After upgrading the performance of the mainstream platform by the Haswell family, the Intel engineers also devoted time to perform an overhaul on their high end platform, LGA 2011. The Sandy Bridge-E was a worthy successor of the old and aged LGA1366. Intel waited close to two years for manufacturing the new high end flagship CPU model available to the masses, this in contradiction with the launch schedule on some previously leaked roadmaps. As with the transition from Sandy to Ivy Bridge on the LGA1155 socket, we spot many similarities with the new Ivy Bridge-E. A die shrink to the 22nm process and alike architectural improvements should boost the performance and efficiency. Time to unravel the brand new Intel flagship LGA2011 CPU: the i7-4960X CPU.

For those that don't care to cash out and want the fastest hexacore crunching processor out of the box, this i7-4960X fits that bill perfectly. For most the i7-4930K will be more than fast enough or as fast, when slightly overclocked, this at a far better price/performance ratio. Once we get the 4820K and 4930K samples in the [M]Lab we will continue to test these new Ivy-E CPUs and might bring a more focused article versus the other more common CPUs on today's market.

Die hard Benchers are obliged to invest in one of the two six core versions to max out the scores in some 3D tests. If all CPUs can do at least 5600MHz under cold, it will reflect the performance of a 200MHz higher running Sandy Bridge-E CPU. A must buy then, let the CPU binning game start (again) to find them +6GHz gems.

Intel keeps on sucessfully improving their CPU lineup, no focus alike the competition on raw MHz. In 2013 it all evolves around efficiency tuning and reducing the power consumption. The price tag of the Extreme edition CPUs is always around the same 1000 dollar mark and most will skip this CPU for the far more affordable 4930K edition as the overclock potential will be as good and in some cases even better. Bang for the buck the 4930K is unbeatable for those that really require heavy duty six core action.

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