Sandy Bridge-E with LGA 2011 X79 motherboards should be arriving by mid November.
SANDY BRIDGE-E
Sandy Bridge-E is the same architecture as Sandy Bridge. But with a few changes.
* No GPU core
* Larger L3 cache, up to 15MB
* Quad channel memory
X79 CHIPSET
The X79 chipset does not add anything new, but gives more PCI-E lanes and SATA 3.0 ports.
* 2x16 or 4x8 PCI-E graphics lanes
* Up to 6 SATA 3.0 ports and 10 SATA ports total
* Up to 14 USB 2.0 (no USB 3.0
)With the X79's plentiful PCI-E lanes motherboard makers can add on third party USB 3.0 controllers and definitely will. Intel says they will support PCI-E 3.0, but it hasn't been certified yet.
PROCESSORS
Core i7-3820, 3.6 to 3.9GHz, 4 cores, 10MB cache, $300
Core i7-3930K, 3.2 to 3.8GHz, 6 cores, 12MB cache, $600
Core i7-3960X, 3.3 to 3.9Ghz, 6 cores, 15MB cache, $1,000
Price information is unconfirmed and could change.
OVERCLOCKING
LGA1155 locked down most overclocking methods. You pretty much needed a "K" series unlocked CPU and could only change the CPU multiplier to overclock. LGA2011 brings back more overclocking options.
Reference BCLK (formerly FSB) x CPU multiplier = CPU speed. Before LGA1155 an overclocker would raise the BLCK or FSB to increase the CPU speed. It had to be this way because most Intel CPU's have a locked multpilier (can be lowered, but not raised).
LGA1155 however ended this because the BCLK was locked in with the PEG and DMI clocks. So raising the BCLK also raised the other two and even a 5% increase would make the system unstable.
LGA2011 gives us a new variable for overclocking, the BCLK ratio. Now the overclocking formula is Ref BCLK x BCLK ratio x CPU multiplier = CPU speed. You can tweak the BCLK a little bit, but you still don't want to change it much, instead you'll use a BCLK ratio to overclock with. There are only three choices though. 1.0, 1.25, and 1.67.
A Core i7-3820, using a 36x CPU multiplier, 100MHz BLCK, with a 3.6GHz base speed. Could be overclocked in the following ways.
100 BCLK x 1.25 BLCK ratio x 36 CPU multiplier = 4.5GHz
100 BCLK x 1.67 BLCK ratio x 36 CPU multiplier = 6GHz, not likely.
Okay, 6GHz overclock not gonna happen of course, but since all processors have a CPU multiplier that can be lowered...
100 BLCK x 1.67 BLCK ratio x 29 CPU multiplier = 4.84GHz, a bit more plausible.
You could tweak the BLCK down a little bit and probably be good.
95 BLCK x 1.67 BCLK ratio x 30 CPU multiplier = 4.76GHz as another example
There are still some limitations, but you can still do a lot more with a CPU multiplier locked CPU now than you could before.
COOLING
The processors are rated at 130 watts (Sandy Bridge is 95 watts or lower). And Intel will not include a stock cooler with these processors. Instead they will sell an optional Asetek made/Intel rebranded all in one water cooling system. It'll be just like a Corsair H70 (also made by Asetek). But the CPUs can also be cooled by a third party heatsink and fan too as most are just fine with 130 watt CPUs.
MOTHERBOARDS & MEMORY
Xbit's article shows off a few motherboards from Gigabyte and MSI. Most featuring 8 memory slots, some with 4 memory slots (4 channels, 1 bank). Gigabyte seems ready to introduce motherboards for a variety of price ranges from what is no doubt doing to be a very expensive UD7 to what I assume should be an affordable (for X79 anyway) UD3 board.
Kingston will have a 64GB memory kit available using eight 8GB sticks. This probably won't be called "affordable".
CONCLUSION
Looking pretty exciting. this is no doubt overkill for most gamers and they really may not need to upgrade their LGA1155 systems for it. But if you like excess, or just need a lot of PCI-E lanes for multiple graphics cards, RAID controllers, etc., then this might be something for you.
I'm still rocking away on my Q9550 CPU with a Gigabyte P45 board and skipped over Sandy Bridge. Still not sure if I'm going to go with this upgrade or not.
I posted an another thread about Lucid Virtu technology and it requires an integrated GPU to work with your discrete graphics. And Sandy Bridge-E doesn't have a grahpics core, so won't be compatible with Virtu. Ivy Bridge coming early 2012 will be mostly a CPU die shrink of Sand Bridge-E, but will also include a graphics core that is suppose to be significantly more powerful than what is in Sandy Bridge. So maybe I might try to hold out another half year longer for that. Still don't think my CPU/motherboard is hurting me too much since it's overclocked to 4GHz.
