Intel Core i7-3820 LGA 2011 Retail Processor - $199.99 Microcenter B&M Only

Quote from steal : Just curiosity... how does the zambezi compare to the i7 from gamers point of view same quad core, 32nm technology, but 4.2GHz. Is there any game that this wont play where the i7 will? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...6819106009

Why specifically do you want 'Dozer over Phenom II? While a dual module Dozer will outrun a quad core Phenom II in many things --but gaming isn't one of them. You can get a b73 Phenom II for $39.99 at MicroCenter, and unlock the fourth core for better gaming performance -for a lot less capital.

Any triple/quad core Phenom II/Athlon II/Llano will all run all the latest games at playable freamrates with with most the settings on ultra. A quad module (8 corej Dozer can "max" most games.

That said, certain engines like Gamebryo are so Intel/Nvidia centric, any AMD part will have weird quirks/glitches. That doesn't mean that games using these engines aren't 100% playable on nearly max settings, but it often means there is one particular piece of eye candy you'll have to turn off in an Nvidia TWIMTBP or Intel Inside title. Flip-flop the tables for AMD, Gaming Evolved title.

So, I'd recommend a Phenom II B73 (2.8 Ghz Tri core) as the best value for buget gaming setups. Dozer is excellent at what it's for, but the 4xxx are overpriced for budget gamers.

Edit for further explanations:

A core refers to the number of execution units on a CPU. Dozer is based around modules, which achive higher core execution density. However, for specific, large mathematical floating point operations the execution units will share higher functions. I know this is a lot of jargon, but it's to explain that Dozer is very different than anything before it and that it's not directly comparable to Intel's stuff. Since most games use legacy code not optimized for how Dozer works, it's usually best to buy phenom II on a budget. The high end Dozer parts have so much brute computational force, they can surmount the obsicles posed by legacy code --the lower-end parts don't always have that same advantage.

Quote from steal : Just curiosity... how does the zambezi compare to the i7 from gamers point of view same quad core, 32nm technology, but 4.2GHz. Is there any game that this wont play where the i7 will? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...6819106009

I don't know enough if that processor is as fast/faster or slower. I would guest it's slower because it's AMD. You can't compare amd to intel processors clock for clock as they process software and other functions at different speeds. I would go for intel if I were you just because AMD is behind from Research and development, engineering by like almost 3 generations compared to INTEL. With that said, you CAN still game with that AMD. and it will run everything an intel can. You will just reach being outdated earlier than going intel.

The way I build systems, I always build with the most expensive CPU I can afford feasibly assuming I cannot upgrade it. It's not appropriate , for me at least", to upgrade the cpu because what will I do with the cpu chip i'm replacing? I always assume you can't upgrade a cpu because sockets are always phased out. By the time I want to upgrade, the cpu isn't really manufactured anymore and would have to go to ebay for it. if the upgrade you want is still manufactured and you want to upgrade, then I am wasting money buying the current cpu to use it for such a short period of time. I want my systems, with hardly any upgrades, to last about 4 to 6 years.

Do yourself a favor and go for the highest cpu you can afford, looking at both amd and intel. highly recommend intel. There are people who make an intel box and not buy a graphics card. it's easy now that intel chips come with an integrated card (dont' have to buy a motherboard with an integrated gpu). you can just easily upgrade the computer with a powerful graphics card later down the year.

edit: poster above mine makes great points. that cpu you're looking at has some great features that won't benefit you. in simple terms to what Dilweed said, you don't need so many cores for gaming as most games are programmed for just a dual or quad core. I also don't see a lot of applications and games going pass quad core because the mass market seems to be averaging out to quad core own systems.

