System configuration and testing methodologies

Below you can see something done with CPU-Z monitoring software that shows us all the parameters of the Intel i7-3960X CPU:

The Intel Core i7-3960X will be subjected to numerous tests over the course of this review, the test platforms can be read in the following table:

SYNTHETIC
•    3DMark Vantage
•    AIDA64
DATA COMPRESSION AND MULTIMEDIA
•    7zip
•    Winrar
•    Cinebench 11.5 and 10
•    X264 HD Benchmark
•    Hand Brake
•    Fritz Chess
•    Blender
•    POV-Ray
•    Euler 3D
•    SiSoft Sandra

Other specific tests for CPU frequency, memory frequency, 3D scaling with SLI GTX 580, and finally consumption will follow. There will be a page dedicated to testing and overclocking, however, using a x79 Asus Sabertooth.

📷 3D Mark Vantage: CPU testCPU tests

We begin the performance analysis presenting all tests that put stress on the processor, which we remind you to be an Intel i7-3960X with Sandy Bridge-E architecture, with 6 cores and Hyper-Threading Technology. This allows the OS to take advantage of as many as 12 concurrent threads.

3DMark Vantage: CPU test

Produced by Futuremark, 3Dmark Vantage is a useful tool to test the performance of your system. Primarily designed to track the performance of the graphics card, the 3DMark Vantage is suited for testing of the CPU that are increasingly a bottleneck in the system when it comes to graphics applications. The test was carried out only in relation to the CPU, disabling the 2 steps related only to vga.

In 3D Mark Vantage, performance primacy is of the proposed new Intel Sandy Bridge-E. This new processor sharply separates from the excellent Sandy Bridge architecture that is currently seen the i7-2700K as a top range model.  The separation is also against the previous Intel architecture with 6 core, the i7-980X, which has lower performance compared to this new proposal.

At a clock to clock comparison performed at 4 GHz, is best seen as the improvement compared to the i7-980X CPU is evident.