Core i7 4820K processor review - Introduction

Core i7 4820K Review - A Quad Core Processor ala Ivy Bridge-E

You probably just read our six-core Core i7 4960X review and figured, dang that's fast. But for Ivy-Bridge-E there is one quad-core processor released as well. In this review we test the new four-core Core i7 4820K (Ivy Bridge-E) processor. This is the only quad-core IBE processor that Intel will release. But it is unlocked and as such direct competition for the Core i7 4770K. That alone is interesting as X79 as a platform offers more PCIe lanes. But how well will this processor fare against Intel's own pride and joy the 4770K ? 

The Intel Core i7-4820k processors and other Ivy Bridge-E chips are released on the market this September, these CPUs are drop-in compatible with the well known X79 - LGA2011 infrastructure.

So in this article we are covering the Intel Core i7 4820K (Ivy Bridge-E) and X79 based motherboard. An update to the true high-end processor series aimed at consumers. A processor that is now smaller, based on 22nm technology that comes with most of the bells and whistles we have learned to like and love of the initial Ivy Bridge processor generation.

Three processors have been released today (4960X / 4930K and 4820K); two Ivy Bridge-E CPUs will have six cores, one model has four cores, hyper-threaded to either eight or twelve threads, the AVX instruction set is here and all processors have a high yet fair 130W TDP.  Impressive yes, but sure there are there is an advantage, the processor does not need a new motherboard as it comes on socket LGA 2011 thus upgrade the system BIOS of your X79 platform and boom, you should be ready to rock and roll. To proof just that we took the MSI X79A-GD65 8D and merely updated its BIOS. Next to that we pair this processor with a nice quad channel memory that is rocking it steady bringing serious levels of bandwidth to the overall platform.

Anyway, head on over to the next page where we'll discuss Ivy Bridge-E processors with the respective models being released. We'll also have a chat about the MSI X79 motherboard used as well as the chipset and then will throw a decent photo-shoot and a benchmark suite at the products and get an indication what performance is like with the Intel Core i7-4820K (Ivy Bridge-E) and X79 Platform.

Next page please, oh and please do enjoy the processor sweetness.