, oc'ing a XEON is viable with single-socket mbds that happen to
support them and have chipsets which don't rely on the CPU multiplier
for oc'ing, eg. an X5570 on an Asrock X58 Extreme6 works ok (I have
one); the chip advantage is a higher TDP and 50% faster QPI compared to
a clock-comparable i7 950.
Sadly, other companies often don't bother supporting XEONs anyway;
Gigabyte does on some of its boards (X58A-UD3R is a good example) but
ASUS tends not to.
Some have posted about core efficiency and they're correct; I have a
Dell T7500 with two X5570s, but my oc'd 3930K beats it for highly
threaded tasks such as CB 11.5, and it's about 2X faster for single-
threaded ops. The 3930K's faster RAM probably helps aswell (64GB
DDR3/2400, vs. only DDR3/1333 in the Dell which one can't change).
Someone commented about Intel releasing an unlocked XEON. Of course
they could, but they won't because they don't need to, and biz users
wouldn't really care, it's not what they want, and note that power
efficiency is very important for big server setups, something of which
oc'ing can of course make utterly ruin. :D Someone said who cares about
power guzzling when it comes to enthusiast builds, and that's true, but
when it comes to XEONs the main target market does care, so again Intel
has no incentive to bother releasing an unlocked XEON.
I agree with the poster who said 40 PCIe lanes isn't ridiculous. We had
such provision with X58, so if anything for a top-end platform only 40
lanes isn't that impressive IMO. Far worse is the continued limit of
just 2 SATA3 ports; that really is a pain, because the 3rd party
controllers are generally awful. The Asrock X79 Extreme11 solved this
to some extent by offering onboard SAS, but they kinda crippled it by
not having any cache RAM as part of the built-in SAS chip.
Ian. Reply
wallysb01 - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - link"It's easy to think a smaller company might be more likely to try such a thing, but in reality for a smaller company it would be a much larger financial risk to do so. Bigger companies could afford to try it, but aren't geared up for such ideas.
Btw, oc'ing a XEON is viable with single-socket mbds that happen to support them and have chipsets which don't rely on the CPU multiplier for oc'ing, eg. an X5570 on an Asrock X58 xtreme6 works ok (I have one); the chip advantage is a higher TDP and 50% faster QPI compared to a clock-comparable i7 950."
These two statements work against eachother. If OC a SP xeon is relatively easy, only if supported, there isn't much reason a DP xeon set up couldn't be OCed within reason without much effort.
I'm not going to say this would be a common thing, but the small shops run by someone with a "tinkerer" mind set towards computing would certainly be interested in attempting to get that extra 10-20% performance, which Intel would change another $1000 or more for, but get it for free. Reply
psyq321 - Thursday, September 05, 2013 - linkZ9PE-D8 WS has decent overclocking options (not like their consumer X79 boards, but not bad either).
However, apart from a small BCLK bump, this is useless as SNB-EP and IVB-EP Xeons are locked.
The best I can do with dual Xeon 2697 v2 is ~3150 MHz (I might be able to go a bit further but I did not bother) for all-core turbo.
Even if Intel ignores the business reasons NOT to allow Xeon overclocking (to force high-performance-trading people to buy more expensive Xeons as they showed willingness to overclock and, so, potentially cannibalize market for more expensive EX parts) technically this would be a huge challenge.
Why? Well, 12-core Xeon 2697 power-usage would literally explode if you allow running this on 4+ GHz and with voltages normally seen in overclocking world. I am sure the power draw of the single part would be more than 300W, so 600W for a dual-socket board.
This is not unheard of (after all, high-end GPUs can draw comparable power) - however, this would mandate significantly higher specs for the motherboard components and put people in actual danger of fires by using inadequate components.
Maybe when Intel moves to Haswell E/EP - when the voltage regulation becomes CPUs's business, maybe they can find a way to allow overclocking of such huge CPUs after passing lots of checks. Otherwise, Intel runs huge risk of being sued for causing fires. Reply
mapesdhs - Sunday, August 13, 2017 - linkFour years later, who could have imagined we'd end up with Threadripper, and the mess Intel is now in? Funny old world. :D Reply
stephenbrooks - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link--[i just hate the direction cpu's are going with low power low core count highly integrated everythiing, 5 years ago i was dreaming of 8 core cpu's being standard about now but we still have 4]--
So I got an AMD FX8350, that's 8 cores and 4GHz before turbo. Quite a bit cheaper than Intel's too.
OK, obviously AMD gets less operations per clock and the 8 cores only have 4 "real" FPUs between them but I wanted 8 cores to test scaling of computer programs on without breaking the bank. Reply
knirfie - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkWhy not use a gaming benchmark that does benefit from the extra cores, such as Civ5? Reply
ShieTar - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkOr Starcraft 2? Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkHahahaha.... best 1.5 core benchmark around! Reply
althaz - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIt sure does murder one core though. Reply
BrightCandle - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkor Arma 3.
There are games out there that can utilise more cores and yet you didn't test with any of them. Reply
bds71 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkas someone who regularly does encoding, 4k gaming, and (when not in use otherwise) folding@home - all things which can fully leverage mult-core processors and powerfull GPUs - i look forward to these reviews of new enthusiast class processors. and, it saddens me that since SB-E there have been only marginal improvements in this sector. i never thought we (as a technology power-house, and as a society) would settle for this. for me, it all began when they started putting GPUs on-die with CPUs for desktop PCs (sure, for laptops i can certainly understand) - i mean who DOESN'T use a discreet GPU in a desktop system???? and for those who do, why don't you just get a laptop???
GPUs on-die took the focus away from the CPU. and, while there are minimal gains to be had, the showing here today is abysmal. 2 yrs of waiting and we get a 5% increase (for what i do, i want power and could really care less about power draw - as i would say most enthusiasts do). i get it - to build more powerful hardware, it HAS to become more efficient, but it's an evolutionary development process. haswell could very easily be an enthusiast class product: get rid of the rediculous GPU (for the desktop), double the core count, and raise the TDP to 125/130 (haswell-E?) - and they could do it a LOT earlier than 1-2 years from now. come on Intel - stop screwing the guys who you built your reputation on (after all, it's always the fastest/most powerfull hardware that's shown in reviews to boost the reputation of any company).
/rant off/ sorry, this is just very dissapointing. Reply
f0d - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linki agree very disappointing
too much integration and not enough performance is the problem with modern intel cpus
i dont want integrated graphics and vrm's and whatever else they plan on integrating - i want huge core counts in a single die for the enthusiast platform.! Reply
jabber - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkI think what folks forget is -
Just how many of these chips does Intel actually sell a year?
I bet it's tiny. I bet the i3/i5 chips outsell them 50 to 1. Thats why stuff isn't happening at the top so much. The demand has dwindled. Ten years ago a lot of people could eat all the cpu power they could get their hands on. Now? Not so much. Plenty people now still happy with their 2008/9 spec quads. Basically these top end Intel i7 chips are the Mercedes S class. A way for Intel to put new stuff and techniques in, that may or may not filter down in the future generations.
Intel knows the figures and it knows that the action is at the other end of the spectrum. Not for folks that largely want to rip video and run benchmarks all day. Reply
f0d - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linki agree they dont sell as many as the lower end cpu's but why not just sell us an unlocked xeon than can also OC?
its not like they would lose money from letting us OC the xeon because the people that would normally buy a xeon for servers etc would never think about overclocking them
then its a win/win situation for intel as they are still getting their xeon money and they will have a decent enthusiast cpu also
and yes i would happily pay 1k (the price i can find current SBE 8 core cpu's) for an OCable 8 core Reply
jabber - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIndeed and in being happy to pay $1000 for a CPU that puts you in a very very small group.
