So what is all the hype about? To sum it up: the launch of Intel's first eight-core 16 threads desktop processor, codenamed Haswell-E which supports the brand new DDR4 memory. To achieve this Intel had to redesign their LGA 2011 socket and X79 Chipset, thus for Haswell-E the processor socket is now baptized as LGA 2011-v3 and the new Intel® X99 chipset is there to steer all the ongoing action in the right lanes. Take note that there is no backward compatibility with previous LGA 2011 processors. Also no die shrink has been applied as this is still done on a 22nm wafer.

The addition of two extra cores for the high end i7-5960X version will rejoice benchers, multi-task addicts and encoders. Gamers in general are maybe less impressed as the Graphics card(s) is the most vital part in their gaming setup to provide ultra smooth FPS.

Haswell-E is a solid performance upgrade over its predecessors for those that use on a daily basis multi core enhanced software. This time there will be  no more quad core entry model. The i7-4820K has to give way for an unlocked hexacore model in the form of the Core i7-5820K. This might be a viable and interesting option for a multi-GPU crunching/gaming setup as this hexacore model retails only a bit higher than the mainstream Devils Canyon 4970K quad core. Sporting 15MB of level 3 cache, a TDP of 140W and quad channel DDR4-2133 support it could become one of Intel's best sellers for this platform. The 4820K was not so popular as it hardly had any benefits over the mainstream quad core Intel processors. On top of that the requirement of quad channel memory and a more expensive LGA 2011 motherboards made this entry model a not so hot selling product.

The mid range Core i7-5930K is still a hexacore model, but the biggest difference versus the i7-5820K is the added support for 40 PCie 3.0 Lanes instead off the 28 ones for the low end model. This implies that the i7-5820K can only run Tri-SLi ( 3 x PCIe at x8/x8/x8), while the 5930K and 5960X are fully quad-SLi compatible. Yet since the days of AGP 4X versus 8X the gains on paper hardly reflect real life performance. Tri Sli with trice x8 is more than plenty. The slightly higher stock speed (3.5 versus 3.3GHz) and idem ditto higher turbo speeds can easily be circumvented by an easy overclock. Quickly comparing the i7-5930K versus its predecessor the i7-4930K: the latter had a lower base clock of 3400MHz, however a higher Turbo up to 3900MHz (vs. 3.7Ghz). The slightly higher amount of L3 cache (15MB vs. 12MB) and the architectural improvements of the Haswell series together with the usage of DDR4 memory has to provide the performance boost over its predecessor.

The Haswell-E flagship, the Core i7-5960X (eXtreme) is Intel's first octacore desktop processor. There are already several 16-threaded server variants, but those processors were not intended to be used by home users, while the base clock of a mere 3Ghz and Turbo speeds up to 3500MHz sound very basic, however the 8 cores/16 Hyper threaded specs might make it more interesting for those that wander daily in multi-threaded environments. The Level 3 cache has been upgraded to 20MB versus 15MB for the i7-4960X and of course again support for high speed DDR4 memory. The Die size has been drastically increased from 257mm² to 356mm² and the transistor count from 1.86billion for the i7-4960X to 2.6 billion for the Haswell-E 5960X.

Intel is proud that the sources used to produce these Haswell-E processors are all coming from what they refer to as conflict free zones. Meaning no war, no abuse nor any conflict is going on in them regions. Do they want to avoid any association as with LEGO and Shell not so long ago ?

Each time a new processor launch coincides with a new or improved desktop chipset and/or socket; for Haswell-E this is the X99 chipset, codenamed "Wellsburg". The socket is also changed from LGA 2011 to LGA 2011-V3. Biggest improvement is of course the support for Quad channel DDR4 support; Intel only supports officially up to 2133MHz, yet via OCing one can easily reach speeds of 2800-3000MHz and beyond for daily usage. Memory vendors are already advertising DDR4 kits rated at 3200MHz, time to sell your kidneys buddies!

In comparison to the X79 chipset which remained compatible with the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge Extreme processors, the new X99 boards are not compatible with previous LGA 2011 processor generations. Up to 14 High-Speed USB ports are now standard supported, including six USB3.0 ports. The number of SATA ports has been upgraded to 10, all being of the SATA 3.0 version. This make it hard to believe that some motherboard vendors still add 3rd party chipsets for more storage options. However only 6 out of 10 ports are RAID compliant. Intel also demands full Thunderbolt compliance, This standard is already at version 2.0, reaching a massive 20Gb/s transfer speeds, over four times as fast as what USB 3.0 can deliver.

Spot the minor differences between the LGA 2011 and the new and improved LGA 2011-V3 socket. ASUS even went one step beyond and added some extra pins for better voltage stability.

The next generation of DRAM is here with DDR4, featuring stock JEDEC compliant frequencies starting at 2133 MHz, DDR4 delivers up to 20-40% less energy consumption and twice as much density as the previous generation DDR3. DDR4 can help users to load their programs faster, increase responsiveness of their system and help them to handle heavy data tasks in a flash. DDR4 is rated between 1.2 and 1.35VDimm depending on model and speed. Higher Bandwidth at a lower power consumption, plus more GBs per stick possible is a win win situation not? Too bad the prediction of prices will remain elevated during 2014, which might be a limiting factor to cash out for either high speed or high quantity kits.

