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Review: Intel Core i7-6700K (14nm Skylake)

by Tarinder Sandhu on 5 August 2015, 13:00

Tags: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qactgj

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Test Methodology

Intel Core i7-6700K Specification


Comparison Processor Configurations

CPU
Intel
AMD
Core i7-6700K
Core i7-5775C
Core i7-4790K
Core i5-4690K
Core i7-3770K
Core i7-2700K
A10-7870K
A10-7850K
CPU Base Clock
4.0GHz
3.3GHz
4.0GHz
3.5GHz
3.5GHz
3.5GHz
3.9GHz
3.7GHz
CPU Turbo Clock
4.2GHz
3.7GHz
4.4GHz
3.9GHz
3.9GHz
3.9GHz
4.1GHz
4.0GHz
CPU Cache
8MB
6MB
8MB
8MB
8MB
8MB
4MB
4MB
CPU Cores / Threads
4 / 8
4 / 8
4 / 8
4 / 4
4 / 8
4 / 8
4 / 4
4 / 4
CPU TDP
91W
65W
88W
88W
77W
95W
95W
95W
Integrated Graphics
HD 530
Iris Pro 6200
HD 4600
HD 4600
HD 4000
HD 3000
Radeon R7
Radeon R7
IGP Base Clock
300MHz
300MHz
350MHz
350MHz
650MHz
850MHz
866MHz
720MHz
IGP Turbo Clock
1.15GHz
1.15GHz
1.25GHz
1.20GHz
1.15GHz
1.35GHz
-
-
Socket
LGA 1151
LGA 1150
LGA 1150
LGA 1150
LGA 1155
LGA 1155
FM2+
FM2+
Lithography
14nm
14nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
32nm
28nm
28nm
Motherboard
Asus Z170-K
Asus Z97-A
Asus P8Z77-V
Gigabyte G1-Sniper-A88X
BIOS
0323
2401
2104
F10
Memory
Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB DDR4 (2x4GB)
Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3 (2x8GB)
Memory Timings
15-15-15-36-2T @ 2,133MHz
9-10-9-27-2T @ 1,866MHz
11-12-11-31-2T @ 2,133MHz
Disk Drive
SK hynix Canvas SC300 (512GB)
Power Supply
Corsair AX760i (760W)
CPU Cooler
Noctua NH-D15
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit)

Benchmark Suite

CPU Benchmarks
HEXUS PiFast Our number-crunching benchmark stresses a single core by calculating Pi to 10m places
Cinebench R15 Using Cinebench's multi-CPU render, this cross-platform benchmark stresses all cores
wPrime 2.1.0 Another number-crunching benchmark that stresses all available CPU cores/threads
Memory Benchmarks
AIDA64 v5.30.3500 Benchmark that analyses memory bandwidth and latency
Multimedia Benchmarks
HandBrake 0.10.2 Free-to-use video encoder that stresses all CPU cores (64-bit)
PCMark 8 v2.4.304 System-wide examination run using Creative preset with OpenCL acceleration
3DMark v1.5.915 Graphics test run using the popular Fire Strike preset
IGP Benchmarks
Grand Theft Auto V 1,920x1,080, normal quality
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor 1,920x1,080, low quality preset
Total War: Rome II 1,920x1,080, medium quality preset
Discrete Gaming Benchmarks (GeForce GTX 980)
Grand Theft Auto V 1,920x1,080 and 3,840x2,160, FXAA, 16xAF, Very High Quality
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor 1,920x1,080 and 3,840x2,160, Ultra Quality Preset
Total War: Rome II 1,920x1,080 and 3,840x2,160, Extreme Preset
Miscellaneous Benchmarks
Power Consumption To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record system-wide mains power draw when idle, when encoding video via HandBrake and while playing Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Notes

We have evaluated from scratch and therefore used the clean slate as a pretext to include testing on Windows 10 with the latest available drivers.

Intel has released a steady stream of new processor families in the preceding four years so we thought it a good idea to pull in the best of the Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell and Skylake families to see how they compare against one another.

We've run a trio of games using integrated graphics at relatively low levels of visual quality alongside a 1080p resolution and, more pertinently for those looking for real-world use cases, installed a reference GeForce GTX 980 GPU and run both 1080p and 4K benchmarks in accordance with the settings used in our graphics reviews. Any CPU-side weakness is likely to be found out at 1080p.

Still rocking that Core i7-2700K from 2011 and wondering if the newest Skylake technology makes sense for you? Let's find out.