Times are tough. Sell low and sell many. Reply
Kevin G - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkI believe the only way to get a specially binned or configured chip from Intel is to be an OEM and order a large volume. For an unlocked Xeon, the only chance Intel would release such a system would be under contract for a super computer contract that also used liquid cooling.
OEM's like HP, Dell and Apple can also acquire specifically binned chips for a premium if the OEM wants something better or for a discount if Intel has excess inventories of low grade chips they need to sell. Reply
1Angelreloaded - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkApple was the one who petitioned Intel to put the GPU on Die, so they could get away selling at higher prices with a lower cost to them. Do like I do BLAME APPLE. Reply
colonelclaw - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIn conclusion, if you're an enthusiast who wants a high core count, Xeon is your only choice. For the price of the top-end Xeon you can buy a pretty decent second-hand car!
We really need AMD to get back into the high-end game. Reply
f0d - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkyeah cpu's were much better when amd competed in the high end
lets just hope they can pull a good one out of somewhere Reply
Casper42 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkHate to burst your bubble but AMD is going through a bit of a reset right now.
Opteron 6400s in 2014. Minimal increase in performance.
Next Gen Ground Up architecture is 2015, or when you get your AMD rep drunk at a trade show, you hear more likely 2016. If they can pull it off, this is where they will become a player again.
Most of their attention at the moment is Trinity style APUs with minimal Core Counts just like Intel's desktop stuff. Reply
DG4RiA - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkWhen are these E5 V2 Xeons gonna be out ? Why release this first instead of the new Xeons ?
Hardly any performance increase after 22 months. I get that they want to be able to sell the 12-cores Xeon for three grands instead of one, but why can't they just add two extra cores to 4960X instead of just adding 200MHz ? Reply
Casper42 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkE5-2600 v2 is next week, Septh 10th
E5-4600 v2 and E5-2400 v2 will be very end of 2013 or early 2014.
E7 (Ivy EX) will also be like January 2014. 15 cores is what I am hearing there. Reply
DG4RiA - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkThanks for the info. I'm looking at dual socket build, so hopefully these V2 Xeon is worth the wait. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIntel is so greedy. They could have made this chip 10 core / 20 thread and the die size still would have been less than SNB-E. For a high end part, a chip this small is just a slap in the face. I hope their greed costs them lots of $$. Reply
ShieTar - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkSure. Also, the TDP at close to 4 GHz would have been 220W. And the majority of customers would have tried to overclock them and drive 300W through them. And either complained because they damage too easily, or because of the lousy overclocking potential. Reply
cactusdog - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIB-E is a massive failure just like SB-E. Thanks Intel for killing the highend for me. Actually, I think this is their plan, to kill the highend. Its ridiculous that this platform is so far behind the mainstream platform. 2x sata 6GB/s ports? No Intel USB 3.0? Worse Single threaded performance than mainstream? Sandy Bridge-e seemed like an unfinished project where many compromises were made and ivy-e looks the same. Reply
knweiss - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkAnand, you write that Corsair supplied 4x 8GB DDR3-1866 Vengeance Pro memory for the testbed. However, you also remark "infrequent instability at stock voltages" with 32 GB. Then, in the legend of memory latency chart, you write "Core i7-4960X (DDR3-1600)" .
So I wonder which memory configuration was actually used during the benchmarks? Less than 32 GB with DDR3-1866, non-stock voltages, or 32GB DDR3-1600? Wouldn't anything but 4x DDR3-1866 be a little bit unfair because you otherwise don't utilise the full potential of the CPU? Reply
bobbozzo - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkThe article says that 1600 is the max memory speed SUPPORTED if you use more than one DIMM per channel. Reply
knweiss - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkThere are 4 channels. Reply
chizow - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkNice job Anand, your conclusion pretty much nailed it as to why LGA2011 doesn't cut it today and why this release is pretty ho-hum in general. I would've liked to have seen some 4820K results in there to better illustrate the difference between 4770K Haswell and SB-E, but I suppose that is limited by what review samples you received.
But yeah, unless you need the 2 extra cores or need double DIMM capacity, there's not much reason to go LGA2011/IVB-E over Haswell at this point. Even the PCIe lane benefit is hit or miss for Nvidia users, as PCIe 3.0 is not officially supported for Nvidia cards and their reg hack is hit or miss on some boards still.
The downsides of LGA2011 vs LGA1150 are much greater, imo, as you lose 4 extra SATA3(6G) ports and native USB 3.0 as you covered, along with much lower overall platform power consumption. The SATA3 situation is probably the worst though, as 2 isn't really enough to do much, but 6 opens up the possibility of an SSD boot drive along with a few really fast SATA3 RAID0 arrays. Reply
TEAMSWITCHER - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkI'm really disappointed by these numbers. As a software developer, the FireFox compile benchmark best indicates the benefit I would get from upgrading to this CPU. And, it looks like the 4770K would be about the same difference - except far less expensive. I really don't think I need anything more than 16GB for RAM, and one high-end graphics card is enough to drive my single WQHD (2560x1440) display. Do bragging rights count? No...I mean really? Reply
madmilk - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkTime to consider Xeons... Reply
MrBungle123 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkWhat's a Xeon going to do? Be slower than the 4960X? You lose clock speed by going with huge core counts and that translates to even more losses in single threaded performance. There comes a point where there are diminishing returns on adding more cores... (see AMD) Reply
MrSpadge - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkTime to save yourself some money with a 4770 - not the worst news. Reply
Kevin G - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkYour best bet would be to hope for desktop CrystalWell part. That extra cache should do wonders for compile times even if you'd lose a bit of clock speed. However, Intel is intentionally holding back the best socket 1150 parts they could offer as the benefits of Crystalwell + TSX optimized software would put performance into large core count Xeon territory in some cases. Reply
1Angelreloaded - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkCan you have a comparison chart please for the 4770k, E5-8core Xenon, 4960X, with benchmarks included. This kind of makes little sense to me X-79 was behind on feature sets like full SATA3 when in reality a lot of these boards will be used as workstation/normal/gaming computers, performance on those boards tends to suffer because lack there of native support. Instead 3rd party chips are used to add extra features which have significant drawbacks. I understand using the socket for 2 gen in order to extend life of boards however 1336 and the next leap to haswell should have been taken, making a board last 2 years with the prime features that defined that generation. This just seams like intel is ignoring its higher end market due to lack of competition out there. Reply
sabarjp - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkKind of depressing that 3 years of technology only took the compile of Firefox from 23 minutes to 20 minutes. The high-end isn't looking so high these days. Reply
dgingeri - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkSo where's the 4820k review? I don't care much about more than 4 cores, but I need more I/O than Haswell offers. (crappy motherboards that offer either 8/4/4 or 8/8/2 are just unacceptable.) I'd like to know how the 4820k overclocks and handles I/O from dual and triple SLi/Crossfire. Reply
Eidigean - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkVisual Studio unfortunately does not compile in parallel the way you might think. In a solution you may have multiple projects. If one project depends on four other projects, those four will be compiled in parallel; one project per thread. Once the four dependencies are built, it can build the fifth; however, that last project will be built single-threaded.
Xcode and native Android projects (with gcc) can actually build multiple files from one project in parallel. On an i7 with hyperthreading, all eight logical processors can build up to eight files simultaneously. This scales with more cores very nicely.
In summary, VS builds multiple projects from one solution in parallel, while gcc builds multiple files from one project in parallel; the latter of which is much faster.