Visual differences on the DDR4 sticks are apparent:

A quick sum up of the main differences between DDR3 and DDR4 in  the below chart:

Motherboard wise and now I'm only referring to the Benelux region, the availability at launch date will be below normal quantities. What the reason is remains a mystery to me as there was not only a specific vendor concerned, but all of them. The launch date on the 29th of August had been set for months, why the boards are only coming through at a low pace is the million dollar question.

TEST SETUP LGA 2011-v3:

• Intel Core i7-5960X
• Noctua DH-15
• Unknown motherboard
• 16GB Corsair Vengeance 2800C16 LPX
• AMD 7970HD Catalyst 14.4 driver
• Western Digital 1TB Green Caviar
• Corsair HX 1050 PSU
• Micrcool Banchetto 101
• Windows 7 Professional 64Bit SP1 fully patched.

We will run through a small array of 2D tests, being single and/or multi-threaded. A few synthetic 3D benchmark and game titles. A quick comparison of the DDR4 versus DDR3 and clock per clock head to head between the i7-5960X and the Ivy Bridge-E  i7-4930K equipped with several high end DDR3 kits.

In the upcoming part 2 we hope to include results of the two other Haswell-E models, to include liquid and liquid nitrogen cooled results and go a bit deeper into the tweaking of your X99 platform.

We ran the Corsair Vengeance PLX at the stock rated Intel specs at 2133MHz C15-15-15-35 2T. Secondly no optimized Turbo or other bios optimizations were selected, the Intel Octacore i7-5960X CPU was ran at the default Intel Turbo settings. 

Time to start off our 2D test suite with the single threaded SuperPI 32M benchmark. Even though the brand new flagship is a bit crippled in raw MHz it still holds up quite nicely. Partly due to the Haswell optimizations and most of all thanks to the massive bandwidth of the quad channel DDR4 setup.

Once we fire up the WPrime multi-threaded benchmark the i7-5960X can show its true colors, this processor is designed to make mince meat out of any multi-core optimized application. Imagine if this processor ran at the same clock speeds as the other LGA 2011 processors in the test suite.

Maxon's Cinebench R10 tells the same tale. Single threaded even with the lack of frequency, the new Haswell-E can outperform the Sandy-bridge i7-3960X processor. It even manages to come close to one of the Ivy-Bridge predecessors, the i7-4930K. Once all 8 cores are tasked, the i7-5960X just pulls away with such ease.

Cinebench version 11.5 also sheds another light on the new enthusiast platform. Where the older LGA versions were struggling to keep up with the quad core counterparts of the mainstream segment in the OpenGL tests, the new Haswell-E positions itself in the midfield. This output can be partly explained by the enhanced speeds of the DDR4 running at 2133MHz C15 versus the DDR3 running at 1600C9. Raw calculating power is where this octa-core crunching monster is at its best.

A quick spin through some synthetic 3D benchmarks reveal that in most cases the speed or the number of cores of the processor hardly matter. The ASUS HD7970 single GPU is still more than sufficient to run modern game titles, no matter the backup of the used processor. Some newer games alike Battlefield 4 rely on more cores and even appreciate any extra calculating power, yet any decent quad core with a decent GPU will be more than plenty to enjoy smooth game play.

To accurately compare this platform with the previous LGA 2011 one is almost impossible to achieve; it will still be like comparing apples with oranges though some adjustments can make it on a more balanced scale.

We have to take into account the different processor architectures, difference in stock and Turbo clocks, more on-board L3 cache, DDR3 versus DDR4, 2 extra cores,...

To make it a more even battleground we intervened in the following ways:

• To rule out the difference in MHz processor wise we overclocked both the Intel i7-4930K and i7-5960X, so all cores are running at +/-3900MHz.
• To keep data aligned two cores of the i7-5960X were disabled in the bios, so we are comparing 6/12HT
• Different quad channel ram speeds are compared:
  
  - 16GB DDR3 1600C9-9-9-27 2T (Samsung IC)
  - 16GB DDR3 2666C10-12-12-31 2T (Samsung IC) XMP profile loaded
  - 16GB DDR3 2800C11-14-14-31 2T (Hynix CFR IC) XMP profile loaded
  - 16GB DDR4 2800C16-18-18-35 2T (Hynix IC) XMP profile loaded

The i7-5960X now has a real chance of defending itself when running at equal speeds as the i7-4930K in the single threaded SuperPi 32M test. With both CPUs running at 3900MHz on all cores the Haswell-E pulls away from the Ivy Bridge-E processor. Even with the latter running with DDR3 memory speeds at 2666MHz and beyond, the DDR4 powered Haswell-E accepts no competition.

The AIDA64 engineer software shows the increased bandwidth of DDR4. Interesting to see the dip in the Write behavior. This has to be confirmed on other retail boards and when testing other memory types.

