Intel® Core™ i7-3960X Processor Extreme Edition
15M Cache, up to 3.90 GHz
Discover newer Intel Processors and experience Improved performance

Expert reviews
The overall review score is calculated from averaging this product's international review scores.
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04/11/2017
SummaryWell, the Ryzen 7 launch has a surprising amount of excitement and drama mixed together with the impressive numbers but with memory issues and game performance causing very polarized opinions on social media and on websites like Reddit. AMD fans even...
lanoc.org -
01/22/2013
SummaryThe Intel Core i7-3970X is no doubt the fastest desktop processor out on the market, but is it a big leap from the i7-3960X? Our testing has shown only a small increase in performance, which is expected with the 200 MHz performance boost that we get with...
Bjorn3d.com
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08/23/2012
SummaryObviously, the Core i7-3960X is the new top dog in the desktop CPU performance sweeps, as a look at our value plot will show. Although it's still not a great value, the 3960X provides a solid incremental improvement over the Core i7-990X in our overall p...
Techreport.com -
03/22/2012
SummaryIt's been a long wait here at Custom PC Review, but we finally have Intel's top of the line LGA 2011 processor, the Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition along with ASRock's newest X79 board.So, for those of you who haven't been keeping up with Intel's enth...
custompcreview.com -
02/10/2012
SummaryThe full eight-core die rollout is reserved for the server and workstation parts that are due for launch a month from now, so while the die has eight cores, all the chips Intel sells have only six cores enabled at present. How is the base performance...
Theinquirer.net -
01/11/2012
SummaryThis is the fastest Intel processor that an average consumer could buy off a shelf today. However this power has specific uses and not one that an average user might need. If you need a blazingly fast processor for video processing or are in need for tons...
wccftech.com -
12/26/2011
SummaryIntel has driven home its advantage with the release of the Core i7-3960X, which is now the fastest desktop processor on the market. As long as an application correctly exploits the six cores at its disposal, there's no competition for this processor a...
Behardware.com -
12/07/2011
SummaryThe Core i7-3960X is a worthy successor to last year's Extreme Edition processors, but the same caveats apply to it as to them. You'll see the greatest benefit in programs that are heavily threaded — computation-heavy spreadsheets, video encoding appl...
techworld.com -
11/28/2011
SummaryAs was proven many times throughout this article, Intel has once again delivered the world's fastest desktop processor with its Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition. This of course comes as no surprise, as it's based on what we already knew to be the most ef...
techgage.com -
11/17/2011
SummaryIn 2011, we expected to see three major events: Intel LGA 1155 in the beginning, AMD Bulldozer in the middle and Intel LGA 2011 closer to the end. The first happened as planned (quad-core processors for LGA 1155 arrived in January, with dual-core model...
ixbtlabs.com -
11/16/2011
SummaryIntel i7 3960X Sandy Bridge-E ProcessorWhen most people think of Sandy Bridge they think of the now famous i7 2600K and i5 2500K as they are priced right and have been shown to be excellent overclockers to boot a big plus with gamers and enthusiasts alike...
channelpronetwork.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryThere are two aspects of today's launch that bother me: the lack of Quick Sync and the chipset. The former is easy to understand. Sandy Bridge E is supposed to be a no-compromise, ultra high-end desktop solution. The lack of an on-die GPU with Quick Sync...
anandtech.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryWhile we don't want to give the impression that the i7-3930K is a slow CPU for consumer applications and games, it isn't significantly faster than the Core i7-2600K. This is a problem for Intel, as the i7-3930K is almost exactly double the price; LGA20...
Bit-Tech.net -
11/14/2011
SummaryFor demanding, CPU-intensive tasks such as video editing, the Core i7-3960X offers unprecedented performance, and its significant overclocking headroom will appeal to tweakers who don’t mind its extreme price. ...
computershopper.comProsAs of late 2011, fastest consumer desktop CPU available, Same price as its predecessor, Tons of bandwidth for memory and expansion cards
ConsExpensive, New LGA 2011 socket design requires a new motherboard
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11/14/2011
SummaryToday marks the launch date for Intel’s Sandy Bridge-E line of processors, a new family of high-end Core i7 products based on the LGA 2011 platform. This new socket is poised to replace the existing LGA 1366 specification used by the more powerful Neha...
firingsquad.com -
11/14/2011
Summaryfor the most high-end model (which we will test today). Before we dive into the article, let me make you aware of the fact that we test with a final sample X79 motherboard from MSI. This article will also review the MSI X79A-GD65 8D. Next to that the ...
guru3d.com -
11/14/2011
SummarysWhat you saw on the prior pages was an all out slaughtering of every existing desktop chip by the Core i7 3960X. With its four-thread, double cache, double memory bandwidth advantage over standard Sandy Bridge, it offers almost enough performance to j...
