Core i7-3970X: specs and benchmarks

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Aggregate performance score

Core i7-3970X provides acceptable benchmark performance at 5.58% of a leader's which is a 96-core Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX.

Summary

Intel started Core i7-3970X sales 1 November 2012 at a recommended price of $593. This is a Sandy Bridge-E architecture desktop processor primarily aimed at office systems. It has 6 cores and 12 threads, and is based on 32 nm manufacturing technology, with a max turbo frequency of 4000 MHz and an unlocked multiplier.

Compatibility-wise, this is FCLGA2011 processor with a TDP of 150 Watt and a maximum temperature of 70 °C. It supports DDR3 memory.

Primary details

Core i7-3970X processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and pricing.

Place in the ranking1156
Place by popularitynot in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.59
Market segmentDesktop processor
Power efficiency3.39of 100.00 (Core Ultra 7 164U)
Architecture codenameSandy Bridge-E (2011−2013)
Release date1 November 2012 (12 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$593of 17,906 (tray) (Xeon Platinum 8280L)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance per price, higher is better.

Detailed specifications

Basic microprocessor parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters can generally indicate CPU performance, but to be more precise you have to review its test results.

Physical cores6 (Hexa-Core)
Threads12
Base clock speed3.5 GHzof 4.7 GHz (FX-9590)
Boost clock speed4 GHzof 50 MHz (i486DX-50)
Bus rate5 GT/s
L1 cache64 KB (per core)of 80 KB (EPYC 9965)
L2 cache256 KB (per core)
L3 cache15 MB (shared)of 1152 MB (EPYC 9684X)
Chip lithography32 nmof 3 nm (Apple M3 Max 16-Core)
Die size435 mm2
Maximum case temperature (TCase)70 °Cof 105 °C (Core i7-5950HQ)
Number of transistors2,270 millionof 135,240 million (EPYC 9684X)
64 bit support+
Windows 11 compatibility-
Unlocked multiplier+

Compatibility

Information on Core i7-3970X compatibility with other computer components and devices: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.

Number of CPUs in a configuration1of 8 (Opteron 842)
SocketFCLGA2011
Power consumption (TDP)150 Wattof 3100 ‑ 4500 (Ryzen 7 7435H)

Technologies and extensions

Technological capabilities and additional instructions supported by Core i7-3970X. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensionsIntel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX
AES-NI+
AVX+
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)+
Turbo Boost Technology2.0
Hyper-Threading Technology+
Idle States+
Thermal Monitoring+
Smart Response+
Demand Based Switching-

Security technologies

Processor technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT-
EDB+
Identity Protection+

Virtualization technologies

Supported virtual machine optimization technologies. Some are specific to Intel only, some to AMD.

VT-d+
VT-x+
EPT+

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel number of RAM supported by Core i7-3970X's memory controller. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequency may be supported.

Supported memory typesDDR3
Maximum memory size64.45 GBof 6 TiB (EPYC 9124)
Max memory channels4of 12 (Xeon Platinum 9221)
Maximum memory bandwidth51.2 GB/sof 460.8 GB/s (EPYC 9124)

Peripherals

Specifications and connection types of supported peripherals.

PCIe version2.0of 5.0 (Core i9-12900K)
PCI Express lanes40of 128 (EPYC 7551P)

Benchmark performance

Single-core and multi-core benchmark results of Core i7-3970X. Overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

i7-3970X 5.58

Passmark

Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance.

i7-3970X 8541

GeekBench 5 Single-Core

GeekBench 5 Single-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses only a single CPU core.

i7-3970X 736

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses all available CPU cores.

i7-3970X 3709

3DMark Fire Strike Physics

i7-3970X 12900

Gaming performance

Closest competitors

Core i7-3970X's performance relative to its closest rivals among desktop CPUs.


Core i7-7700 101.25
Core i3-10105 100.36
Core i7-3970X 100

AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to Core i7-3970X is Ryzen Embedded V1807B, which is nearly equal in speed and higher by 3 positions in our ranking.

Here are some closest AMD rivals to Core i7-3970X:

Similar processors

Here is our recommendation of several processors that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

Recommended GPUs

People consider these graphics cards to be good for Core i7-3970X, according to our PC configuration statistics.

These are the fastest graphics cards for Core i7-3970X in our user configuration statistics. There is a total of 98 configurations using Core i7-3970X in our database.

All comparisons with Core i7-3970X

Community ratings

Here is the rating given to the reviewed processor by our users. Let others know your opinion by rating it yourself.


3.8 30 votes

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Questions & comments

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