Core i7-4960X

The Core i7-4960X is Intel's top of the range desktop processor which sports six physical and twelve hyper-threaded cores. The 4960X was released in 2013 but it uses an FCLGA2011 socket which is supported only by the X79 chipset and is now three years old. As a result an investment in this processor forgoes the last three years worth of platform advances which include, amongst other things, on-board USB 3.0 and additional SATA 600 MB/s ports. Comparing the 4960X and the 4930K shows that when overclocked, the 4930K is able to best the extreme 4960X at nearly half the price! Finally comparing the latest Haswell 4770K to the 4960X shows that 4770K is again able to best the 4960X, this time at a small fraction of the price. The 4960X is significantly overpriced and there is far better value available elsewhere. ^{[Mar '14 CPUPro]}