i7-3960X vs. Xeon X5667

[paulprochnow]

It seems the 12 thread i7-3960X 15MB cache is slower than the 8 thread 12MB cache.
How can that be? The i7-3960X clocks up to 3600MHz and the Xeon 3300MHz.

I'm asking as the Xeon seems to get warmer, almost critically warm when the room is warm in summer.
Is a six core somehow impaired? the thread count comes out four more than the Xeon.

Like two quads versus three quads.

[bruce]

I'm not aware of any reason why that should be true but I have not examined the CPU specs carefully.

Your suggestion that heat has increased may be the answer. Are you using the same heatsink and fans and is thermal-limiting becoming active? See what you can do to provide additional cooling.

[Joe_H]

It is hard to compare processors from different generations. In any case the Xeon CPU you mention has a TDP of 95 W compared to the 130 W for the i7-3960X. The i7 is only going to reach its maximum performance if the cooling is sufficient to handle the higher heat load. And the clock boost up to 3.6 GHz is usually not available with all cores under load, it mostly applies to partial core usage. Another differences are the amounts of cache available to each core, at 15 MB for 6 cores the i7 has 2.5 MB per core, while the Xeon has 3 MB per core available.

[Nathan_P]

On the same WU on the same OS, using all the available threads with nothing else using cpu resources the i7 is going to be faster than the x5667. Clock speed will not make up for a reduced number of cores. Either you are suffering thermal throttling issues or your comparison is not a direct one.