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Skylake review thread

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
Really the only thing in terms of performance that significantly gained with the CPU are some apps with very high, out of spec memory bandwidth. I guess this is to be expected until silicon is replaced and/or there is competition for server and general single threaded IPC performance.
 

Siphorus

Member
I'm debating getting a 6700k up from a 2700k, since my motherboard has two dead DIMM slots and it looks like the SATA controller may be giving out as well.
 

LilJoka

Member
They're using a Titan X card in 1080p with no MSAA. How would that be GPU limited?

Why wouldnt it be? 4790K should be more than enough to push the Titan X to its utilization limit, its SLI where i would have expected some bottlenecking from the CPU. Titan X is fast, but its not extremely fast to the point of CPU bottlenecking, the 980Ti overclocked can beat it.

Numbers prove me wrong here there, so....
 

tokkun

Member
So, I am about to upgrade my PC after 6 years (still using an i7 920). I want to know if buying a Skylake CPU will give me any more future proofing than buying a Haswell CPU. The benchmarks from 3 years in the future don't exist yet, but I am buying a new PC now.

Now what you seem to be suggesting is that it is better to have no knowledge of the performance potential of a new CPU than to have knowledge that may turn out to be inaccurate. Suppose in CPU limited applications Skylake is 50% faster. Is this irrelevant to my decision as to whether to buy Skylake over Haswell?

That "what if" game can easily lead you to a different conclusion.

What if games 3 years from now are indeed CPU-limited, but are limited by multithreaded performance? What if games 3 years from now are limited by main memory bandwidth? We know that Haswell-E significantly outperforms Skylake in both of those dimensions.

Now you have two pieces of information that lead toward conflicting conclusions. If future games are single-threaded CPU-limited, you should get Skylake. If they are multi-threaded CPU-limited or memory bandwidth-limited, you should get Haswell-E. And of course, if they are GPU-limited, it doesn't really matter, and if you own a recent processor you should stick with it.

So in this case having incomplete knowledge (i.e. only knowing about CPU-limited single-threaded performance if you only read the Eurogamer review) could easily lead you down a worse path than not having that information at all. As I said earlier, that information only helps the consumer when they also have the proper context. In this case, the context is that games are currently GPU limited, and trends like increasing desktop resolution, VR, and DX12 are unlikely to make games more single-threaded CPU-limited in the future.
 

Siphorus

Member
What brand is your motherboard?, I'm just curious.

I have an old ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3. It's served its purpose, and I was able to maintain a 4.5ghz clock stable until recently. (That could be the PSU though, I never really bothered to diagnose it since I'd be replacing it anyways when I had the money for new parts since my build is a 2700k/670 from a few years ago).
 
I would seriously save a wad of money and get a 4790K over the 6700K.



Wrong, as the 4790K can be had for a lot cheaper than the 6700K right now. At least in the UK. I expect the same for US.

4790K - £259.99
6700K - £319.99

And with the 6700K being slightly slower or a wash (depending on what benches you believe) than the 4790K in gaming, and around only 5-10% faster than the Haswell processor in general CPU tasks, it isn't worth the premium. You'll save money with the 4790K with the mobo and DDR3 memory, too (perhaps as much as £150)

Makes sense to buy a cheaper 4790K system to last 3 years than to buy a more expensive Skylake 6700K one to last the same time. The 4790K is going to be almost identical in its performance over that period and in either case, you'll be upgrading in 3 years (if you so please).

If only this were the case in Canada, where the price difference is negligible. :(

The nice thing about buying DDR4 now is that most people could probably bring that forward to their next CPU as well.
 

FireFly

Member
That "what if" game can easily lead you to a different conclusion.

What if games 3 years from now are indeed CPU-limited, but are limited by multithreaded performance? What if games 3 years from now are limited by main memory bandwidth? We know that Haswell-E significantly outperforms Skylake in both of those dimensions.

Now you have two pieces of information that lead toward conflicting conclusions. If future games are single-threaded CPU-limited, you should get Skylake.

