Intel "Skylake" to be 6th Generation Core Series, First i7-6700K Benchmarks

[btarunr]

Intel's next major CPU architecture, codenamed "Skylake," could be classified as the company's 6th generation Core processor family. It will succeed the brief stint Core "Broadwell" will have at the market, with no major chips for PC enthusiasts to look forward to. The Core i7-6700K appears to be the flagship product based on the Skylake-D silicon, succeeding the i7-4770K and i7-4790K. The Core i5-6600K will succeed the i5-4670K and i5-4690K.

The i7-6700K is a quad-core chip, with HyperThreading enabling 8 logical CPUs. Its nominal clock will be 4.00 GHz, with a rather shallow 4.20 GHz Turbo Boost frequency. It will feature an 8 MB L3 cache, and an integrated memory controller that supports both DDR4 and DDR3 memory types. This makes Skylake a transition point for the mainstream PC market to gradually upgrade to DDR4. You'll have some motherboards with DDR3 memory slots, some with DDR4 slots, and some with both kinds of slots. The resulting large uncore component, and perhaps a bigger integrated GPU, will result in quad-core Skylake parts having TDP rated as high as 95W, higher than current Haswell quad-core parts, with their 88W TDP.

Turkish tech publication PC FRM claims to have access to performance numbers of the i7-6700K and i5-6600K, which it probably sourced from engineering samples being circulated within the motherboard industry; compared to some popular current-generation chips from the segment. The i7-6700K, which features the same clocks as an i7-4790K, is 15 percent faster in most tests. Its performance is slotted somewhere between the i7-4970K and the six-core i7-5820K, in multi-threaded tests. In tests such as PC Mark, it outclasses every other chip in comparison, including the i7-5820K.



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[Nokiron]

This diagram is so misleading.

 

[Naito]

Looks like a decent performance boost if claims are true. My Z77 feature set is growing a little stale, so this may be a good upgrade.

 

[$ReaPeR$]

interesting.. i really dont see the need for DDR4 though.. but i supose that technology has to move on.. also i expected the FX to be much slower than what they seem to be.

 

[$ReaPeR$]

Looks like a decent performance boost if claims are true. My Z77 feature set is growing a little stale, so this may be a good upgrade.

mate, your system looks very nice the only things i would upgrade are the gpu and the ssd, beyond that i see no reason for you to pull the trigger.

 

[cheesy999]

interesting.. i really dont see the need for DDR4 though.. but i supose that technology has to move on.. also i expected the FX to be much slower than what they seem to be.

3d mark benchmark will use all 8 threads, and they're still pretty good in that scenario, they're a bit old but they have got 30w extra to play with

 

[Naito]

mate, your system looks very nice the only things i would upgrade are the gpu and the ssd, beyond that i see no reason for you to pull the trigger.

Cheers. I'll probably hang on to it a bit longer, but with only two native SATA 3.0 ports and things like NVMe becoming common, the Z77s features set starts to fall a bit short.

 

[$ReaPeR$]

3d mark benchmark will use all 8 threads, and they're still pretty good in that scenario, they're a bit old but they have got 30w extra to play with

i know.. i was just trying to be ironic. if one believes the fanboys AMD should have half of the scores they do.

Cheers. I'll probably hang on to it a bit longer, but with only two native SATA 3.0 ports and things like NVMe becoming common, the Z77s features set starts to fall a bit short.

form that standpoint i agree with you, for the poweruser SSDs are becoming a necessity.

 

[RCoon]

In other words, if you're still on Sandybridge and don't need a beefcake iGPU and DDR4 (nobody really needs DDR4), you're welcome to skip this generation too. It doesn't even tick the power saving box. Gaming performance improvements are miniscule.

Only reason I can see for me to upgrade is for NVMe M6e m.2 drives.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Looks like a decent performance boost if claims are true. My Z77 feature set is growing a little stale, so this may be a good upgrade.

Not even actually necessary, sir! I believe you merely have the "upgrade itch." Perhaps some features are not present in Z77, true, depending on the board model, but really, nobody's performance is going to HUGELY increase going to this....unless they are on skt 775.

 

[lemonadesoda]

I'm a bit disappointed. I'd have liked to see significant performance improvements AND/OR TDP improvements for this to be labelled "6th generation". As is, it's a small uptick in performance with no TDP gains, ie, buy new, but skip this generation for upgrades.