I'm curious now to see the build times of Firefox for Mac on a rMBP with an i7. Eagerly waiting for a 12 core Mac Pro with 24 logical processors. Reply
BrightCandle - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkVisual Studio is a very poor parallel compilation test. GCC with make -p can really utilise a lot more cores but its not very Windows like to use GCC (although I suspect many developers do that).
I haven't found many Java builds doing well on multiple cores, and neither Scala. Its the unit tests where I get the cores going, I can saturate hundreds of cores with unit tests if I had them, and since I run them in the background on every change I certainly do get a lot of usage out of the extra cores. But a clean compile is not one of those cases where I see any benefit from the 6 cores. Of course I would hope these days we don't do that very often. Reply
althaz - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIt is a poor parallel test, but it is a fantastic real-world test for a lot of devs. Reply
madmilk - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkAbout 25 minutes here on an 2.6GHz/16GB rMBP. Pretty much as expected for quad Ivy Bridge. Reply
bminor13 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkParallel file-level compilation is possible in VS2010 and up with the /MP project switch. This is not enabled by default I believe for compatibility reasons. Reply
BSMonitor - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkA Haswell-E will most likely bring a different pin-count, correct?? So this X79 is a dead end platform any way you look at it. Buying the Quad IVB-E makes almost no sense whatsoever. Reply
Casper42 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkMost Intel chips use a Tick Tock release cycle. Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock etc
Tick is an Incremental upgrade. Same socket and largely same design, but reduced lithography (32nm down to 22nm for example). Sometimes new Instructions but often not.
Tock is an Overhaul upgrade. Uses same Lithography as the previous gen, but is a new internal architecture, often a new Socket, and where most new Instruction sets show up.
Then you get another Tick.
Core 2/Conroe was a Tock and was 65nm
Core 2/Penryn was a Tick and was 45nm
Core iX/Nehalem was a Tock and was 45nm
Core iX/Westmere was a Tick and was 32nm
Core iX/Sandy Br was a Tock and was 32nm
Core iX/Ivy Bridge is a Tick and is 22nm
Core iX/Haswell is a Tock and is 22nm
So to say that X79 is a dead platform should not really be a shock to anyone. They got Sandy and Ivy out of it. Thats 1 Tock and 1 Tick and now its time to move on. They do this exact same thing in the 2P Server market where people spend $10K or more per server. The fact of the matter is the server market has already pretty much learned. Don't bother upgrading that server/machine, just ride it for 3-4 years and then replace it completely. SATA, Memory and CPUs have all changed enough by then you want to reset everything anyway. Reply
chadwilson - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIs the IHS soldered or using the cheap termal material? The issue with desktop IB & Haswell overclockability has been proven to be the cheap thermal material between the chip and IHS. If they have a soldered chip to IHS then this will be a decent upgrade over straight IB. Reply
BrightCandle - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkConsidering the power consumption, clock speed, overclock and temperature obtained its looking most like this is the same interface as SB-E - ie its soldered. Not that it makes much difference as just like SB-E it doesn't actually overclock all that well compared to its 4 core sibling. Reply
MrSpadge - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkLook at the results: temperature is not the main problem any more due to the bigger die, but OC is still not good at 4.3 GHz / 1.4 V. Actually I'd say this is ridiculously bad compared to earlier 22 nm chips (my Ivy can do this at ~1.1 V).
And I recently got a 3770K which requires 1.11 V to even hit 4.0 GHz! Seems to me Intels current process is to blame for Haswell OC rather than the thermal paste. Sure, temps drop when replacing the paste.. but OC doesn't improve all that much, does it? And if Ivy and Ivy-E don't clock all that well either... Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIf SNB-E @ 435 mm^2 fit into 130W then they could have made IVB-E @ 435 mm^2 fit into about the same power envelope. If they had to drop the clocks a couple hundred MHz then that's a small price to pay for 10 cores. Reply
Kevin G - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkActually, the core count for the larger Ivy Bridge-E goes up to 12. Reply
adamantinepiggy - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkSo do these CPU use actual solder under the lid or crappy paste like the 4770K? Reply
noeldillabough - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkOh I've waiting for this! Now the most important question to me...which motherboard is everyone getting an Ivy Bridge-E going to use? I'm doing a custom water cooled loop if that makes any difference. Reply
diceman2037 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkAnand, that marketing image is suffering from a typo, "18% Lower" refers to power utilized, not performance. Reply
DMCalloway - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkWow! 40 PCIe lanes sounds great until you remember skt. 2011 still only supports two 'true' sata3 ports and no native usb3. PCIe storage is never a smooth experience. It's a shame Intel seems unconcerned with power users that are not enterprised based. Reply
randfee - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkWhat a shame these don't support ECC memory! I want it back for the enthusiast!
I'm a scientist, what am I supposed to purchase (privately)? I want a beefy machine for physics simulations at home that run for days/weeks i.e. What if a privat person wants to run several VMs?
The E-series would provide nice performance, but no ECC, what a shame!
Right now one has to pick between speed without ECC (chances are the crashes on you) or a chip with relatively slow performance (clock wise) to get ECC, at the same price point. The highend XEON CPUs are out of the question.
@ Anand, please point out to the Intel representatives you meet that there's a market for this! One has to consider AMD at this point, they offer many threads + ECC for a consumer price point. Granted, they're slower, but the premium for the Intel chips with ECC is just out of proportion for private use. Reply
randfee - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkanyways, I am likely to wait for Haswell XEONs next year, with AVX2 (which greatly enhances such scientific calculations if used) and DDR4 ;) Reply
noeldillabough - Thursday, September 05, 2013 - linkdual Xeons, I have a supermicro 2U unit with low voltage xeons (they were $650ish each) and they're great. You can pick and choose board to have as much ECC memory as you want! Reply
wallysb01 - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkThe E5-1660 will be the same as the 4960X, just not unlocked and with ECC. Same 6 cores, same 3.6-4.0 GHz range. Is the overclocking really worth all the hassle for maybe 20% speed increase, even if you had ECC?
But I generally agree, it looks like Ivy Bridge 49xx/E5-16xx v2 is probably worth skipping. The upgrade over Sandy is not that much, and Haswell will likely bring 8-cores to the 59xx/16xx v3 space. Ivy Bridge for the top end only really made big gains in the 26xx space thanks to adding 10 and 12 core options, but man do you pay for them.... Reply
mapesdhs - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - link
You sound like the kind of person who'd benefit from a used SGI UV 10 or UV 100.
No idea about their availability though.
Ian. Reply
mapesdhs - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkOops, I was replying to randfee btw. Apologies for any confusion.
Ian. Reply
FwFred - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkIntel offers plenty of parts for you. See the Xeon line--it doesn't need to be high end. Reply
JlHADJOE - Tuesday, September 03, 2013 - linkIntel Marketing: Honest guys. Reply
Michael REMY - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkVERY VERY congratulation to Anandtech for having put in the test the old flagships cpu ! Now we can really compare and read more & more deeper the evolution and interest in this architecture.
It is great that someone underdstood people do not buy or change each year their whole computer, but only every 3-4 year .
Very Thank you my Lord Anandtech Reply
Remarius - Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - linkWould be fascinated to see some statistics re tri and quad sli usage as I'm already using 3 titans. There seems to be almost no coverage at that end of the scale despite being one of the target markets for this chip. Reply
noeldillabough - Thursday, September 05, 2013 - linkHeh I'd be happy with ONE Titan :) But I'd love to see those results too! Reply
Oscarcharliezulu - Friday, September 06, 2013 - linkThis reminds me, of years ago when I had access to the first DEC Alpha with its super fast clock speed and fast IPC, a IBM AIX RS6000, a HP9000 PA-RISC and a multi-socket Sparc. The alpha was the fastest by a long way versus multi core even on our SAP systems. I still use this as a rule of thumb that for most tasks a faster clocked processor is better most of the time, except for very specific situations - and in general you will know what they are. I'm battling with what to do with my next upgrade, I really wanted a top end ivy-e but it really doesn't seem worth it compared to a 4770, even with my need to run big VM's. he'll its not enough faster than my i2500s ivy imac to be worth it. Reply
DPOverLord - Tuesday, September 10, 2013 - linkvery interesting review coming from an i7-930 O/C to 4.3GHZ makes you debate if it makes sense to upgrade to the 4930K and a RIVE.