Quote from Dillweed : And I am making the same point to you. Thing is --you're set in what you consider a value as 1155 being that item --and you attack anyone else with ideas to the contrary with benchmarks that quite frankly are damn near irrelevant outside of niche circles. You ARE in a bubble --and while there are many ALSO in that bubble --it's still a set mindset, which you are defending vehemitly. I'd argue that for the vast majority of people --more than the cost of Llano+6670 is overkill to the point of wasting money. They just don't *need* the extra performance which comes with a side of higher purchase price, power consumption, increased a/c bills et cetera. For the vast majority of gamers, SKT AMx has been the best value for nearly a decade. No AMx user has had to replace more than 2 parts of his system at once --and that's a massive TCO reduction. 1366 really changed the entire game at the high end thogh since AMD never built desktops out of G34. Still, an AMx system was cheap --and has kept getting cheap-ass upgrades. That's obviously up in the air right now --since AMx will most likely get cancelled in 2014-2015. Intel targeted AMD's usual customer base with 1156 --and until Thuban, 1156 looked like a solid platform. Then 1155 dropped --without a real need for an upgrade to the socket --but it was to sell more MOBOs instead of just CPUs. P67 was obvioulsy crippled --as is 1155 in general. The only reasons Intel locks the base clock on 1155 is to push people to 2011 --or to get people to do a CPU+MOBO upgrade more often --resulting in more frequent rebuilds. It's the same reason Intel even bothered with P67 --Z68 could have easily been ready at launch if Intel had wanted. Ivy is goign to be the same way. Sure for the vast majority of people --it will be fine, but for the vast majority of people AMx is still fine (and cheaper.) If you want value for your money --why are you spending that kind of cash in the first place? If it's for playing games --$500 does that just fine. If you *need* what Intel does better than AMx --2011 is usually worth the extra money --and since Intel can't exactly force their enterprise cutomers to upgrade as often as they try to force us --2011 will last a long time. Sure, there are a few situations where 1155 really just shines as the best option, but they are pretty limited and usually have to do with the IGP. So, at the end of all this --you're doing exactly what you claim not to be. We come from different schools of thought on this, nothing more, nothing less.

All you are doing here is absurdly dismissing almost anything outside of ultra cheap and ultra high end when there is a vast middle ground which is called "mainstream" or "mid-range" which is actually the largest market segment. All you really say of note about the largest market segment is that Bulldozer is the better choice over Sandy/Ivy when almost no one outside of you agrees with that as the reviews and sales numbers show and the reasons for it are shown quite clearly in the benchmarks and price. Sandy/Ivy do almost everything better than Bulldozer apart from a VERY small subsection of tasks and in the others their advantage is often stark and large and easily worth the small price difference to anyone that cares about how fast their computer is which is almost everyone whether you think anyone building a mid-range computer is making a mistake or not. As for your statement that if you are going to bother with a mainstream platform you may as well spend 70% more for an on average 0-10% performance increase which is nuts if you care about your money and you wouldn't be on this site if you didn't and that doesn't change because you think anyone not going for dirt cheap should just go ahead and get the highest end platform available.

"So, at the end of all this --you're doing exactly what you claim not to be. We come from different schools of thought on this, nothing more, nothing less."

No, your perspective is nothing resembling a "school" and even calling it "thought" almost perverts the word. All you do is think what you want to think and any evidence that it is incorrect, including huge piles of universally acknowledged facts, you find reasons to dismiss. You pretend the performance of computers and their prices are an opinion when it isn't so and ANY evidence that supports your opinion, large or small, relevant to a lot of people or almost no one are ALWAYS enough to completely dismiss any evidence to the contrary. You think both the large average performance difference(fact) of Sandy/Ivy over Bulldozer is not actually worth a very small(fact) price difference while the small general performance boost(fact) of 2011 over 1155 is universally worth the very large(fact) price difference. It makes no sense, it isn't a school of thought, it is a temple to stubborn delusion that you stand in basically alone. You are inventing a false equivalency between someone vehemently dismissing common knowledge based on easily verifiable facts with no evidence to back it up and handing it in blanket statements as unqualified advice to all with someone pointing to the facts and trying to explain why the near universal interpretation of them is valid for all but a very small subsection of consumers when it shouldn't be necessary at all.

Quote from Dillweed : #1 They are almost always actually advertisements. You may not notice this, but talking crap about a pre-release sample or even deviating from the script means you get no more pre-release samples. The scripts are designed to sell products , so unless you read post-launch reviews where the reviewers have not been provided anything by ANYONE --you're being sold a bill of goods. #2 The methodology on 99% of reviews is so damn bad that a 6th grade science teacher would flunk a kid for such half assed work. If you want to take issue with that --go ahead.

I will indeed go right ahead. Your points are basically a conspiracy theory similar to the way people dismiss things like man made climate change as non-existent or unimportant because the consequences of such conflict with pre-existing political/economic outlooks. 97% of climatologists believe it is true but to people who don't want to that 97% consists of corrupt shills toeing the line for grant money(when it is actually professing the opposite view that is heavily financed by big business and receives tons of media attention) or morons entirely ignorant of the import of what they and the 3% that agree with them know is "the truth." It is actually on a level beyond that because predicting future weather patterns is a hugely complex and imprecise task that we are a long way from perfecting making it legitimately open to a wide range of interpretations(though that does not change that 97% of the people who are actually trained the best we know how to make a worthwhile interpretation end up with the same conclusion.) The performance of computer components on the other hand is trivial to test in comparison, done so by an uncountable people around the globe and there is little inconsistency in the results. You are saying that nearly all reviewers are either morally bankrupt and simply lie to consumers in order to ensure a steady stream of pre-release components that they will, of course, then lie about as well(and I guess curiously never really be called out on it by anyone but you) or they are just utterly incompetent. Why do you believe this despite that it is a preposterous thing to think? It allows you to dismiss anything you don't want to believe and the evidence against even this justification itself is of course in that category. So now I'll bring up some evidence that what you say is obviously not true and present some likely responses ahead of time.

