The high end Sandy Bridge Extreme processors have launched along with the X79 chipset and motherboards. This effectively replaces the older Core i7-9xx and X58 products.

Here are a few of the reviews for your reading enjoyment.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/21987
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/14/intel_core_i73960x_sandy_bridge_e_processor_review
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1773/1/
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Sandy-Bridge-E-Review-Core-i7-3960X-and-X79-Chipset-Tested

Disappointingly Intel only launched the six core $600 and $1,000 processor models. There is a much more affordable four core $300 model that apparently we'll have to wait longer for.

[H] hated all over this.

At the end of the day, my 2 year old i7 920 is not in bad shape.

Is this the new name for Ivy Bridge, or is that still coming?

Kinda waiting for those to come out in hopes that current Sandy Bridge processors drop in price.

 

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Ivy Bridge is coming Q1 next year. Probably March (though some say earlier).

I think the hate was mostly because of the price. They were reviewing the $1,000 i7-3960 and very few gamers and overclockers have any business buying that kind of processor.

And I think this is more about finally have a Sandy Bridge architecture processor on a X series chipset. Last X series was the X58 and that's kinda old now. X79 is the more exciting thing to me.

But looks like I won't be buying one this year. The Core i7-3820 not coming until next year.

Ya, I was disappointed with this tbh but I guess I was already waiting for Ivy-E anyway, although those extra cores would really be nice. Assuming I can use 24+Gb in 4gb modules with it, Ivy Bridge-E will be my upgrade path from this 930, otherwise I am going to be stuck with this or going to a dually rig. That might honestly be a better option in the end for me anyway.

 

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I didn't find the performance to be disappointing, because this is just a Sandy Bridge processor. Same architecture, same node size. There shouldn't have been an expectation of increased performance, other than what some apps may gain from the extra two cores.

The main purpose of Sandy Bridge E was to provide a high end platform (X79) with more memory channels and PCI-E lanes, to satisfy a small number of people whose needs aren't meet by the current mainstream platform (P67 and Z68).

If people are wanting a faster CPU for gaming and have a Sandy Bridge, they need to wait for the 22nm Ivy Bridge die shrink for probably a minor improvement or the next new architecture Haswell coming in 2013 for a more significant improvement.

If people are wanting a more robust platform to run their four GTX 580 quad-SLI with 64GB of RAM, they are excited about Sandy Brdige E.