For those considering there is also another benchmark review of the 3930K vs I7-930 on 2, 3, & 4 way TITAN SLI GK110 Scaling at 7680 x 1440 and 7680 x 1600. Worth a look. Reply
DPOverLord - Tuesday, September 10, 2013 - linkvery interesting review coming from an i7-930 O/C to 4.3GHZ makes you debate if it makes sense to upgrade to the 4930K and a RIVE.
For those considering there is also another benchmark review of the 3930K vs I7-930 on 2, 3, & 4 way TITAN SLI GK110 Scaling at 7680 x 1440 and 7680 x 1600. Worth a look. Reply
Remarius - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - linkReally useful - I missed that thread somehow. Reply
Fierce Guppy - Saturday, September 14, 2013 - linkShould nVidia's shadowplay turn out to be rubbish then I could use that CPU for encoding recorded gameplay, otherwise there's no benefit in having a 4960X over a 4770K. It won't improve my gaming experience any. Two GTX 780s will do that. Reply
scorpyclone - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - linkThis is a great article for informing us about the latest and greatest architecture and chips, anyway I too have stuck with my powerhouse system since 2006, mine is the Q9550 and P35 mobo, DDR2 second generation SSD and so forth!
It has been rock solid and frankly I don't think I remember the last time it crashed, come to think of it it has never crashed! (...and I am able to have all my progs running plus 30 plus instances of chrome, yeah I should do something about that!)
So there you have it, now i m looking at the LGA 2011 with X79 and maybe (If i can convince myself of the benefits of having a six core system) an i7 4920 or40, ...but will probably go with their 4 core 10 or 12 meg cache cpus...the difference in having 2 more cores is 200 bux! I don't have any problem spending 3 bills on a nice CPU, but when it comes to 2 more bills just to get 2 more cores, I really cant convince myself of that, since i can think of so many other ways to spend those two bills with more return so to speak!
So yeah building a powerhouse of a system that costs a little more but is rock solid and still faster than 90 percent of what is out there is worth it for me, and I am sure others will say the same!
Or maybe I can just get the better P45 chipset, and stick with this system for another two to three years! Reply
Laphaswiff - Monday, December 09, 2013 - linkδοκοῦσι δέ μοι Λακεδαιμόνιοι μάλα δεινῶν ἔργον ἀνθρώπων ποιεῖν. νῦν γάρ φασιν ἐκεῖνοι δεῖν Ἠλείους μὲν τῆς Τριφυλίας τινὰ κομίσασθαι, Φλειασίους δὲ τὸ Τρικάρανον, ἄλλους δέ τινας τῶν Ἀρκάδων τὴν αὑτῶν, καὶ τὸν Ὠρωπὸν ἡμᾶς, οὐχ ἵν' ἑκάστους ἡμῶν ἴδωσιν ἔχοντας τὰ αὑτῶν, οὐδ' ὀλίγου δεῖ· (17) ὀψὲ γὰρ ἂν φιλάνθρωποι γεγονότες εἶεν· ἀλλ' ἵνα πᾶσι δοκῶσι συμπράττειν, ὅπως ἕκαστοι κομίσωνται ταῦθ', ἅ φασιν αὑτῶν εἶναι, ἐπειδὰν δ' ἴωσ' ἐπὶ Μεσσήνην αὐτοί, συστρατεύωνται πάντες αὐτοῖς οὗτοι καὶ βοηθῶσι προθύμως, ἢ δοκῶσ' ἀδικεῖν, περὶ ὧν ἔφασαν ἕκαστοι σφῶν αὐτῶν εἶναι συμψήφους λαβόντες ἐκείνους, μὴ τὴν ὁμοίαν αὐτοῖς χάριν ἀποδιδόντες. Reply
SeanFL - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - linkI edit video from time to time and am currently using an i7-2600k system built in May of 2011. I've been looking at the 6 core i7-3930k, but not sure if it provides enough of an increase to build a new system. Are we closer to an 8 core solution coming out under $1000 in 2014? What's on the way? Reply
SeanFL - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - linktypo, meant looking at the i7-4930k. Still wondering, is 8 core under $1k on the way this year? Reply
MordeaniisChaos - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - linkYou guys should really, really include ArmA as a benchmark for CPU gaming performance, as it sees pretty much constant improvements as the CPU gets more potent. I do not understand why more sites don't use A3 for CPU benchmarking when they touch on gaming performance. Reply

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Some Impressions and Benchmarks from Chrome on iOSby Brian Klug on 6/28/2012 4:13 PM EST
- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Chrome
- iOS
- Tablets
- Trade Shows
52 Comments
Back to Article
JMS3072 - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkI don't understand- Apple allowed Opera to release their browser with a custom rendering engine. Why isn't this the case any more? Reply
Guspaz - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkApple does not restrict rendering engines, they restrict javascript engines. You can't execute arbitrary code in an app.
Opera got around this by running the javascript server-side and pre-processing the page before sending the text data down to the phone. There are obviously side effects to this.
SkyFire got around this by running the entire browser server-side and just streaming images of the web pages to the phone. Reply
LauRoman - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkOpera Mini is basically just a glorified pdf viewer. Reply
UpSpin - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkiOS only has Opera Mini, not Opera Mobile, Android has both.
Opera Mini uses Opera Servers to pre-render the website, so no HTML/JS/.. code gets interpreted on the iPhone. Opera Mobile on the other hand is a 'real' browser, which Apple doesn't allow on iOS Reply
toyotabedzrock - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkBecause it is not an actual browser, it prerenders the page and compresses it up to +90% then sends it.
Plus it helps Apple expand in areas where bandwidth is a concern. Reply
MrSpadge - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link... imagine Microsoft would have done something like this 10 years ago! Reply
B3an - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkApple are just assholes. It's totally unacceptable to have these severe restrictions on something as important as a browser. Reply
xype - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkWhy? Reply
Steelbom - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkI believe it's for security reasons, since Apple's Nitro JS Engine requires that unsigned code be run, and Safari takes steps to prevent that from being used maliciously. Allowing third party apps to do the same could open some holes in security. Reply
Striderevil - Sunday, July 01, 2012 - linkIsn't that why they have a stringent screening process? Charge more and give the appearance of quality when in reality restricting other app functionality in the name of security is just BS for your on iOS use our products only. They have always been a closed system hether its hardware or software.
I'm yet to see any exploits on the android version of these apps which are from well known developers like Opera or Dolphine. Reply
Steelbom - Monday, July 02, 2012 - linkNo it isn't and it's certainly not going to catch errors that a developer might make which would possibly allow for something like this to be exploited. Reply
darkcrayon - Monday, July 02, 2012 - linkRe: exploits
You will. Just wait. Reply
solipsism - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - linkMS had a monopoly and used anti-competitive means to restrict the market. The iPhone does not a market make and Android is doing quite well. Reply
Mr Alpha - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - linkMicrosoft is doing the same thing on Windows RT. No third party JIT. Reply
Solidstate89 - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkRichard (Dick) Gaywood.
