 For years now, the high-end LGA 2011 socket had bells and whistles like quad-channel memory support, higher overall memory capacity, more PCI Express lanes, so therefore inherently better support for multi-graphics card setups, and finally, support for processors with more than four cores. So why is it that Core i5s and Core i7s on the mainstream socket have been so popular with gamers over clockers and enthusiasts? With the purchase of a qualifying Intel processor, SSD, or NUC, you could instantly win an Intel gaming jersey and be entered in the draw for the ultimate system. Click now to learn more. In the LGA 1366 days, all the hardware nerds went enthusiast because that's where the hot offerings like the Core i7-920 could be found. But, starting with Sandy Bridge, back in early 2011, Intel started releasing their newer processor microarchitectures on the mainstream platform first, before bringing them to the enthusiast platform. So, particularly for gamers, it was better to buy the lower-end product for better single-threaded performance, often that are overclocking, much lower prices, and even more up-to-date feature sets. Thunderbolt, for example, has never been available to DIY consumers on LGA 2011. In fact, the only real reason to go enthusiast was to get a six-core processor. But unless you wanted a pretty slow Xeon, those started at $1,000 until a year ago, when the 4930K became available at the value price of nearly $600. Still pretty expensive. But now they've finally done it. With the release of the LGA 2011 3-socket and X99 chipset, and the 5820K, 5930K, and 5960X CPUs to go with them, Intel has finally addressed my complaints and made the final step towards re-establishing the, really, the sensibility of their two-socket system. We've got LGA 1150 for mainstream consumers, and LGA 2011 3 for enthusiasts, with all CPUs on both sockets featuring the latest Haswell microarchitecture. Except, now in addition to more PCIe Gen 3 lanes, except the 5820K, which actually gets fewer, and quad-channel memory, we get support for DDR4, which means higher speed memory at lower voltages with lower power consumption and higher capacities in the future, Thunderbolt expansion capability, better base clock overclocking, and every LGA 2011 3 CPU has at least six processing cores and 12 threads with hyper-threading, with the $1,000 Extreme Edition featuring eight cores and 16 threads. But, before you get too excited, it's not all pure sunshine and rainbows. On LGA 2011 3, there are no core i5s, so in terms of pricing, Haswell E enthusiast-grade chips start where regular Haswell and Devil's Canyon ones leave off at around $400. On top of that, X99 boards and the DDR4 to go with them are more expensive as well, due to the higher cost of the chipset, more complicated board design, and the engineering costs associated with bringing a new platform to market, and then for the RAM, it's just in such low volumes in terms of manufacturing that it tends to be very, very expensive every time we transition memory technologies. But, you guys didn't watch this video to hear all that boring, oh, it's expensive stuff, so let's show off the hardware for today's performance overview of the brand new high-end 5960X. First up is the board. Asus sent over their creatively named X99 Deluxe, the follow-up to our favorite last-gen board around here, the X79 Deluxe, and it comes with some serious upgrades. First up is those DDR4 memory slots that support up to 64 gigs of DDR4, and with the right kit, we've confirmed this with the 3 GHz high-speed G-Skill memory kit that we ran our performance numbers with, up to 3000 MHz DDR4 with some creative XMP implementation that actually uses the 125 base clock strap and lowers the CPU multiplier, but kept our system stable throughout benching somehow in spite of the slightly overclocked CPU speed, so there you go. Next, we've got dramatically improved storage capabilities. The last-gen board was stuck with only two native SATA 3 ports and four with a Marvell controller. Well, now we get up to 12, with four of them capable of being used for up to two SATA Express 10 gigabit ports. And then on top of all that, we get this fancy little bracket that allows an M.2 SSD to be installed. That'll run at 10 gigabit per second as well. USB 3 has gotten a significant upgrade as well, with a total of 14 ports supported, although I personally wouldn't have minded seeing a couple of these replaced by a PS2 port. Some of us still like them. But since we're checking out the rear I.O., now seems like a good time to mention the upgraded networking. We've got better Intel networking now with slightly better performance, lower CPU utilization, and more software