We have retested the Cinebench results numerous times and each time the new Haswell-E flagship trashed the Ivy Bridge-E 4930K in the CPU test while running at the same clock speed. In fact the outcome is similar to the X264HD encoding test. Almost 10 FPS more in pass 1 and even 3 FPS more in pass 2 is just jaw breaking performance.

When running both processors at equal clocks and cores there is not much to see in Futuremark 3DMark11, neither in Firestrike. Of course once we go with all 8 cores enabled for the i7-5960X at 3900MHz things will be totally different, though at equal clocks and cores it seems almost as an even battle in these two benchmarks.

Allbenchmarks Catzilla loves memory bandwidth and thus this is one of the benchmarks where the DDR4 can show its potential, though when looking at the game benchmarks we see there's no real reason to upgrade to DDR4. Don't get trapped in the PR marketing crap, some applications will adore extra bandwidth, in general games could care less once reached a certain memory frequency.

The air cooler used was Noctua's triple tower NH D15 Air cooler with one 140mm Fan in the middle, thus meaning there are still some minor improvements possible when adding extra fans.

We test the 5960X at stock clocks and at an overclocked setting of 4500MHz at 1.23Vcore. This is a 50% overclock rock stable on air dear reader. The ambient room temperature is at 21°C.

At idle we see the i7-4960X hovering around 30°C, this with the cores running at just 1200MHz thanks to the Intel Speedstep technology. For the overclocked setup the readouts are similar, again the CPU downclocks to 1200MHz, but this time the Vcore stays put at 1.2Volt.

Under load the stock setup reaches an average of 53°C across all the eight cores. When the i7-5960X is running at 4500MHz the average core temperature is increased to 71°C. Take note this was done on an open Bench setup based on the Microcool Banchetto 101, hence results in a closed environment will be slightly worse. Secondly your overclocking mileage can vary.

Liquid cooling tests will follow as of course the usual liquid nitrogen fun. If we just had this CPU a few days earlier this data could have been included in the launch article.

At the moment we are playing a bit with the Corsair Vengeance LPX kit, rated at 2800MHz C16. With minor voltage and timing adjustments we achieved almost 3200MHz 32M stable frequencies at 1.4Vdimm

click to enlarge

Tightening the timings to Cas 14-15-15-34 at 2800MHz is also not bad, though we need to play a bit more with secondary and tertiary timing to increase efficiency.

Again we apologize for this brief look at Intel's latest enthusiast platform. Two days of testing is absolutely any reviewers nightmare to explore a totally new platform plus memory. On top of that the non retail motherboard we used for testing also was not 100% cooperative at times. Nevertheless even after this brief testing it seems very clear that:

• The new octacore i7-5960X is a multi-threaded monster, even at stock clocks.
• Quick OCing tests on air reveal 4.4-4.5GHz seems to be a no brainer at 1.25-1.3Vcore with the majority of Engineering processors out there.
• Clock per clock this new Haswell E architecture is between 5-15% faster
• Heat output will be a determining factor to maintain 24/7 stability on this platform when being OC'ed
• DDR4 only shines in bandwidth hungry applications, for gamers it seems more as an expensive evolution.

Without a doubt Intel's enthusiast flagship will be kindly applauded by Overclockers and encoders. The two added cores allow them to set new records or generate their renderings at blistering speeds versus any of the previous Intel hexacore desktop processors. Gamers or other non super multi-threaded power users have no need to upgrade to this 16-threaded crunching devil. How the other two Haswell-E variants behave will be a more interesting test as these are firstly far more affordable. Secondly due to being only hexacores, the heat output when being overclocked will be far more controllable.

Thus more testing is on the way. what we have in store for you in part 2:

• Testing of more DDR4 speeds: 2133 versus 2666, 2800 and 3000MHz frequencies
• Timing testing: is it worthwhile to shell out loads of cash for lower latency memory?
• The importance of the RING speed
• Hopefully include the i7-5820K and i7-5930K processors
• Overclocking scaling on air, water cooling and Extreme cooling

Intel has raised the bar once again, this time their first octa-core desktop processor, the Haswell-E i7-5960X redefines multi-threaded performance in the desktop segment. Even at its stock rated speeds it is no slouch neither in single threaded applications, even though these are becoming more rare year after year. The integration of DDR4 also means higher capacity DIMMs, running at higher speeds and all this at a lower voltage level. A win win maybe, however it is expected the prices will remain elevated for any quad channel DDR4 kit. Motherboard wise the stock are slowly building up, but again the cheapest entry board will be retailing around the 200 euro mark, again easily double the price of a solid Z97 socket 1150 motherboard. The issue for Intel is that their own mainstream lineup is so diverse and powerful that hardly any daily user will feel the need to upgrade to this enthusiast platform. Only E-peen or the urge to play with new toys might persuade some people to cash out. Only those that really use any available core this platform can deliver, will be thrilled to perform this upgrade.

The Intel engineers have created another milestone product for the desktop market. Just saying that it is Extremely powerful might not even do justice to the multi-threaded capabilities this 16 threaded i7-5960X has to offer.

We wish to thank the following persons who made this review possible:

Jan, Kim and Kristof from Intel for the privilege to test the i7-5960X processor

Harry Butler from Corsair for the Vengeance LPX memory kit