You can't make a name like that up. Reply
schizoide - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkWithout the JIT compiler, it simply cannot compete with safari. I'm honestly not sure why Google bothered pitching it as a full browser rather than just doing a "Chrome Sync" app like Mozilla did for Firefox.
This isn't actually arbitrary from Apple. The problem as I understand it is that the JIT compiler can't be run in the sandbox as it sets memory pages executable, and could thus be used to trivially jailbreak. Reply
Death666Angel - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkAnd forbidding people to jailbreak the device is not arbitrary? Reply
solipsism - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - linkarbitrary: based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
What exactly do you think is random or a personal whim about security? Reply
Striderevil - Sunday, July 01, 2012 - linkAnd yet the device is still being Jail broken albeit other methods. When are they going to learn to give up some restriction in favor of user choices. If iOS offers what everyone needs then they truly don't have to worry about jailbreaks but with a closed restrictive monopolistic environment they spend half their time trying to patchup potential holes that will always be there. Reply
gcor - Tuesday, July 03, 2012 - linkI suspect the vast majority of iPhone users want restrictions, provided they bring stability, ease of use and security. Reply
NobleKain - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkBrian, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't your Safari (iOS6 B2) and Chrome versions have DIFFERENT webkit versions?
Look at your screenies:
Safari: AppleWebKit / 536.13
Chrome: AppleWebKit / 534.46.0 Reply
Brian Klug - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkGood catch, I compared the Chrome output to what I had in my table. Apparently iOS 6 B2 has changed the core webkit version to be newer once more than Chrome. Interesting.
-Brian Reply
DanielPox - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkHey, apparently Chrome has updated since I get the score 379 at html5test.com. I'm running iOS 6 B2 and just got Chrome. :) Reply
faizoff - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkThe Chrome app is miles ahead of the default Safari browser. I love it already. Reply
Super56K - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkI must be doing something wrong. I got the app, synced with my Google account, and spent 60 seconds cursing at how choppy it was compared to Safari before giving up. Reply
faizoff - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkDunno man, webpages are loading much faster for me on chrome than safari. It's almost like desktop browsing. I was really surprised by how snappy it was. I wasn't expecting much difference so it's a surprise to me as well. Reply
phoenix_rizzen - Sunday, July 01, 2012 - linkHTML rendering may be faster, but JavaScript performance will be *way* slower.
Mobile Safari has access to the Nitro JavaScript JIT.
Chrome on iOS does not have access to Nitro, and does not include V8, meaning it's manual, slow, non-JIT interpretation of all JavaScript, one slow instruction at a time. Reply
faizoff - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - linkNow all that remains on Chrome is to get Ad Block and I'll be extremely happy. Reply
duffman55 - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkI'd be interested in seeing some page load times for a variety of websites. I'm curious to see how having a slower Javascript engine affects performance. It seems pretty quick to me. Possibly quicker than Safari, somehow.
So far I'm quite impressed with Chrome on iOS. This is the first time I'm considering completely replacing Safari with a third party browser. Right now I only use Dolphin for when I want to view pages in desktop mode. I couldn't get the desktop mode in Chrome to work on Engadget, I had to scroll to the bottom and choose desktop view. But It worked on every other site I tried.
P.S. The tab close animation is fun to play with. Reply
Wolfpup - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkI'm more interested in how the iPhone in the picture appears to be using 3G T-Mobile! I thought you could use an unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile, but it was stuck using GSM/Edge, and you still had to manually enter some settings to work, and don't get visual voicemail, etc.
Is that not the case? Does T-Mobile work more smoothly with the iPhone now?
Regarding Chrome-I'm installing it, but remain incredibly disappointed that Apple doesn't allow 3rd party browsers. HUGE advantage Android has there.
The one thing keeping me with Apple is the awesome podcast support, only they seem to be destroying that with their HORRIFIC "podcasts" program they released a few days ago...like rumors have it iOS 6 will ONLY support that, which will quite possibly leave me with no reason to use iOS over Android or Windows Phone 8. Reply
aliasfox - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkThere was a mention somewhere a few weeks ago that T-Mobile was starting to switch 3G bands to better accomodate iPhones in the future - they want in on the next round of updates. One of the first locations is supposedly right around Moscone Center - this was discovered more or less at WWDC, and it's the same place that I/O is happening at. Reply
michal1980 - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkM$ couldn't pull of this type of monopolistic behavoir ever. Why is Apple able to get away with everything? Reply
EJ257 - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkBecause Apple doesn't enjoy a 99.9999% market share in smart phones. Apple is doing this to protect the their image and integrity of their product. Can it been seen as anti-competitive? Sure. Is it monopolistic? Not even close. Reply
GotThumbs - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkI agree 100%, but Apple is still in the fan stage and in the general public's eye...Can do not wrong. As general consumers gain greater technical knowledge and learn about the other choices in the market...they will begin to realize the trap they've fallen into. Proprietary he_l.
I do have an issue with the speed in which Apple is injecting itself into public school systems. Selling 15 million worth of Ipads to a California school system. What idiot thinks all these children will care for the hardware? I'll be interested to see how many units are broken after the first month and by the end of the first school year. Then try and see how they will pay for the repair/replacement costs. Do the parents have to sign a responsibly agreement? I'll guarantee they won't all sign if that's the case.
Just a bad idea and some salesmen just rose up the Apple ranks. Reply
gcor - Tuesday, July 03, 2012 - linkI think you may be missing the point. General consumers don't want more technical knowledge. Unlike readers of this web site, general consumers prefer appliances over tinker tools. Provided said appliances let them achieve their goals, they prefer a minimum of hassle understanding and configuring the appliances. I think that's why general consumers like Apple products, and that's what Apple is trying to provide. It doesn't appeal to us tech types and offends our sense of what everyone should want. Reply
Ammaross - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkApple created the hardware (and thus the ecosystem). When was the last time you tried sideloading your own special OS/app on a Sony Vita or add an App to your featurephone? Should we sue featurephone makers for not allowing you to develop and load an MP3 player app for use with a featurephone? Just because a device maker opens their device enough to allow third-party apps doesn't mean they are required to be fair about it. Windows, however, did not make the PC hardware that the OS ran on, they simply forced OEMs to sell ONLY their OS on ALL of their kits going out or they would not be able to put Windows on anything. Once they became the de-facto PC OS and had the market entirely dependent upon them, then they were restricted in what they did with that position. If Apple forbade carriers from selling Android/Win7 phones if they were to sell the iPhone, and somehow became the 95% marketshare leader that MS was, then you might have an argument about monopolistic practices. But Apple's business practices don't do well as a market share leader, as they were never aiming to be such. They're a company like Rolex: they sell overly-expensive items with an air of higher-quality, even if only marginally so (or not, depending on taste). Reply
Wolfpup - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkI don't buy that argument. Seems like exactly the same situation to me, and Microsoft gets jumped on for...you know, like icons being too prominent or something, while Apple gets praised for flat out blocking competition.
Their situation with like Barnes & Noble and Amazon not being able to sell books directly through t heir programs on iOS (and only iOS) is ludicrous too. Reply
solipsism - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - linkRead up on the damn case before you post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Micr... Reply
Striderevil - Sunday, July 01, 2012 - linkIsn't it exactly what Apple is trying to do here as well, create a monopoly or sue everyone regardless of whether hardware is not the same, screen and OS is different. Circumventing vendors to sell only to its stores or devices. It would have been extremely successful had it priced its hardware right and kept it an open environment with micro sd and USB connectivity. Basically unlike MSFT its keeping its customers unhappy. Its forcing its own demise through its stupidity. Adding insult to injury, comes up with hardly the latest new or innovative hardware and charges twice the amount for it while dropping support for its devices which are just over 2 years old and which still cannot be unlocked until its 5 years old. Reply
NobleKain - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkI agree with Wolfpup. Ammaross, you analogies are extremely poor.