If they are multi-threaded CPU-limited or memory bandwidth-limited, you should get Haswell-E. And of course, if they are GPU-limited, it doesn't really matter, and if you own a recent processor you should stick with it.

So in this case having incomplete knowledge (i.e. only knowing about CPU-limited single-threaded performance if you only read the Eurogamer review) could easily lead you down a worse path than not having that information at all.
Suppose I agree with all of this. The conclusion is that CPU limited benchmarks are useful, but need to include both single and multithreaded tests, and include some synthetic measurements as well.

That's a long way from the claim that such tests are like benchmarking on Mars.

In my case, I have a limited budget so can't stretch to Haswell-E, especially as I am going mini-ITX! Hence the comparison is quite a bit simpler and Eurogamer's benchmarks are helpful to me.
 
The digital foundry for the new i7 is up, don't think it's been posted in the thread yet.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-intel-skylake-core-i7-6700k-review

I noticed in that anandtech review, they underclocked all the processors to 3.0ghz (I assume to force the game to be cpu limited?). Maybe underclocking by ~1.2ghz makes the cpu behave strangely, that's why their results are so diffferent? Looking at the digital foundry video, the 6700k's framepacing looks pretty impressive, though not always a huge difference from devil's canyon.
 

Tovarisc

Member
The digital foundry for the new i7 is up, don't think it's been posted in the thread yet.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-intel-skylake-core-i7-6700k-review

I noticed in that anandtech review, they underclocked all the processors to 3.0ghz (I assume to force the game to be cpu limited?). Maybe underclocking by ~1.2ghz makes the cpu behave strangely, that's why their results are so diffferent? Looking at the digital foundry video, the 6700k's framepacing looks pretty impressive, though not always a huge difference from devil's canyon.

Where is underclocking mentioned and tests ran with underclocked CPU's? All I saw was tests with stock clocks and tests with OC.
 

tokkun

Member
That's a long way from the claim that such tests are like benchmarking on Mars.

Well that was not a statement of equivalence. It was a reductio ad absurdum argument to the point that test results are only useful if the test conditions are realistic.
 

Tovarisc

Member
More gaming numbers, nicely formatted by Anad user Sweepr from PCLab's bench. Benches were ran by using normal gaming settings (1080p, Ultra etc.) Check links for sources and full details, but below some picked summary by me.

Used memory in benching: DDR3-2133 CL10 vs DDR4-2666 CL16

BF4 MP: Core i5 6600K 17.1% faster than Core i5 4690K

FarCry4: Core i5 6600K 23.6% faster than Core i5 4690K (same 3.5-3.9GHz base/turbo) and almost as fast as Core i7 4790K (4.0-4.4GHz base/turbo + 8 threads).
Core i7 6700K 22.45% faster than Core i7 4790K despite 5-10% lower turbo clocks.

GTAV: Core i5 6600K 11.85% faster than Core i5 4690K (same 3.5-3.9GHz base/turbo)

Witcher 3: Core i5 6600K 10.1% faster than Core i5 4690K (same 3.5-3.9GHz base/turbo), on par with last generation Core i7 4770K.
Core i7 6700K 13% faster than Core i7 4790K despite 5-10% lower turbo clocks.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37617058&postcount=3255


Core i5 6600K vs Core i5 4690K at fixed 4.5GHz, Skylake-S is:
16.2% faster @ Battlefield 4 MP
10.9% faster @ Counter Strife Global Offensive
6% faster @ Crysis 3
22.7% faster @ Far Cry 4
13% faster @ GTA V
12.5% faster @ The Witcher 3
9.2% faster @ Watch Dogs
14.7% faster @ Project Cars
14.8% faster @ Starcraft 2
24.5% faster @ Total War Attila
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37617084&postcount=3256

Edit: Polish bench on i5 6600K, also showing strong gaming numbers: http://www.purepc.pl/procesory/test_procesora_intel_core_i56600k_skylake_mocne_cztery_rdzenie
 

Odrion

Banned
More gaming numbers, nicely formatted by Anad user Sweepr from PCLab's bench. Benches were ran by using normal gaming settings (1080p, Ultra etc.) Check links for sources and full details, but below some picked summary by me.