Bulldozer was nearly universally panned in pre-release reviews, directly conflicting with your idea that they are all basically scripted advertisements. Of course you probably believe there is some sort of bidding war for the malleable opinions of tech reviewers and the tampered with benchmarks they publish to support them and Intel always has the winning bidding because they have more money. Why doesn't AMD then no longer send these sites pre-release chips which you say would be the punishment for the reviews not reading like advertisements? I'm going to go with you think they have to because they are the smaller company and without pre-release reviews they don't stand a chance even though that ignores that negative pre-release reviews are going to hurt them rather help. Or maybe AMD is like some naive little kid who doesn't know the dirty nature of the tech review game you've uncovered and bravely pointed out here and the tech reviewers know this as well so they don't bother to try to stay on their good side? Or maybe the way you explain it away is something totally different and so silly I couldn't even come up with it ahead of time and you will now respond with it and it will be just as twisted and flimsy and/or contrary to reality as everything else you've come up with to dismiss LGA 1155 but you'll state it as fact and act like it is just as good, nay, much better than the avalanche of truly solid reasons almost everyone else thinks the opposite of you.

Honestly at this point I'm more curious about figuring out how you come up with the things you want to believe that you then construct these razor thin tightropes of "logic" you walk in order to support. I think we may be getting at that at this point and it might be this; You like to believe the opposite of common knowledge most likely because it makes you feel like you are superior to not only almost all the other people you talk to about this stuff but even the professionals who have made a career out of studying the topic. Before you do it, please, stop simply throwing what I'm saying about you back at me in the charmingly kindergartenesque "I'm rubber and you're glue" fashion you seem to have settled into. No, that's not what I'm doing. You are the ONLY person I've talked to about this topic that holds anything like your opinion so my views simply cannot be based on wanting to feel superior to anyone because I think what almost everyone else does. Also if the above is true and not just limited to the arena of computer tech you almost definitely are a climate change skeptic and I sooooooooo was not trying to start a new stupid argument with you on that topic as well so please don't try to start one.

Quote from Dillweed : Why specifically do you want 'Dozer over Phenom II? While a dual module Dozer will outrun a quad core Phenom II in many things --but gaming isn't one of them. You can get a b73 Phenom II for $39.99 at MicroCenter, and unlock the fourth core for better gaming performance -for a lot less capital. Any triple/quad core Phenom II/Athlon II/Llano will all run all the latest games at playable freamrates with with most the settings on ultra. A quad module (8 corej Dozer can "max" most games. That said, certain engines like Gamebryo are so Intel/Nvidia centric, any AMD part will have weird quirks/glitches. That doesn't mean that games using these engines aren't 100% playable on nearly max settings, but it often means there is one particular piece of eye candy you'll have to turn off in an Nvidia TWIMTBP or Intel Inside title. Flip-flop the tables for AMD, Gaming Evolved title. So, I'd recommend a Phenom II B73 (2.8 Ghz Tri core) as the best value for buget gaming setups. Dozer is excellent at what it's for, but the 4xxx are overpriced for budget gamers. Edit for further explanations: A core refers to the number of execution units on a CPU. Dozer is based around modules, which achive higher core execution density. However, for specific, large mathematical floating point operations the execution units will share higher functions. I know this is a lot of jargon, but it's to explain that Dozer is very different than anything before it and that it's not directly comparable to Intel's stuff. Since most games use legacy code not optimized for how Dozer works, it's usually best to buy phenom II on a budget. The high end Dozer parts have so much brute computational force, they can surmount the obsicles posed by legacy code --the lower-end parts don't always have that same advantage.

Surprisingly a lot of this is almost good advice except that:

1) The CPU, strength or core count, has almost has nothing to do with "maxing" out a games settings as with rather rare exception graphical settings are exactly that; graphical and GPU bound. Occasionally there will be some physics or AI settings you can fiddle with that are CPU related rather than GPU and very rarely a game will partially offload a portion of the graphical stuff like shadows to the CPU but that's about it.

