The Sandy Bridge Core i7 3960X Benchmarked Against Today's Six-Core / 12 Thread AMD/Intel CPUs

[Teggs]

I have seen comparisons that look like this before. It is what happens when someone benchmarks Bulldozer. Time has washed away the differences between the processors of that period. If 'Bulldozer sucks', then 'Sandy Bridge sucks' too.

What this particular chart does not list is the relative prices of the 8700K and 3600X (or for that matter, the 3600). In a word: 'ouch'.

[ms178]

I guess my six core 980X is barely worth running any more. Heh.

It depends on your tasks, if they are not using or cannot meaningful profit from AVX2/AVX, then it is still fine as in many games. I've used a Xeon X5675 @ 4.2 Ghz for gaming on Windows still until this summer. As the security mitigations take more of a performance hit on these older architectures, I'd suggest to disable all of these for a gaming box.

[Zan Lynx]

I guess my six core 980X is barely worth running any more. Heh.

[Michael]

Wow, didn't realize the improvement was that big. Could you please re-test with the processors at the same clock?

Unfortunately not. Already packed up the 3960X system again for another year and the 3600X moved on to other tests.

[kylew77]

So architectural improvements make a huge difference it would seem. It's not just pure core count that makes all the difference or even a little bit of clock speed difference. either.

[linner]

My poor 2680's... it's all I can afford

[darkbasic]

Wow, didn't realize the improvement was that big. Could you please re-test with the processors at the same clock?

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Sandy Bridge Core i7 3960X Benchmarked Against Today's Six-Core / 12 Thread AMD/Intel CPUs

Complementing our recent AMD Ryzen 5 3600X Linux benchmarking, with recently having out the Intel Core i7 3960X Sandy Bridge Extreme Edition, here are benchmarks showing that previous $999 USD six-core / twelve-thread processor compared to today's Ryzen 5 3600X (and previous-generation Ryzen 5 2600X) as well as the Core i7 8700K.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=28238