Used memory in benching: DDR3-2133 CL10 vs DDR4-2666 CL16


http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37617058&postcount=3255



http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37617084&postcount=3256

Edit: Polish bench on i5 6600K, also showing strong gaming numbers: http://www.purepc.pl/procesory/test_procesora_intel_core_i56600k_skylake_mocne_cztery_rdzenie

Okay, this is starting to look really cool.

I'm now excited to buy in once the six core unlocked variants come out.
 
As someone still with a 955 Black edition and a 5850, I guess it boggles me to see people with 49xx cards bemoaning the lack of a huge improvement.

The 2xxx series guys I get. But if you're 3-5, you just bought it a year or two ago, whats the rush to spend another $300-600 on a new mobo/cpu combo.
 

LordK

Member
Those grammarsframerates look excellent on the 6700 vs 6600. Should I get a 6600 plus nicer cooker for oc or just get the 6700? I've been running a q6600 for a long time now and I need to upgrade. I'll probably be waiting for Pascal graphics card.
 

Soi-Fong

Member
Man.. Who would've thought that my first ever PC built in 2011 with the i7 2600k + HD 5970 would last me this long. Only things I've upgraded are the video card (to a 780 Ti last year) and adding two SSD's.

It certainly served me well in college and still serving me well even now.

I'm definitely keeping it as a Unity/UE4 development workstation.

From what I'm seeing though, I'm seeing enough to upgrade. That sweet i7 6700k and 980 Ti SLI is calling to me as well as VR heaven!! :)
 

TSM

Member
It seems like Skylake is actually a big improvement over Haswell hobbled by either the lack of quad channel memory (bandwidth) or really low latency DDR4 (latency). It might be both. It seems like the real power of this chip won't be unlocked until Skylake-E next year then. If they are more aggressive on the L1/L2/L3 cache sizes on the E refresh this chip might be a real beast.
 

Evo X

Member
Those benchmarks are making me change my mind about doing an X99 build. Sure the extra cores are nice to have, but it seems like an overclocked 6700K might be the best CPU for gaming in the world right now.
 

HUELEN10

Member
So with Skylake fairing worse, at least with what's in the OP and what I've read elsewhere with graphics, should I just get a 2014 Haswell Mac Mini this fall? If a Skylake one gets announced, yields won't be too improved, and the Haswell Mini would be cheaper.

Lol gaming on a Mini aside, it just makes sense to cheap out at this point in some respects, don't it?

That's assuming the next Mini does have discrete graphics.
 
So with Skylake fairing worse, at least with what's in the OP and what I've read elsewhere with graphics, should I just get a 2014 Haswell Mac Mini this fall? If a Skylake one gets announced, yields won't be too improved, and the Haswell Mini would be cheaper.

Lol gaming on a Mini aside, it just makes sense to cheap out at this point in some respects, don't it?

That's assuming the next Mini does have discrete graphics.

If the Mini is using a laptop processor, I would hold off. The Mini may go back to Quad Core with Skylake, and you'll get HDMI 2.0, USB Type-C, a processor that theoretically throttles less (if that's something that happens on the Minis), and a better GPU.

The real question is, when the heck are they going to upgrade the Mini? It's not like they do that all the time.
 

HUELEN10

Member
If the Mini is using a laptop processor, I would hold off. The Mini may go back to Quad Core with Skylake, and you'll get HDMI 2.0, USB Type-C, a processor that theoretically throttles less (if that's something that happens on the Minis), and a better GPU.

The real question is, when the heck are they going to upgrade the Mini? It's not like they do that all the time.
With them using Haswell processors last year, a push for USB type C, and disappointment in last years model, a lot of us are indeed expecting a Mini refresh.

And throttling is actually an issue if you run any OS other than OS X on those things, Linus from TechQuickie explained it rather well once.
 

Tovarisc

Member
This Polish review is so much different from the rest. Here, there is quite a big difference in FPS in games compared to Devil's Canyon. Am I missing something?