HardCOREware.net -
11/14/2011
SummaryThe Intel Core i7-3930K will be unlocked as expected, clocked at a 3.2GHz base clock with a 3.8GHz Turbo clock, sporting the same 6 cores and 12 threads of its bigger brother, but will carry a neutered 12MB of cache as opposed to the 15MB of the Extremely...
hardocp.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryThe new Core i7-3960X does live up to its expectation of being the fastest desktop processor released to date. Costing the same as the previous top-of-the-line desktop CPU, the Core i7-990X, it provides a performance improvement of up to 30%, but you s...
hardwaresecrets.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryExtreme edition processors are aptly named since they are known to deliver unparalleled performance in their segment with an equally unparalleled price. Though the Intel Core i7-3960X may not win the hearts of budget-minded users, the pure bone-crushin...
hitechlegion.comProsUp to 12 threads on six cores, Massive 15MB Intel Smart Cache, Unlocked Multiplier, Turbo Boost 2.0, Improved CPU socket loading mechanism, AES instructions and Disable Security Bit functions, AVX Vector Extensions, 40 lanes of PCI Express 3.0, Robust Software Ecosystem, Intel Enhanced Speedstep Technology, Intel Extreme Memory Profile 1.3 (XMP), Quadchannel DDR3 support,...
ConsPrice, Editors Choice, Discuss this review in our forums
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11/14/2011
SummaryThe Intel Core i7-3960X 6-core processor is menacing and it's a shame that AMD's Bulldozer 8-core processor couldn't compete at the same in many of the benchmarks!...
legitreviews.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryOnly a month later than AMD's new flagship FX CPU, Intel is back with their latest creation and launches it's brand new high end hexacore CPU for the masses. Not that it had a real competitor with the AMD FX lineup for the performance crown. But it wa...
madshrimps.be -
11/14/2011
SummaryWe first got our hands on the Sandy Bridge-E processor just a few weeks ago and in that time we were able to examine the chip from all angles. Our findings actually didn't come out too far off from what we were initially expecting. This is to say that ...
neoseeker.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryHopefully you've read all of our LGA2011 reviews today. This particular one focussed upon the stock performance of the Core i7-3960X, but the conclusion will encompass our knowledge of its overclocking capabilities too, which you can see in the ASUS Rampa...
overclock3d.net -
11/14/2011
SummarySandy Bridge-E is just plain awesome. The i7-3960X out-performs every other CPU on the market, bar none. AMD has nothing to get close to competing with SNB-E. Bulldozer disappointed many and this just makes it look even worse. They also have nothing on ...
overclockers.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryWe have longed for a new series of processors from Intel that would replace the aging X58 chipset and Nehalem combination and the Sandy Bridge-E delivers well on that wish. Even though the architecture is something we are very familiar with- having been...
pcper.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryThe new Core i7-3960X is undoubtedly the world's fastest desktop processor today. Its quad channel memory controller didn't provide much of an advantage but it still outpaced the king of Intel's first Sandy Bridge launch, the Core i7-2600K, by about 1...
silentpcreview.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryThree years later, we are finally able to put the X58/LGA1366 platform to rest, in what's virtually been Intel's flagship platform for the entire duration. Sandy Bridge gave the platform a run for its money earlier this year, but in the remainder the ...
techspot.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryThe Core i7-3960X and the DX79SI are most certainly a deadly combination for any kind of task that you may throw them at. With 16GB of fast memory and a good GPU, these parts can easily be combined to make the ultimate anything rig. The truth is that t...
vrworld.com -
11/14/2011
SummaryJust recently it seemed that the upcoming launch of the new LGA 2011 platform will be Intel’s response to AMD Bulldozer. But reality proved expectations like that to be wrong: AMD developers failed to produce microarchitecture fir for a high-performanc...
xbitlabs.com -
11/13/2011
SummaryIntel's latest CPU is an impressive device. With almost twice the available memory bandwidth as the 980X you should see a nice improvement in almost any application you run. No, this will not translate into gaming (for the most part) but then again if you...
decryptedtech.com -
11/13/2011
SummaryThere was never a question of whether or not Sandy Bridge-E was going to be fast. Rather the question was how much faster would it be? Intel’s press information was quick to point out that the Core i7-3960X is 52% faster than the Core i7-2600K in conte...
hardwareunboxed.com -
09/12/2011
SummaryIt's always interesting to get hands-on time with unreleased hardware. We were recently able to benchmark Intel's upcoming Core i7-3960X CPU, comparing it to Core i7-990X, Core i7-2600K, and AMD's Phenom II X6. Will you be in line for Sandy Bridge-E? T...
tomshardware.com
Retail prices reported as of 08 Feb 2023 18:37:41 GMT