2) Unless highly OCed particularly an Athlon II or a current APU already stuggles with a number of current games, including the most popular PC games of the last 2 years; SC2 and Skyrim.

3) Speaking of which quick look at the latest greatest Gamebryo game, Skyrim, show a bit of a bias towards AMD cards, not Nvidia with the on average slightly weaker HD6770/HD6850 beating the GTX 550 Ti/GTX 460. I'm not seeing anything in the CPU benches that show an Intel bias either outside of the norm. Then again everything I just said is based on professional benchmarks and as such meaningless to you. It's ok, don't fret, almost everything I've been saying to you this whole time has mostly been for the benefit of others who might read it.

4) Grouping cores into modules so that they can share ancillary support systems and save on die space is hardly some sort of revolution in CPU design that legacy code can't deal with because it isn't advanced enough.

5) That Phenom II x3 is in fact a great deal, though it is OEM so you will need to buy a cooler/thermal. Unfortunately I'm still going to have to disagree that it is the best choice if you are on a low budget and near a Micro Center. They sell the 960T for $90 which can be unlocked into a x6 and they offer $40 off any compatible motherboard you buy with it making the cost essentially $10 more than the B73 for the two extra cores and that you will need to spend more than that on a cooler for the B73 anyway. As I said above the extra cores aren't going to gain you much in gaming but the motherboard combo and the OEM vs retail make the 960T the better choice. Of course I'd personally recommend to someone asking about i7 vs Zambezi to not slash their processor budget down to $40, but rather go with the sweet spot between those two that is an overclockable i5 on the socket that shall not be named.

Quote from jyjjy777 : All you are doing here is absurdly dismissing almost anything outside of ultra cheap and ultra high end when there is a vast middle ground which is called "mainstream" or "mid-range" which is actually the largest market segment. All you really say of note about the largest market segment is that Bulldozer is the better choice over Sandy/Ivy when almost no one outside of you agrees with that as the reviews and sales numbers show and the reasons for it are shown quite clearly in the benchmarks and price. Sandy/Ivy do almost everything better than Bulldozer apart from a VERY small subsection of tasks and in the others their advantage is often stark and large and easily worth the small price difference to anyone that cares about how fast their computer is which is almost everyone whether you think anyone building a mid-range computer is making a mistake or not. As for your statement that if you are going to bother with a mainstream platform you may as well spend 70% more for an on average 0-10% performance increase which is nuts if you care about your money and you wouldn't be on this site if you didn't and that doesn't change because you think anyone not going for dirt cheap should just go ahead and get the highest end platform available. "So, at the end of all this --you're doing exactly what you claim not to be. We come from different schools of thought on this, nothing more, nothing less." No, your perspective is nothing resembling a "school" and even calling it "thought" almost perverts the word. All you do is think what you want to think and any evidence that it is incorrect, including huge piles of universally acknowledged facts, you find reasons to dismiss. You pretend the performance of computers and their prices are an opinion when it isn't so and ANY evidence that supports your opinion, large or small, relevant to a lot of people or almost no one are ALWAYS enough to completely dismiss any evidence to the contrary. You think both the large average performance difference(fact) of Sandy/Ivy over Bulldozer is not actually worth a very small(fact) price difference while the small general performance boost(fact) of 2011 over 1155 is universally worth the very large(fact) price difference. It makes no sense, it isn't a school of thought, it is a temple to stubborn delusion that you stand in basically alone. You are inventing a false equivalency between someone vehemently dismissing common knowledge based on easily verifiable facts with no evidence to back it up and handing it in blanket statements as unqualified advice to all with someone pointing to the facts and trying to explain why the near universal interpretation of them is valid for all but a very small subsection of consumers when it shouldn't be necessary at all.

If you're not able to tell the difference between your opinion and "the facts" you are a lost cause.

I'll admit that I have a rather unique set of opinions, and that compared to you; I am a dinosaur of the Modernist era in your Post-Modern world. Still, what you consider "mainstream" is just needless overspending. Thing is, PCs are either tools or toys. Yours is quite obviously a toy, --only my "cheap" ones are toys. Find me a game/app your $1k PC can run that my $400 machine cannot run well enough to be useful/enjoyable. You can't, but that won't stop you from being ignorant to my point. I'll rebuild two entire boxes and STILL be under $1k. Call that stupid if you will --but I'll assure you that my children will have every red cent of their college paid for, and I'll retire in comfort even after Social Security is gone.