Their gaming numbers seem to be somewhat in line with EuroGamer, French benching site (name escaped me atm) etc. when using 2666MHz DDR4 with decent timing and their test platform doesn't seem to favor DDR3 nor DDR4 by that much.


My bad then, for some reason I thought you were referring to EuroGamer bench and missed that you named Anand. Usually CPU's are put to same line, this time via downclock, to get comparable numbers between gens as CPU's run at same frequency.

So with Skylake fairing worse, at least with what's in the OP and what I've read elsewhere with graphics, should I just get a 2014 Haswell Mac Mini this fall? If a Skylake one gets announced, yields won't be too improved, and the Haswell Mini would be cheaper.

That is why you read more than just cherry[?]picked OP that OP doesn't bother to update with new data. Have a look at e.g. this; http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=174830049&postcount=267 and there is more with somewhat similar performance increase in gaming alone. Skylake is improvement, but maybe not by as huge % as some expected for some reason.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Their gaming numbers seem to be somewhat in line with EuroGamer, French benching site (name escaped me atm) etc. when using 2666MHz DDR4 with decent timing and their test platform doesn't seem to favor DDR3 nor DDR4 by that much.



My bad then, for some reason I thought you were referring to EuroGamer bench and missed that you named Anand. Usually CPU's are put to same line, this time via downclock, to get comparable numbers between gens as CPU's run at same frequency.



That is why you read more than just cherry[?]picked OP that OP doesn't bother to update with new data. Have a look at e.g. this; http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=174830049&postcount=267 and there is more with somewhat similar performance increase in gaming alone. Skylake is improvement, but maybe not by as huge % as some expected for some reason.

The data we really care about is same clock 4790k vs 6700k. Skylake fails here.
 

Tovarisc

Member
The data we really care about is same clock 4790k vs 6700k. Skylake fails here.

I'm confused by this statement.

b4.png

c3_j.png

fc4.png

gta5.png

w3.png

pc_r.png

tw.png

Or do you mean with "fail" that i7 6700K outperforms i7 4790K when running same speeds making Skylake solid chip and upgrade over prev-gen (that is or isn't worth of cost based on personal estimate)?
 

Zaptruder

Banned
I'm confused by this statement.



Or do you mean with "fail" that i7 6700K outperforms i7 4790K when running same speeds making Skylake solid chip and upgrade over prev-gen (that is or isn't worth of cost based on personal estimate)?

Well that's good to see. I hadn't seen that until you posted it.

Still, able to source a similar outcome from any other site?

Also preferably at higher resolutions (which is what I care about).
 

Tovarisc

Member
Well that's good to see. I hadn't seen that until you posted it.

Still, able to source a similar outcome from any other site?

Also preferably at higher resolutions (which is what I care about).

I have posted several bench links in this thread, some doing similar 1080p gaming tests with getting similar performance gains for i7 and i5 Skylake. Higher resolution benches mean very little when doing CPU benching because at high resolution (1440p upwards) you will very likely be GPU limited even in CPU heavy games.

We are here to bench CPU, not GPU :b

That said here few sites more "realistic situation" dGPU benches;

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/940-1/intel-core-i7-6700k-i5-6600k-z170-skylake-test.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/core_i7_6700k_processor_review_desktop_skylake,16.html
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/intel-core-i5-6600k-i7-6700k-test-benchmark-skylake/7/ (no mention of used mem, may have gone way of Anand with garbage 2133's)

Low res bench to show how memory impacts Skylake perfomance in gaming; http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/08/05/intel_skylake_core_i76700k_ipc_overclocking_review/6
 

OEM

Member
Dont think its worth the upgrade, at least at the launch price. But then again Intel doesn't do price drop as often :(

We badly need tough competition in this market.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
I have posted several bench links in this thread, some doing similar 1080p gaming tests with getting similar performance gains for i7 and i5 Skylake. Higher resolution benches mean very little when doing CPU benching because at high resolution (1440p upwards) you will very likely be GPU limited even in CPU heavy games.

