Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2 1 LGA 2011 Processor

Intel Core i7-3930K Processor 3.2 GHz, 32nm, Integrated Four Channel DDR3 Memory Controller, Hyper-Threading Technology, 12 MB Smart Cache, Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology, LGA-2011 package

Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
I've been a long time buyer of AMD cpus due to the price to performance ratio. Within the last year however I have been running more virtual machines on my pc and have been in need of more CPU cores and wishing I could go beyond 16G of RAM on my AMD boxes.I had been on the verge of buying a new Bulldozer to upgrade from an AMD Phenom II 1090T six core, but realized that even after spending an additional $270 I was only going from 6 cores to 8. I wanted to leave at least two cores and 8GB of RAM dedicated to the host OS, then put the remaining RAM and CPU cores to Virtual machine use.With an AMD FX-8150 I could only get 6 cores left, and since 8GB RAM sticks are very expensive, I could only get 8GB of RAM out of the 16 my board could hold with 4x4GB sticks after taking 8GB for my host OS. This meant that at most I could get 4 single core virtual machines with about 2GB of RAM each.I decided to wait to look at the new L2011 offerings from Intel before buying AMD again, I'm glad I did. Intel's CPU has 6 physical dual cores giving me effectively 12 CPUs. The motherboard I'm using with the CPU has 8 DDR3 slots meaning I could fill it with 4GB sticks giving me 32GB.I now have 10 cpus and 24GB of RAM for my virtualization needs, meaning I can run 10 Virts with about 2GB of RAM each easily. Perfect for my needs! While it cost a lost to get to this level of PC (Mboard, CPU, RAM) exceeding $1000 total, I feel that I know have a system that I can easily get four years out of.I also fired up Photoshop and the thing is just super quick on this CPU.Here's what my build looks like:ASUS Sabertooth X79 Motherboard 32GB RAM - 8 x 4GB of Patriot DDR3 DIMMs Intel Core i7-3930k CPU Corsair Force 10GT 120GB SSD for my OS boot diskOverall I ended up getting a 7.7 Windows 7 experience index. In conclusion, I'd recommend this if you have apps that are heavily threaded and can use the cores, for needs that can fit on an AMD build, I'd go that route since it costs a lot less. If you have general productivity needs, go with an AMD build and save some cash, if you need a beast machine and you're investing for the long haul, then this processor can only be bested by it's slightly bigger brother.