Am I stupid? *chuckle*

Quote from jyjjy777 : I will indeed go right ahead. Your points are basically a conspiracy theory similar to the way people dismiss things like man made climate change as non-existent or unimportant because the consequences of such conflict with pre-existing political/economic outlooks. 97% of climatologists believe it is true but to people who don't want to that 97% consists of corrupt shills toeing the line for grant money(when it is actually professing the opposite view that is heavily financed by big business and receives tons of media attention) or morons entirely ignorant of the import of what they and the 3% that agree with them know is "the truth." It is actually on a level beyond that because predicting future weather patterns is a hugely complex and imprecise task that we are a long way from perfecting making it legitimately open to a wide range of interpretations(though that does not change that 97% of the people who are actually trained the best we know how to make a worthwhile interpretation end up with the same conclusion.) The performance of computer components on the other hand is trivial to test in comparison, done so by an uncountable people around the globe and there is little inconsistency in the results. You are saying that nearly all reviewers are either morally bankrupt and simply lie to consumers in order to ensure a steady stream of pre-release components that they will, of course, then lie about as well(and I guess curiously never really be called out on it by anyone but you) or they are just utterly incompetent. Why do you believe this despite that it is a preposterous thing to think? It allows you to dismiss anything you don't want to believe and the evidence against even this justification itself is of course in that category. So now I'll bring up some evidence that what you say is obviously not true and present some likely responses ahead of time. Bulldozer was nearly universally panned in pre-release reviews, directly conflicting with your idea that they are all basically scripted advertisements. Of course you probably believe there is some sort of bidding war for the malleable opinions of tech reviewers and the tampered with benchmarks they publish to support them and Intel always has the winning bidding because they have more money. Why doesn't AMD then no longer send these sites pre-release chips which you say would be the punishment for the reviews not reading like advertisements? I'm going to go with you think they have to because they are the smaller company and without pre-release reviews they don't stand a chance even though that ignores that negative pre-release reviews are going to hurt them rather help. Or maybe AMD is like some naive little kid who doesn't know the dirty nature of the tech review game you've uncovered and bravely pointed out here and the tech reviewers know this as well so they don't bother to try to stay on their good side? Or maybe the way you explain it away is something totally different and so silly I couldn't even come up with it ahead of time and you will now respond with it and it will be just as twisted and flimsy and/or contrary to reality as everything else you've come up with to dismiss LGA 1155 but you'll state it as fact and act like it is just as good, nay, much better than the avalanche of truly solid reasons almost everyone else thinks the opposite of you. Honestly at this point I'm more curious about figuring out how you come up with the things you want to believe that you then construct these razor thin tightropes of "logic" you walk in order to support. I think we may be getting at that at this point and it might be this; You like to believe the opposite of common knowledge most likely because it makes you feel like you are superior to not only almost all the other people you talk to about this stuff but even the professionals who have made a career out of studying the topic. Before you do it, please, stop simply throwing what I'm saying about you back at me in the charmingly kindergartenesque "I'm rubber and you're glue" fashion you seem to have settled into. No, that's not what I'm doing. You are the ONLY person I've talked to about this topic that holds anything like your opinion so my views simply cannot be based on wanting to feel superior to anyone because I think what almost everyone else does. Also if the above is true and not just limited to the arena of computer tech you almost definitely are a climate change skeptic and I sooooooooo was not trying to start a new stupid argument with you on that topic as well so please don't try to start one.

You really can't tell the difference between marketing and an honest assessment can you? That explains a lot TBH. You really are incapable of seeing beyond what you're told by a source without investigating further. If you don't know how to conduct an experiment, it's not entirely your fault. If you choose to remain ignorant about proper methodology, suit yourself.

I'd have at least figured you'd know that the Dozer reviews were all flawed b/c AMD sent out the demo kit with a MOBO now known to cripple AM3+ CPUs. I'd also have figure you'd have known that AMD had no control over MS rolling out 7 SP 2 so late and having so many issues with the kernel and scheduler. Shove Dozer in an ASRock 990FX Fatality give it fast enough RAM, and a properly configured OS -and it runs like a cut cat. You don't know any of this, and bash the platform without ever even using a properly configured system b/c you're so singlemindedly set on 1155.

You've got a pretty selective memory to just forget all the issues with that platform. But, you confuse your opinion with facts...


BTW I designed and built a few of those superclusters that all but proved climate change is a reality. It was actually a condition of my scholarship several years back. Of course you won't believe that either...