It's more like someone making an OS and a Web Browser, and then packaging them together, and selecting their browser as the default...
... hmm, wait. Doesn't this sounds familiar?... iOS was made and Safari was the default browser...
Hmm, but that's still not right.....
OH YES! That's right... Microsoft just got sued by the EU and forced to remove IE as the default browser of Windows. There we go.
One KEY difference. Microsoft didn't arbitrarily impede performance of competing browsers. Apple, is.
Perhaps someone should call the EU?.... Reply
wifiwolf - Friday, June 29, 2012 - linkYou can wait for when the shares are on the downside. While they're going up, all EU and others are stakeholders there and probably shareholders too. Reply
Steelbom - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - linkFull OSes and Mobile OSes are an entirely different ballgame. And Microsoft had a massive market share, unlike iOS.
Striderevil - Sunday, July 01, 2012 - linkI'm sure they could ask other developers to put in similar safe guards if security was the only issue which I'm sure most would comply to be able to sell the full third party browser experience to Apple users. Reply
Steelbom - Monday, July 02, 2012 - linkSure... but remember that this means every UIWebView -- including apps already on the App Store -- would have this potential problem. Perhaps Apple will open it up (safely) for UIWebView, but they absolutely won't if it could be exploited. I honestly don't know why they do it but, seeing how Apple keeps things locked down, it just fits.
And what about developers that don't? There will be plenty of them. Reply
Striderevil - Sunday, July 01, 2012 - linkApple was a dominant player in the early pc market but closed, over priced environment and hardware forced many business especially during recessions to move with a stable low cost alternatives which included first IBM and then Dell running a cheaper but stable OS, Windows whose updates and support didn't fave to be paid for.
Apple is doing the same thing all over again and its only a matter of 1-2 years before they lose to alternative hardware and OS devices. Reply
Steelbom - Monday, July 02, 2012 - linkI don't think Apple will ever lose what they've go so far. They won't let that happen. Reply
darkcrayon - Monday, July 02, 2012 - linkApple never had the market they have with the iOS devices now. And the iOS devices are similarly priced to the competition. I don't think you can compare this exactly to the desktop computer industry in the 80s and 90s. The iPod certainly never lost to cheaper competitors. Apple basically led that market until the market itself was replaced by smartphones. Reply
ThreeDee912 - Tuesday, July 03, 2012 - linkApple screwed up badly in the 90's after Jobs left. They made dozens and dozens of different models of Macs with slightly different specs, like the dreaded Performa series.
I mean, look at this:
Plus the "Classic" Mac OS had horrible memory management and was prone to crashing.
Jobs returned in late 1997 after Apple bought NeXT, threw out the stupidly confusing lineup of beige boxes, and slowly moved everything to OS X.
It wasn't because stuff was closed or priced high, it was because their hardware and software back then were crap. Reply
Steelbom - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - linkThey've got reasons for not allowing UIWebView access to the Nitro JS Engine. Reply
ciparis - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - linkThe opening images look so bad on a retina MBP that I thought my computer was broken. Please don't post text images again -- please, I beg you! Reply
Nihility - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - linkThey look terrible on all LCD monitors. Reply
Markus@AnandTech - Friday, July 20, 2012 - linkAs a further case in point, it appears that Chrome for iOS is severely crippled in terms of performance. Normally, no one would complain and/or notice a 10-20% performance difference in page loads. But we've found that page load performance using Chrome on iOS is almost 2x slower than Safari. According to the results from our BrowsingBench test (www.eembc.org/benchmark/browsing_sl.php) run on an iphone 4G and an iPad2, Safari weighs in at 919 and 2340, respectively. On the other hand, when running Chrome on the same platforms, our test results were 478 and 1241, respectively. Although we didn't do any under-the-hood analysis, we also ran the BrowsingBench test using the Dolphin browser on the iphone 4G, and obtained a score of 956. Reply


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Überclok Ion: Midrange Overclocking, with a Warrantyby Matt Campbell on 2/12/2008 4:10 AM EST
- Posted in
- Systems
38 Comments
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DrMrLordX - Friday, February 15, 2008 - linkThis is a business model I've often wondered about myself. Considering how many technical, legal, and customer issues could be involved with building and selling systems like this, it seems like a risky gambit. It was only a matter of time before all the OC-friendly hardware on the market finally found its way into an OCed system that didn't cost an arm and a leg.
I really hope it does work out for you guys. Reply
cooklaw - Thursday, February 14, 2008 - linkThe hardware this thing has at an amazing price point (even for Dell) will be tough to compete with. Check out their presale special. Full details will be up soon.
dell.com/xps630 Reply
Uberclok - Thursday, February 14, 2008 - linkInteresting. What is the price, and what does it include? Reply
IdaGno - Thursday, February 14, 2008 - linkOnboard sound? W's Vista, probably may as well, but if XP, then I'd want a sound card Even an entry level discrete sound card soultion is preferred to onboard. Currently running thru SS2 again & the difference w/EAX enabled is profound.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/11171/1">http://techreport.com/articles.x/11171/1 Reply
initialised - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkOverclocking settings:
1.5V Vcore
1.4V Vfsb
273MHz FSB
Excessive voltage for such a conservative overclock.
3.2GHz on an E4500 typically requires 1.4V Vcore at 400x8.
I have 3.4GHz stable at 425x8 on 1.4375.
I guess they do it this way to reduce the impact of dust maggots during the 3-year RTB period.
Some good ideas there, despite the conservative settings, I might look into implementing some of them. Reply
gsubrec - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - link1. The heatsink is a 800g Tunic, which has special packing to prevent falling off during shipping. Why dont they use Thermalright Ultima-90, which is only 460g, and per the Anandtech testing performs just as good as the Tunic
2. The only difference between the Ion and the Reactor series is that the website claims that the Ion videocard cannot handle > 22 inch monitors. The website seems to be incorrect, the Ion has the 8800GT which has 512MB, which is enough for 2500x1600 , 30 inch monitor Reply
Uberclok - Thursday, February 14, 2008 - linkGood points:
1. We'll take a look at the Ultima, it might be a good fit for us.
2. The Ion is -recommended- for 22 inch monitors or lower because the 8800 GT/GTS cards can play most new games at high settings with 4x AA up to about 1680x1050. The cards are capable of decent frame rates on some games at higher resolutions, but we want to encourage our customers to consider the GTX/Ultra-equipped Reactor if they intend to play at 1920x1200 or higher, and that usually equates to 24" monitors and up.
- Thomas Glen
(877) 211-4235
email@example.com Reply
Radagastmod - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkLooks really good to me. I would recommend these to someone not comfortable with building their own machine.
I especially like the binder with all the manuals in it, nice touch. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkE4500 = $120
2G or RAM = $50
320gig HDD = $70
Case, power supply, dvd = $120
total < $700
Price this company charges to overclock an E4500 to 3GHz? AN ARM AND A FRIGGIN LEG. A monkey can overclock an E4500 to 3 GHz. wtf are you wasting your time promoting this scam company? For the money they charge you could buy TWO of these systems. Good gawd... Reply
Uberclok - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkWe're not running any scam, I assure you. Our components are chosen because they are high quality, offer solid features, and are reasonably priced. Allow me to respond to the prices you've offered up:
That's true, although I take issue with your claim that a monkey could overclock it to 3.0GHz. Our monkey could only get a stable overclock at 2.8GHz, at which point he threw his own feces into the case and shorted everything out.
