Intel Core i7-6950X Tested Against i7-5960X

[btarunr]

Silicon Lottery at OCN got their hands on Intel's upcoming flagship high-end desktop (HEDT) processor, the Core i7-6950X. Based on the 14 nm "Broadwell-E" silicon, the processor offers a staggering 10 cores, with HyperThreading enabling 20 logical CPUs, 25 MB L3 cache, and a quad-channel DDR4 memory controller. The i7-6950X is expected to occupy a price point that's above the $999 traditionally reserved for the top-end HEDT chip. Silicon Lottery successfully overclocked the i7-6950X to 4.50 GHz, from its rumored stock frequency of 3.00 GHz, and compared it to a previous-generation Core i7-5960X 8-core processor. The common platform consisted of an ASUS Rampage V Extreme motherboard, 16 GB of quad-channel DDR4-3000 memory, and GeForce GTX 750 Ti graphics.

At its top overclock of 4.50 GHz, the i7-6950X achieved a Cinebench R15 score of 2327 points. At 4.00 GHz, it scored 1904 points, 19.5 percent higher than the i7-5960X at the same clocks (the i7-6950X features two extra cores). The two chips were also put through AIDA64 memory tests. The memory read speeds were nearly the same, but the memory write speeds were found to be a staggering 37 percent higher on the i7-6950X. The memory copy speeds, however, were 10.5 percent lower on the i7-6950X. Intel is expected to launch its next-generation Core i7 HEDT lineup, including two six-core, one eight-core, and one ten-core chips, in a few weeks from now.



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[Ferrum Master]

Honestly... I am good with my old 3960X...

 

[Chaitanya]

Going to resist the force. I know couple of people who will be upgrading their workstations for this 10 core monster.

 

[techy1]

+2 cores and on top of that about+5% IPC and overckoking potential as good as previous gen (which was stellar)... does not sound too shabby huh?
not so fast: + 60% price (1600+ is expected - though simillar xeons v4 did not exceed 4% price increase - with all corecount and IPC increase) and 2 year "development" (which means that this is the most exciting in HEDT CPU news for another 2 years). So pay up or wait anoter 2 yeas and then maybe Intel will present us another 2 cores and maybe 2499,99 $ pricetag - who knows, but +2 cores is for you to have - enjoy.

 

[qubit]

The real question is how do these HEDT CPUs improve performance in games. From tests I've seen of older versions they make no difference and are therefore a waste of money for gaming.

A high IPC seems to be the primary performance setter for gaming, with 4 cores or 2+HT being a requirement too in some AAA games. These CPUs don't improve IPC so hence don't improve performance.

Obviously a high end graphics card is needed too or it makes no difference how fast the CPU is.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

I am happily limping along with a score of 628 on my 4670k.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

The real question is how do these HEDT CPUs improve performance in games. From tests I've seen of older versions they make no difference and are therefore a waste of money for gaming.

A high IPC seems to be the primary performance setter for gaming, with 4 cores or 2+HT being a requirement too in some AAA games. These CPUs don't improve IPC so hence don't improve performance.

Obviously a high end graphics card is needed too or it makes no difference how fast the CPU is.

DX12 could change that, although some larger grand strategy games made good use of multiple cores simultaneously. They might actually be the only kind of game that can use more than 4 cores easily. SupCom was the first I remember to use four CPU cores efficiently, and civ V seems to love having 6-8 cores. AotS may follow in these footsteps.

I see this as being much more valuable to people like me, who run multiple background servers in addition to my main OS (minecraft, teamspeak, ece) or who do any sort of video/audio editing. For them, the big draw will be the chip-set features, and skylake really doesnt fill that need vs broadwell. It makes for some small IPC gains and better overclocking as well though. If Zen also brings out an affordable 8 core, we may finally see software using more CPU cores than we do right now.

 

[Mindweaver]

Hopefully with this being a x10 the 6820k will be an x8. I could use 2 more cores...

 

[Ferrum Master]

Hopefully with this being a x10 the 6820k will be an x8. I could use 2 more cores...

There is also this one in the wild... why to limit yourself...

 

[Mindweaver]

There is also this one in the wild... why to limit yourself...

View attachment 74212

I'll take 2!

 

[Ferrum Master]

I'll take 2!

That will be around 12grands from your wallet

 

[Mindweaver]

That will be around 12grands from your wallet

Not my wallet.. I can think of many reasons why my employer would need them...

