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Intel Core i7 3930K & Asus P9X79 WS LGA2011 WorkStation Review

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

  • Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
  • Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
  • Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
  • Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
  • Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

  • SMP – Multi-Processor
  • MC – Multi-Core
  • SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
  • MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
  • GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
  • NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
  • AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
  • IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

At the same clock speed, the performance of the 3930K is pretty much on a par with the 3960X. That said, floating point performance in the Multimedia test is significantly lower with the 3930k, which is potentially associated with the smaller L3 cache size. Memory performance is also a couple of gigabytes per second lower at the same 2,400mhz speeds.

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10 comments

  1. Absolutely brilliant review, very interesting to see them both at 4.8ghz when rendering. That L3 cache does make a difference.

    wish I could afford the 3930k. but id need to change my motherboard as well……. still when I get £800 this will be the changes!

  2. Very informative review and the pictures of the mobo are great. glad I found the site today.

    I feel sorry for AMD, I remember when they were closely matched, but sadly no more 🙁

  3. Fantastic read. I can only speak for the Intel Core i7 3930k —
    While the product itself is great, it doesn’t include a cooling fan, necessitating the purchase of an aftermarket cooler. As of Dec. 6th, there are only a few compatible fans available on the market and Corsair Hydro Series H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CWCH80) is the only one that I know of that Amazon carries. Buyer beware!
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00603QXPM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=emjay2d-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00603QXPM

  4. Nice system, love asus motherboards, this one has a passively cooled northbridge too which is better than the others. I hate seeing small fans blocked by graphics cards.

  5. AMD where are you? I long for the days of good FX processors. That 8150 was a disaster. double the cores of 2600k and still slower 🙁

  6. Great review! Now I have both devices in my computer. I’m waiting a opportunity to get a ideal power suply and enjoy this awsome configuration!