This is a fine motherboard, (we particularly like the BIOS settings profiles) but it doesn't suit our needs. It has only one PCIe x16 slot, and cannot support SLI. While we do sell single-card systems, we want our customers to be able to drop in a second card later without upgrading the motherboard or power supply. The 680i SLI boards we use also offer two additional SATA connectors, allowing us to offer up to four hard drives in addition to two SATA-based optical drives. (Avoiding IDE devices helps us keep the interior clean.) We have also built RAID-based solutions for some of our customers, which this board doesn't do.
There are other advantages as well - 6 external USB ports instead of four, IEEE-1394, a POST code display (which helps us troubleshoot over the phone) an extra ethernet port (which I admit is frivolous, but nice) and a third PCIe slot running at x8, which is intended for a physics card. (And that might actually end up meaning something depending on what nVidia's going to do with the new toy it bought itself.) We use EVGA's 680i, which retails for $210.
2G of RAM = $50
RAM is quite affordable these days, but the price still varies according to brand, quality, speed, and timings. As with all our components, we aim for the point on the price-performance curve just before it turns sharply upwards, so our customers are getting high-quality parts but at a reasonable cost. We also tend to pass on technology which doesn't improve gaming performance, since that's the main point of what we build.
Our testing has shown us that DDR2-800 with 4-4-4-12 timings is our best bet right now for the Ion. (Moving to DDR2-1066 adds a slight performance increase in some games at a bit of an added cost, so we use that for the Reactor model we sell.) We like Corsair's reputation and history of producing high quality memory, and the price for their 2GB kit of DDR2-800 with 4-4-4-12 timings is about $70. Corsair loves to offer rebates, so it's not unusual to be able to get them for a final price even lower than the $50 you mention, but as a system builder, we don't get to take advantage of rebate offers.
The cards we use usually retail for $20 more than that, but you're pretty close.
320gig HDD = $70
The 500GB drive we use now is Seagate's ST3500320AS - it retails for $120
Case, power supply, dvd = $120
You could use a cheap PSU, but you're asking for trouble. Investing in a high-quality PSU was one of the earliest lessons we learned. It keeps our PCs running smoothly and protects the components from damage. We also like to stick to nVidia's list of SLI certified PSUs for whatever card is in the PC. (Or Crossfire-certified, if we go back to ATI.) The Thermaltake Toughpower 650 is an excellent choice with room to grow, and retails for $170.
The Antec 900 case is part of what allows us to overclock the memory, CPU, motherboard, and video cards on air cooling, so although it retails for $100 or so, it saves us from having to install a pricey liquid cooling solution. The DVD-R and DVD-ROM drives we offer are quite affordable ($34 for the DVD-R with LightScribe and dual-layer support, and $18 for the DVD-ROM.)
The Tuniq Tower 120 CPU cooler, operating system, internal cables, keyboard, mouse, box, labels, binder, zip ties, and shipping costs add up to another $250 or so. We also include a media reader/floppy drive whiich sells for $25-$45 depending on availability.
Finally, you might want to consider the additional expenses any business like ours incurs, such as rent, heat, electricity, salaries, insurance, accounting, ding-dongs, R&D, review units, PR, advertising, web design and hosting, market research, and mob hit contracts when FedEx shrugs its mighty shoulders at our damage claim forms. I very much doubt a business could survive selling PCs like the one you describe.
- Thomas Glen
(877) 211-4235
email@example.com Reply
nubie - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkHave you ever considered a PC Power and Cooling power supply? The Silencer 610 offers a single 12-volt rail at 49 Amps and is also Nvidia SLI certified for $50 cheaper (assuming retail). I like your product, but I feel that the power supply isn't the wisest choice.
I realize that the Thermaltake is a "52 Amp" power supply, but with 4 power rails it is a moot point because all of the power is not available for use when split. The Silencer is rated at 49Amps anyway, so nearly the same. Reply
Uberclok - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkWe are very impressed with PC Power & Cooling, and always consider their products when specing out a new model. Unfortunately, they tend to cost quite a bit more than competing models without a truely compelling benefit. The Silencer 610 is only SLI-certified for dual 7900 GTX cards or lower, so it won't work for our Ions. The least expensive PP&C PSU which is SLI-certified for the 8800 GT card is the Silencer 750 Quad, which retails for about $25-$50 more than the Toughpower. That's almost compelling enough to switch, but our customers tend to like a clean interior, so we actually view PP&C's lack of modular cabling as a drawback, not a plus (despite the increased electrical resistance of modular cables.)
- Thomas Glen
(877) 211-4235
firstname.lastname@example.com Reply
strikeback03 - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkYou forgot an operating system, assuming you will use Windows legally that adds at least $100. The P35 chipset cannot officially do SLI, and I highly doubt you find a similar case/PSU/pair of DVD drives for $120 regularly - cheaper case and less powerful PSU would be doable. I'm guessing you also are planning on stock CPU cooling, and you specified a smaller hard drive. So yes, if you know exactly what you want your computer to do over its life then you can save a bunch of money. If you build for future expansion (such as this system) I'm guessing your total will be closer to what they calculated. Reply
nubie - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkI have only 20, minus taskman, utorrent and Firefox that is 17.
I take offense to iTunes, it has crapped on my system too many times, and refuses to install on a regular basis for me. I don't own an iPod, I can't spend the money on one because they are the same price as a computer or a car for me (take your pick, my last 5 computers and cars cost $500, $300, $200 and $400), so why do I need APPLE running 5 programs to update "my" ipod?
Pre-loading should be optional. And nTune is a huge pile as well, never helps anyway. For Video card the Classic control panel will check temps and run frequency adjustments. And for the motherboard there is ClockGen and GCPUID.
These problems are really the fault of Apple and nVidia for bloatware. Divx is bloatware/adware as well.
As nice as this system is, I wouldn't buy one myself (since when is the 8800GTS 512 $100 more than the 8800GT 512?), and I couldn't recommend it without also suggesting that the OS be "un-loaded" of the crap.
Nice case and HS/FAN though. Reply
Uberclok - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkYou make an excellent point about the 8800 GT/GTS pricing - we needed to adjust to account for recent price drops. Our website now reflects a $50 difference between the two cards (single and SLI.)
Although I can understand wanting to run such a lean system, I'm still quite proud of how little 3rd-party software we ship on our PCs. Everything we do include was selected because it contributes in some significant way to giving our customers a smoother out-of-the-box experience, is innocuous, doesn't annoy them, and doesn't slow down the PC.
We include iTunes simply because it's such a good stand-alone music and video app, whether you have an iPod or not. It's a very easy way to get quick access to dozens of streaming internet radio stations, podcasts, and cheap TV shows and movies.
nTune is included solely for nVidia Monitor. Most of our customers won't be using it to adjust any settings.
Divx can be bloatware/adware if you install the whole package, but we only include the codec and the player, so there aren't any "trial" components (that kind of thing bugs us too.)
- Thomas Glen
(877) 211-4235
firstname.lastname@example.com Reply
7Enigma - Thursday, February 14, 2008 - linkThomas,
I wanted to thank you for all the replies I've read in the comments section by you, and in turn, your company. It is refreshing to see such direct replies, especially in reference to some of the more heated/argumentative posts.
I think if your company is run in a similar fashion to the way many of us build systems (ie the search for the best QUALITY bang for the buck in each category) it will be very successful. Please note the key word of QUALITY. Many companies are out there that can build a "wicked fast" system for cheap (along with the cheap components), I and anyone in the know will appreciate using quality parts to get the same or slightly less performance knowing they have a rock solid rig.