We are here to bench CPU, not GPU :b

That said here few sites more "realistic situation" dGPU benches;

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/940-1/intel-core-i7-6700k-i5-6600k-z170-skylake-test.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/core_i7_6700k_processor_review_desktop_skylake,16.html
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/intel-core-i5-6600k-i7-6700k-test-benchmark-skylake/7/ (no mention of used mem, may have gone way of Anand with garbage 2133's)

Low res bench to show how memory impacts Skylake perfomance in gaming; http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/08/05/intel_skylake_core_i76700k_ipc_overclocking_review/6

So basically, a complete wash for a person in my situation. Ok thanks.
 
I have posted several bench links in this thread, some doing similar 1080p gaming tests with getting similar performance gains for i7 and i5 Skylake. Higher resolution benches mean very little when doing CPU benching because at high resolution (1440p upwards) you will very likely be GPU limited even in CPU heavy games.

We are here to bench CPU, not GPU :b

That said here few sites more "realistic situation" dGPU benches;

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/940-1/intel-core-i7-6700k-i5-6600k-z170-skylake-test.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/core_i7_6700k_processor_review_desktop_skylake,16.html
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/intel-core-i5-6600k-i7-6700k-test-benchmark-skylake/7/ (no mention of used mem, may have gone way of Anand with garbage 2133's)

Low res bench to show how memory impacts Skylake perfomance in gaming; http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/08/05/intel_skylake_core_i76700k_ipc_overclocking_review/6

Yeah, seems about right.Others trying to justify the performance by quoting obscure benches from non-English language sites is a stretch.

Also, the idea that the 6700K benchmarks were hamstrung by slow frequency DDR4 memory was also debunked as iirc KitGuru ran their tests with a 3000Mhz memory kit and showed no difference: 5-10% faster CPU and zero gain in gaming over Haswell.
 

Tovarisc

Member
So basically, a complete wash for a person in my situation. Ok thanks.

Judging whole release in OP because you don't personally see it as worthy investment is very biased and unfair imo. I'm not saying Skylake is mind blower, but it's far more capable chip than OP leads on and it's why state of OP frustrates me. A lot of people draw conclusion from it and don't google up additional benches.

Edit: To be clear I'm not accusing you of going to assumption from small segment of data. Just seems that a lot of people do.
 

Tovarisc

Member
Yeah, seems about right.Others trying to justify the performance by quoting obscure benches from non-English language sites is a stretch.

Also, the idea that the 6700K benchmarks were hamstrung by slow frequency DDR4 memory was also debunked as iirc KitGuru ran their tests with a 3000Mhz memory kit and showed no difference: 5-10% faster CPU and zero gain in gaming over Haswell.

If bench site isn't in English language it should be ignored as obscure and untrustworthy as they dare type in different language than your native lang? Oh wow. Language of site shouldn't matter if benches are solid work and how they got to results is laid out well.

And other sites show that Skylake gains performance and beats Haswell when running faster DDR4 with reasonable CL rating, 15 being most common atm. I think one bench telling X or Y shouldn't lead to situation where all other benches are ignored or stamped as "invalid" because favorite site says otherwise.

Edit: Sorry for double! :(
 
So basically, a complete wash for a person in my situation. Ok thanks.

You mean a complete wash because a a lack of higher resolution benchmarks or because you think the difference is too low?

The first argument does not make a lot of sense. A better CPU will last longer for everybody.
 

Kiyo

Member
If bench site isn't in English language it should be ignored as obscure and untrustworthy as they dare type in different language than your native lang? Oh wow. Language of site shouldn't matter if benches are solid work and how they got to results is laid out well.

And other sites show that Skylake gains performance and beats Haswell when running faster DDR4 with reasonable CL rating, 15 being most common atm. I think one bench telling X or Y shouldn't lead to situation where all other benches are ignored or stamped as "invalid" because favorite site says otherwise.

Edit: Sorry for double! :(

It's just you in both this thread and the other one referencing cherry-picked benchmarks to try and make yourself feel better about your purchase. It's just very obvious, to the point where I've even started to skip your posts just because of the bias you're showing.

