As I promised in another thread here are some preliminary results regarding the new Intel i7 3960X (extreme) hexacore CPU.

I will compare them to the Intel i7 980X hexacore that I considered as the best cruncher across many criteria. You can search for threads where I discussed the 980X in length.

First the CPU's in brief:

i7 980X (hexacore, 32nm, 12 MB cache, 3.33 GHz, 3.6 GHz turbo, socket 1366)

i7 3960X (hexacore, 32 nm, 15 MB cache, 3.33 GHz, 3.9 GHz turbo, socket 2011)

Not much difference at least from outside. The design of the 3960X is more recent, the processor was available on retail in Q4/2011. The 980X is much older and was put on the market Q1/2010 that is two years ago.

So how better is the 3960X for crunching at WCG.

The machine "MERCURY" that houses the 3960X is pretty along my standard:
Lancool K62 (mid tower very well cooled), Corsair AX 850 Watts power supply, Raptor 300GB 10'000 rpm HDD, 2'000 MHz 4GB DDR3 RAM, Asus Sabertooth X79 Mainboard, Corsair H100 water cooling, and that's it. In fact it is a machine I had already but the HDD crashed and the motherbord had some problems with memory. I took away the 980X to put it in place of a 950 cruncher on another machine, and refurbished the rig.

It will be compared to "ANTARES" that runs a 980X at 4.2 GHz and has a similar setup but with 6GB 2'000 MHz DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Crucial 300 SSD connected on Sata 6GB. The board is an Asus Rampage III. CPU cooler is Corsair H80 waterblock. Power is also 850 Watts Gold.

MERCURY has been running at 3.6 GHz for the moment. Power measured at the wall socket is 198 Watts.
The eight day average stands at 42'255 ppd.
The CPU runs at a core temp of about 65/70 degrees.

ANTARES is running at 4.2 GHz. Power measured at the wall socket is 285 Watts.
The eight day average stands at 54'275 ppd.
The CPU runs at a core temp around 50/55 degrees.

We can already see that the 3960X runs hot with high core temps.

Some ratios now:

MERCURY: 11.73 ppd/MHz, 213.4 points/watt

ANTARES: 12.92 ppd/Mhz, 190.4 points/watt


From this short test we see that the 980X beats the 3960X for points by 10%. On the other side the 3960X seems to be less energy hungry than the 980X by 10%.

I pushed the 3960X at 4.3 GHz. Energy consumption was very interesting at 268 Watts which is 17 Watts less than the 980X at 4.2 GHz. But I ran into a big big problem. Core temps went through the roof at over 90 degrees Celsius. The 980X at 4.3 runs near 300 Watts but the core temps remain acceptable at 70/75.

The 3960X seems to be less energy hungry clock per clock, but does not overclock well. It should be able to run at 4.3 GHz. I will check cooling and some more tests. If some of you have the same type of problem please post.

Conclusion, if you have a 980X, keep them they are the best. Mine are now running since two years and are still the best crunchers.

I will change only when 22 nm CPU's with 3D gate design and with 8 or 10 cores will be available. Only then a big improvement will be possible.