After much nail-biting, the Sandy Bridge processors have arrived, and we can finally reveal the performance info that everyone has been anxiously awaiting since last summer. Sandy Bridge was first introduced this September, during IDF 2010 (Intel Developer Forum), when Intel explained the main features of the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture, like high performance integrated graphics built straight into the CPU's architecture, as well as some basic frequencies that the processors would run at. Intel also revealed that there would be two major types of processors: the standard Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 processors, as well as the Core i5 and i7 K series processors. Of the new processors, only the K series will feature unlocked multipliers, while the standard CPUs will be locked and will have very limited overclocking capability. In this review, we will take a microscope to all the information that has been published over the past few months, and clarify misconceptions about the processor.Intel was kind enough to provide us with the newly released Core i7 2600K processor to give our readers an idea of its overall performance throughout different tests including: overall PC performance, video (HD) rendering performance, 3D and gaming performance, productivity performance, and power consumption and temperature improvements. We will try to address these points as accurately as possible, and compare the results to a Core i7 930 processor at stock and overclocked speeds. This should provide a good idea of the overall performance that the Core i7 930 has versus the new Core i7 2600K processors, because both processors are similar in specifications. It should also provide a depiction of the performance differences between architectures, as the Core i7 930 is Nehalem-based, and the Core i7 2600K is Sandy Bridge-based.Both the Core i7 930 and Core i7 2600K processors are Quad-Core processors with Hyper-Threading Technology. Both processors also come with a built in Turbo that pushes up the performance of the CPU when heavy loads are reached and thermal specifications are still within the safe regions (CPU temperature not exceeding Intel's safety margin).