zens wrote:
Intel Core I7 for socket 2011 are "out of live". so u find this cpu for around 150€. still on top ten of cpus.
http://ark.intel.com/de/products/63698/Intel-Core-i7-3820-Processor-10M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz The 3820 is still an excellent performing CPU. Far more powerful than any AMD processor available currently. There is also a very significant detail some may not remember about this chip. All of the subsequent generations of extreme edition Intel CPU's have traded cache and or cores for PCI-e lanes on the entry level enthusiast chips. This is a significant detail insofar as more than 4 cores just isn't necessary for a purely gaming computer; while having 40 PCI-e lanes can be a massive boon for anyone with more than one graphics card or multiple expansion cards.
The lack of competition (or even a competitor at this point) on the high end CPU range means there have been no huge leaps forward in technology between the last few generations of Intel CPU's. They have made significant progress with iGPU's and power consumption, however neither of those things are particularly relevant for enthusiasts. Meaning in practical application the only improvement has been the incremental 7-10% increase in instructions per clock (IPC) with each generation. Which is nice for a die shrink but leaves something to be desired for every second generation which is an architecture change.
Edit: Just in case it isn't clear, the last paragraph is meant to infer the 3820's performance is closer to its contemporary SKU's (5820k, 6800k) than it should be. For playing video games in any case. For other uses such as, Fluid simulation, Video rendering, 3D animation creation, Proprietary scientific/lab research software and so forth; the newer chips wreck the 3820. However, brand new 3820's can be found at a fraction of the price of the newer CPU's. So the price to performance you get is obscene. I found some brand new in the box i7-3820's for $135 US on Ebay versus $389.99 for the 5820k or $439.99 for the 6800k. That's also 20+ dollars less than an AMD 8350 and $80+ dollars cheaper than AMD's newest Vishera based 9590 black editions. Neither of which can beat it in applications relying on single threaded workloads (which makes up roughly 90% of software), It also beats the 8350 in (almost) all multi-threaded workloads, and is relatively even with the 9590 in multi-threaded workloads. Sorry if this is too verbose, I have finally accepted the fact that I am utterly incapable of brevity on topics related to anything I covet; with Science,Math, and Computer Hardware being the some of the greatest offenders. After all, it's just like my Father never used to say. You can never have too much information. :p