I also think sites like Anand's will be vital to the success of your company. Simple things like the cpu cooler and power supply roundups will let you guys get the real data on what parts perform exceptionally well at a particular price point, and should ultimately improve your bottom line and keep system costs down to the consumer.
While I build my own systems (its fun!) I will have no problem recommending your company to potential customers in the future. Please just make sure a simple Google search yields a hit on your site! Reply
nubie - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkThanks for clarifying :), I agree on your point about Divx, if it is only a codec and player. I am happy to see that you have reflected the market with the video card pricing. Reply
7Enigma - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkI agree with you on iTunes. I remember when my Alienware (see 3rd or so post of the comments for backstory) was delivered to my house. I booted it up to what you saw on the desktop with this system and that was it. No 3rd party programs at all. This was well before Firefox was even conceived (could have probably dl'd Netscape Navigator at that time!), and it was so nice and refreshing to not have to spend an hour deleting all the bloat (or reformatting if it would be faster). Oh and all the driver disks were together in a nice sleeve of the binder (like baseball trading cards). I have no idea how Alienware has evolved since then (especially by being purchased by Dell), but back then while pricy, it was the CREAM of the crop (along with Falcon Northwest, but those were just sickeningly expensive....$4,000-5,000...certainly don't miss those days).
If the company is watching these comments here's a very easy way to gain respect on both sides (to install or not to install):
-Put all these 3rd party programs you installed INSTEAD on a cd included with the binder. You can even include a short description of what each program is/does and then let the buyer decide to install or not.
I personally believe Firefox should be a defacto standard on any new PC, but again it should be the owner's choice to install it, not the company selling the product. I like Firefox, someone else might prefer a different 3rd party browser. Reply
HaZaRd2K6 - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkOwning a Nine Hundred, I'd love to get a closer look at how they kept the cables so neat. Any chance you could upload the full picture of the case interior, there? :) Reply
KikassAssassin - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkYeah, that's an incredibly clean cabling job for a Nine Hundred case (the lack of places to route wires is my one gripe with my Nine Hundred).
From the picture, it looks like they probably put a snakeskin around the cable bundle to keep everything together and make it look neater. It's a good solution, though it might mean you'd have to take the whole bundle out if you wanted to change one of the cables for whatever reason. Reply
Matt Campbell - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkSnakeskin and zipties, plus all S-ATA drives except for the combo floppy/memory card reader, which uses a short rounded cable. Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkFYI:
The article has been updated with an enlarged image of the interior (on page 5). Click to get the large image. Reply
chizow - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkGlad to see a company using over the counter enthusiast parts for an enthusiast PC. This is a great option for those who want great performance now and future upgradability without the hassle and headache of a DIY/BYOPC. Here's to hoping they do well and last awhile!
crimson117 - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkI'd like to add my agreement that $400 is a great price point for a 3 year warranty, system assembly and software installation, and overclocking; and a little profit margin over their costs. You could pay close to $400 just for a warranty at other vendors, and you'd get a lot of junk installed, and it would be overclocked, and (with Dell for example) wouldn't even be overclockable or very expandable.
If I were in the market for a new windows machine, I'd consider an Ion system :)
**Crimson117 Seal of Approval** Reply
yyrkoon - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkThe 3 Year warranty is more like home owners insurance. They charge a flat rate to everyone, and do not 'pay-out' very often(no need if there is no problem). Of course the hardware components they've seem to have chosen all should have at least a 3 year OEM warranty, so for parts, they are not out a penny. I have not visited their website, or viewed the service policies, but I wonder how they handle part replacement in home. Dell will pay technicians such as ourselves here an hourly rate to replace parts that have gone bad in a customers PC, at their home. Well, to be more exact, a contractor will set everything up, and then contact us, etc.
More likely that $400 is going to go towards customer support over the phone, or email etc.
This is actually not a bad idea, and if you choose your hardware carefully, document everything well in plain English(or whatever language), I suspect they could make a tidy profit, while keeping their customers close to 100% happy. Of course, how well they treat their customers remains to be seen. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - link"Clearly, the 650W power supply still has a large amount of overhead. Estimating at 80% efficiency, at full load the Ion is still only using around 200W. This is good news for both stability and expansion."
Uhh, 80% efficiency means it requires MORE power to supply the measured power draw. If you detected 248w at load, and the PS is 80% efficient, the Ion is using ~310w.
Great review btw, as I'm about to build my own system and its always nice to see a small new company like this come out. The first part of the review had me in a timewarp when Alienware had just came out. My dad purchased me a system for going to college from them when they were in their infancy. It came with a binder very similar to what Uberclock supplies and really made you feel like you were not getting another Dell/HP clone. I see good things for this company.....if they can get their name to come up with a search! Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkWanted to also mention that some of the graphs (especially the games) are confusing because its difficult to tell when you are comparing systems or just the same system at different resolutions/quality settings. Reply
ImSpartacus - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkI agree, those graphs were messed up. I almost never get confused when reading an AT review.
Lol, when in doubt skip to the conclusion to get a quick overview .) Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkRegarding power, PSUs are rated at what they can theoretically OUTPUT. Efficiency is a measure of how much power they draw from the wall vs. how much is actually passed on to components. The Kill-A-Watt devices are inexpensive tools to measure wall power draw, so if it draw 248W at load, 80% efficiency would mean that the PSU is only outputting 198W.
While we do have someone that has all the necessary equipment for PSU testing, that equipment is in Europe and is prohibitively expensive. The rest of us make do with less sophisticated tools. On the other hand, knowing how much power a system really uses (at the outlet) is a useful metric, even if it wouldn't be as meaningful in a PSU review without knowing the power delivered. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkAh, I now see what the author was getting at. The wording is a bit confusing though. It doesn't really matter how much the components are drawing, just how much power supply is drawing to power the components (I would omit the 200w figure).
I think it might have been better worded as, "Clearly, even estimating 80% efficiency, the 650W power supply still has a large amount of overhead. This is good news for both stability and expansion." Reply
Matt Campbell - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkApologies if it was confusing, I probably could have worded it better. Suffice it to say that there's plenty of power left over :) Reply
7Enigma - Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - linkNot a problem. As I mentioned in my OP, the review was excellent. You guys are just victims of your own high standards, we have little to nit-pick other than wording and occasional typo's! :) Reply
HotdogIT - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkIf only you guys could take it one step farther, and do like HardOCP did back in the day... love to see you guys review the customer service. That'd be a hoot. A hoot and a half.
Then again, it clearly didn't work out too well for Kyle and team... Reply
Syran - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkThey used to do Customer Service stuff on AT back in the day on motherboard reviews, and some system builds too. Would definitely like to see that if I'm to think about recommending the possibility of this company to friends; so that I can avoid long-distance support. Reply
Uberclok - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkOn the subject of long-distance support, I can assure you that we won't ever out-source our phones overseas. We know how quickly an aggravating customer support experience can lose customers for us, so we will always make sure our phone reps:
A. know what they're talking about, and
B. can be easily understood.
Also, we C. feed them well - a happy rep is a helpful rep.
- Thomas Glen
(877) 211-4235 Reply
crimson117 - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkI think by "long distance support" he meant he could recommend you guys as system builders for his friends, rather than him building and supporting custom systems for his friends. Kind of like how system builders will often recommend Dell or someone else for simple systems, purely so they don't have to support it themselves.
But it's nice to know you guys do feed your reps :) Otherwise they start eating each other, and you often lose your best ones to less technically inclined - but hungrier - reps. Reply
CyberHawk - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkWhat a backround O_o
Where could I get one like that? Reply
caliche - Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - linkThat's a wallpaper from the PC game Hellgate London.
I have not played the game so I can't vouch for it, but it does have some very nice "Techno Gothic" style artwork. Reply