Performance per price, higher is better.
Intel Core i7-3970X: specs and benchmarks
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.
It provides poor benchmark performance at 6.67% of a leader's which is AMD EPYC 9654.
General info
Core i7-3970X processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and pricing.
| Place in performance ranking | 961 | |
| Value for money | 2.07 | |
| Market segment | Desktop processor | |
| Architecture codename | Sandy Bridge-E (2011−2013) | |
| Release date | 1 November 2012 (10 years old) | |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $593 | of 305 (Core i7-870) |
| Current price | $261 (0.4x MSRP) | of 15710 (Xeon Platinum 8276L) |
Value for money
Technical specs
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 cores | 6 (Hexa-Core) | |
| Threads | 12 | |
| Base clock speed | 3.5 GHz | of 4.7 (FX-9590) |
| Boost clock speed | 4 GHz | of 6 (Core i9-13900KS) |
| L1 cache | 64 KB (per core) | of 7475.2 (Apple M2 Pro 10-Core) |
| L2 cache | 256 KB (per core) | of 36864 (Apple M2 Max) |
| L3 cache | 15 MB (shared) | of 768 (EPYC 7373X) |
| Chip lithography | 32 nm | of 4 (Ryzen 9 7940HS) |
| Die size | 435 mm2 | |
| Maximum core temperature | 67 °C | of 110 (Atom x7-E3950) |
| Maximum case temperature (TCase) | 70 °C | of 105 (Core i7-5950HQ) |
| Number of transistors | 2,270 million | of 9900000 (Ryzen 5 7645HX) |
| 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 configuration | 1 | of 8 (Opteron 842) |
| Socket | FCLGA2011 | |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 150 Watt | of 400 (Xeon Platinum 9282) |
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 extensions | Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX | |
| AES-NI | + | |
| AVX | + | |
| Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST) | + | |
| Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST) | + | |
| Turbo Boost Technology | 2.0 | |
| 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 types | DDR3 | of 5600 (Ryzen 9 7940HS) |
| Maximum memory size | 64.45 GB | of 786 (Xeon E5-2670 v3) |
| Max memory channels | 4 | of 12 (Xeon Platinum 9221) |
| Maximum memory bandwidth | 51.2 GB/s | of 460.8 (EPYC 9124) |
| ECC memory support | - |
Peripherals
Specifications and connection types of supported peripherals.
| PCIe version | 2.0 | of 5 (Core i9-12900K) |
| PCI Express lanes | 40 | of 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.
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.
Benchmark coverage: 68%
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.
Benchmark coverage: 41%
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.
Benchmark coverage: 41%
3DMark Fire Strike Physics
Benchmark coverage: 4%
Send in your benchmark results
Send your test results of Core i7-3970X.
Mining hashrates
Cryptocurrency mining performance of Core i7-3970X. Usually measured in megahashes per second.
| Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) | 7.4 Mh/s |
Relative perfomance
Overall Core i7-3970X performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop CPUs.
AMD equivalent
According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to Core i7-3970X is Ryzen 5 PRO 2400G, which is faster by 1% and higher by 7 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.
9.1%
7.6%
4.5%
4.5%
4.5%
4.5%
4.5%
These are the fastest graphics cards for Core i7-3970X in our user configuration statistics. There is a total of 66 configurations based on Core i7-3970X in our database.
1.5% (1/66)
1.5% (1/66)
1.5% (1/66)
1.5% (1/66)
1.5% (1/66)
1.5% (1/66)
3% (2/66)
3% (2/66)
7.6% (5/66)
1.5% (1/66)