I have nothing against the skylake chips. I wanted them to be amazing so I had a reason to upgrade. But they aren't amazing. They're just an average step up from the previous generation. Whether you like it or not, that's disappointing to me and others in this thread who were hoping for better than just an average step up.
 
I have posted several bench links in this thread, some doing similar 1080p gaming tests with getting similar performance gains for i7 and i5 Skylake. Higher resolution benches mean very little when doing CPU benching because at high resolution (1440p upwards) you will very likely be GPU limited even in CPU heavy games.

We are here to bench CPU, not GPU :b

That said here few sites more "realistic situation" dGPU benches;

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/940-1/intel-core-i7-6700k-i5-6600k-z170-skylake-test.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/core_i7_6700k_processor_review_desktop_skylake,16.html
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/intel-core-i5-6600k-i7-6700k-test-benchmark-skylake/7/ (no mention of used mem, may have gone way of Anand with garbage 2133's)

Low res bench to show how memory impacts Skylake perfomance in gaming; http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/08/05/intel_skylake_core_i76700k_ipc_overclocking_review/6
See to the average gamer, no one really cares. They just want the best fps possible.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
You mean a complete wash because a a lack of higher resolution benchmarks or because you think the difference is too low?

The first argument does not make a lot of sense. A better CPU will last longer for everybody.

Well, my choices are 6700k or 5820k.

Given the kind of differences we're seeing, they're just too marginal.

I do rendering work, so I might as well go extra cores for that.

Unless the 6700k yields a better upgrade path for my purposes than 5820k (i.e. Skylake-E brings significant and worthwhile improvement, while 2011-3 is deprecated after this current iteration of cpus). But no one has information on that, so I might not worry about it for now.
 

harz-marz

Member
Are there any benchmarks done at 1440P (preferably on a 980 ti)

I've just purchased a 6600K and would be interested in this.
 

Tovarisc

Member
It's just you in both this thread and the other one referencing cherry-picked benchmarks to try and make yourself feel better about your purchase. It's just very obvious, to the point where I've even started to skip your posts just because of the bias you're showing.

I have nothing against the skylake chips. I wanted them to be amazing so I had a reason to upgrade. But they aren't amazing. They're just an average step up from the previous generation. Whether you like it or not, that's disappointing to me and others in this thread who were hoping for better than just an average step up.

I have posted full lists of benches for people to read up and draw own conclusions. People kept complaining about gaming performance so I started to link that stuff specificially. A lots of benches out there show gaming performance increases in CPU heavy games, by how large % varies from bench to bench. I would argue that people who keep repeating how Skylake is maybe same and downgrade mostly are ones that are biased.

When Intel has delivered "amazing mind blowing huge performance increase in double digits" last? When looking at benches as a whole, not just gaming performance, Skylake looks to be solid Tock with realistically expected performance increase.
 
Well, my choices are 6700k or 5820k.

Given the kind of differences we're seeing, they're just too marginal.

I do rendering work, so I might as well go extra cores for that.

Unless the 6700k yields a better upgrade path for my purposes than 5820k (i.e. Skylake-E brings significant and worthwhile improvement, while 2011-3 is deprecated after this current iteration of cpus). But no one has information on that, so I might not worry about it for now.

Yeah, in that case that should be a perfectly fine choice.

Are there any benchmarks done at 1440P (preferably on a 980 ti)

I've just purchased a 6600K and would be interested in this.

Resolution does not have an impact on CPU performance, so you just have to look at the 980 ti performance on that resolution. Or at whatever CPU benchmarks are provided for the games if you want to know what the limit of the CPU is.
 

harz-marz

Member
Yeah, in that case that should be a perfectly fine choice.



Resolution does not have an impact on CPU performance, so you just have to look at the 980 ti performance on that resolution. Or at whatever CPU benchmarks are provided for the games if you want to know what the limit of the CPU is.

At 1080P on my 970 I got almost 60fps solid on Crysis 3. At 1440P on my 980 ti I get drops to 30/40 (same CPU - i5 2500 non k)
 
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