 

[Jstn7477]

The real question is how do these HEDT CPUs improve performance in games. From tests I've seen of older versions they make no difference and are therefore a waste of money for gaming.

A high IPC seems to be the primary performance setter for gaming, with 4 cores or 2+HT being a requirement too in some AAA games. These CPUs don't improve IPC so hence don't improve performance.

Obviously a high end graphics card is needed too or it makes no difference how fast the CPU is.

When I went from my 4770K to 5820K, my minimum FPS at the time in Guild Wars 2 went from around 35 to around 50 in densely populated areas using an R9 290 if I recall correctly (didn't get my GTX 980 until a month later). I'd imagine it would be nice for diehard MMO players if their games scale that far, won't say anything about streaming them as they might use the GPU to accelerate that, but it would leave plenty of CPU headroom if needed at all.

 

[EarthDog]

The real question is how do these HEDT CPUs improve performance in games. From tests I've seen of older versions they make no difference and are therefore a waste of money for gaming.

A high IPC seems to be the primary performance setter for gaming, with 4 cores or 2+HT being a requirement too in some AAA games. These CPUs don't improve IPC so hence don't improve performance.

Obviously a high end graphics card is needed too or it makes no difference how fast the CPU is.

You shouldn't be buying or even considering these chips for a primary use of gaming... Its like wondering how a Ferrari performs in a school zone. Sillyness to even have a thought exercise, LOL! Though, when DX12 matures (by this time Skylake E will be out and mature if not Cabbylake).... it may be more helpful.

They should have an IPC improvement over Haswell-E, not broadwell though.

 

[Alien_Zero]

Another reason to wait for the AMD ZEN CPU. Intel has been milking consumers with small tiny performance bumps.....

 

[kylee]

As long as it's $1600 or less, I'll upgrade my 5960X.

 

[Ferrum Master]

As long as it's $1600 or less, I'll upgrade my 5960X.

what kind of Zergling are you?

 

[kylee]

what kind of Zergling are you?

My eyes glaze over when I think about rendering performance on 10 core / 20 thread

 

[ZoneDymo]

less then 20% increase at the same clocks AND it has 2 extra cores working?

wow what an upgrade.....good progress Intel

 

[Steven B]

You shouldn't be buying or even considering these chips for a primary use of gaming... Its like wondering how a Ferrari performs in a school zone. Sillyness to even have a thought exercise, LOL! Though, when DX12 matures (by this time Skylake E will be out and mature if not Cabbylake).... it may be more helpful.

They should have an IPC improvement over Haswell-E, not broadwell though.

hahahaha, yea. However, to a lot of people PCs are only for gaming, and those people should stick with Intel's mainstream chipset, unless they want to run many high-end GPUs.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Single core performance not very impressive, to say the least....

 

[EarthDog]

Single core performance not very impressive, to say the least....

Sorry... what were you expecting exactly? As it has always been, the HEDT chip doesn't really gain IPC over its mainstream counterpart. So long as it didn't lose any IPC from Broadwell to Broadwell-E, that is what should be expected.

 

[Travis]

The 6950X is a great CPU but, the 5960X at 4.5Ghz is faster by about 12-15%

This is however comparing a, "4.5Ghz" overclocked 5960X, to a "3.0Ghz" stock 6950X.

Also, single thread performance running 1 core, at the same 3ghz on each CPU. The 5960X was actually slightly faster. And higher fps in games. This is with both at 3Ghz.

If you have a 5960X add in some heavy overclocking, and you already have the best!

Especially considering, the i7 5960X is like $799 at Micro Center BNIB. And the 6950X is $1,599. That's double the cost! For a negligible boost in the average programs that a 4.6Ghz 5960X will already do!

I7 5960X $800, or get a Xeon 1660 V3. And put the savings toward a Nvidia Quadro P5000. It's a Quadro version of the GTX 1080!

They are great CPUs each of them, I'm considering getting either one to upgrade my i5 6600K 5.1Ghz encoding system. It gets hosed all day at 100% utilization.

I think a 4.5Ghz 5960X, will benefit me greatly! Especially a 6950X lol. Jeez what a beast they both are.

 

[Travis]

Single core performance not very impressive, to say the least....

Yes a 3ghz i5 6300 doesn't have the best single core performance either, considering the others in the graph are running at 4Ghz or more lol.

Once the CPU is overclocked to 4+GHz which is what it's made to do.. it crushes everything.

This is the fastest CPU in the world! 6950X