prioritization options. We've also got three spatial stream onboard AC wireless that boasts 1.3 gigabit per second maximum theoretical bandwidth. And then finally, not related to networking, but also on the back panel, we've got upgraded onboard audio that features some of the same technology that we've become accustomed to seeing on ROG boards, like amplified headphone output and audio grade capacitors and whatnot. On to the UEFI BIOS. There's been an aesthetic and functional overhaul. We get all the fancy little features that Z97 users have been enjoying, like the configurable favorite submenu, simplified overclocking and RAID setup, and finally, in BIOS temperature sensor controlled fan curve configuration that can handle either DC or PWM control on any fan header on the board. Or the little Molex powered daughter board that you can reposition and that acts as a controllable fan hub elsewhere in your system, giving you up to eight controllable fans. Oh yeah, and it looks pretty sweet too, I guess, with white shielding on the I.O. and a sexy matte black PCB. This is a big improvement over the last generation gold thing they had going on. On to the CPU. Today we'll be focused on the big kahuna, the 5960X. This is an eight core mother of a chip that comes clocked at... Really? Three gigahertz base? That's it? I mean, sure, it's got 20 megs of level 3 cache compared to 50 megs on the lower end chips and two full extra cores, but three gigahertz stock? 3.5 gigahertz max turbo? Am I supposed to be impressed? Not until we start overclocking it. Something anyone buying themselves an Extreme Edition owes it to themselves to do. Overclocked, we got our chip running at 4.35 gigahertz effortlessly, at which speed we were even able to run our DDR4 RAM at 3000 megahertz. And we've seen reports around the web of 3.6 gigahertz even without pushing these things too hard on liquid cooling. So at that point, is it fast? Well, we put it up against the consumer grade chip that has passed for high end up until now, the Core i7 4790K, to determine exactly what's up with the CPU. When it comes to gaming performance, well, until DirectX 12 lands with its supposed dramatic improvements to multi-threading supporting games, I think eight cores might be a bit overkill for normal gamers, and higher per-core clock speeds will continue to be important. But throwing some of Ida64's synthetic benchmarks at it reveals a different story, and back to the real world when we start feeding it some truly multi-threading optimized workloads, such as file compression and 3D rendering, the 5960X reveals itself as the true multi-threading beast that it is. In fact, once overclocked, it's really not that far off the $2,500 last gen 12 core Xeon that we just put in Edsel's machine for editing and 3D rendering. So that's it for the Extreme Edition. But don't worry, we're going to be doing lots more content around Intel's latest truly enthusiast grade platform, but we want your feedback on what you want to see from us. Should we take a deep dive into the 5820K's performance? Which, aside from 12 fewer PCI Express lanes, seems to be the ultimate gamer and multitasker sweet spot. Should we look into this new platform from a content creator perspective? Should we quantify the real world difference between DDR3 and DDR4 in as close to an apples to apples comparison as we can? You let us know what kind of content we should make. Thanks for watching, guys, and a huge thanks to Gskill who sponsored today's episode and provided the brand spanking new Ripjaws 4 DDR4 RAM featured in the video. We've been using Gskill RAM in our test benches for a long time now, we trust their products, and we're extremely happy to finally be working with them from a sponsorship sort of level. The specific kit that we showed off today is a 4x4 gig 16 gig kit running at 3000MHz 1.35V CL15, but they'll be offering a very comprehensive lineup including a 16 gig kit that runs at 3200MHz, a 32 gig kit at 3000MHz, and a 64 gig kit at 2800MHz. Bananas. Gskill's 16 gig 3200MHz kit actually holds the current DDR4 speed record at 4004MHz. Pretty darn fast for such a new platform. Anyway guys, if you need some DDR4, consider using the link in the video description to pick it up. Thanks for watching again. Don't forget to like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment letting me know, of course those things I asked you to comment about before, check out the video description also for a support us link where you can buy a t-shirt, give us a monthly contribution or change your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code so we get a small kickback whenever you buy bananas. Speaking of bananas, I think we're done here.