 

[Jorge]

It's nice to see some folks have finally figured out that there is no need to upgrade when a new CPU or DRAM series is released and offers no tangible system performance boost. If you're upgrading just because you want some new toys, that's perfectly fine. If you're updating because you didn't do your homework and you don't understand that you're getting almost nothing in performance for your money, shame on you.

As noted by other folks here, DDR4 is a perfect example of an unnecessary, over-hyped, option. With DDR3 running at 1600+ MHz. not being a system bottleneck on a discrete CPU powered PC, spending on higher frequency DDR3 or over-priced DDR4 is just throwing good money away. While the DRAM purveyors will love you, you gain almost nothing in desktop PC system performance for your money.

A technically educated consumer can make an informed purchasing decision and skip the hype.

 

[RCoon]

no tangible system performance boost

The processor does kinda offer a system performance boost, in both the generic benchmark department as well as iGPU department. Gaming performance, and general memory performance however, remain relatively meh.

 

[Naito]

Not even actually necessary, sir! I believe you merely have the "upgrade itch." Perhaps some features are not present in Z77, true, depending on the board model, but really, nobody's performance is going to HUGELY increase going to this....unless they are on skt 775.

That's true, the upgrade itch continues to grow stronger even when I tell myself it needn't be scratched yet! If it wasn't for the chipset (NVMe system drive is damn tempting), I wouldn't even consider an upgrade, but who knows. Let's see how this plays out first.

 

[MoupitShow]

as a gamer, no upgrade until i see the impact of directX 12 on games with the arrival of windows 10. Some games running with directX 11 are going to have patches in order to be compatible and run with directx12 like The Witcher 3 and Batman Arkham Knight. (see : The Witcher 3 and Batman Arkham Knight to support DX12 ).

 

[rtwjunkie]

as a gamer, no upgrade until i see the impact of directX 12 on games with the arrival of windows 10. Some games running with directX 11 are going to have patches in order to be compatible and run with directx12 like The Witcher 3 and Batman Arkham Knight. (see : The Witcher 3 and Batman Arkham Knight to support DX12 ).

That article is pure speculation on their part, considering earlier this month CDPR said explicitly they wanted to make the best Direct X 11 experience they could and thusly, The Witcher 3 would only be DirectX 11.

 

[farfigneugan42]

In other words, if you're still on Sandybridge and don't need a beefcake iGPU and DDR4 (nobody really needs DDR4), you're welcome to skip this generation too. It doesn't even tick the power saving box. Gaming performance improvements are miniscule.

Only reason I can see for me to upgrade is for NVMe M6e m.2 drives.

Agreed. I'm on a 2700k @ 4.6, and see nothing here that entices me to buy newer. I guess I'll either go socket 2011v3, or just keep holding out for whatever comes after Skylake.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

So it would seem Skylake isn't worth waiting for when 5820 can be had now (albeit for a lot more money).

 

[Petey Plane]

Not even actually necessary, sir! I believe you merely have the "upgrade itch." Perhaps some features are not present in Z77, true, depending on the board model, but really, nobody's performance is going to HUGELY increase going to this....unless they are on skt 775.

Agree. Still see little reason to upgrade from my 2500k and Z77. Most of what i currently use my PC for (BF4/Hardline, PoE, Total War 2), isn't CPU restricted. And PCI-3.0 and DDR4 aren't going to give me more than a 5% or so FPS boost. We'll see how CPU dependent Witcher 3 is though . Hopefully the next "Tock" will offer something better than 95 watts.

If you're mainly using your PC for gaming, a new GPU should always be prioritized over a new CPU/platform, in the upgrade path.

In real world, daily use performance (gaming, startup, shutdown, app loading), the perceptible difference between a NVMe SSD and a regular SATA3 SSD will be virtually non-existent. You'd see maybe an improvement of 1-2 seconds in start-up times and level loads, at best. This is all a little myopic toward gaming PCs, but i have a feeling that's what the majority of TPU's readers have.

And protip: SSDs have zero effect on game FPS.

 

[Parn]

In real world, daily use performance (gaming, startup, shutdown, app loading), the perceptible difference between a NVMe SSD and a regular SATA3 SSD will be virtually non-existent. You'd see maybe an improvement of 1-2 seconds in start-up times and level loads, at best. This is all a little myopic toward gaming PCs, but i have a feeling that's what the majority of TPU's readers have.

And protip: SSDs have zero effect on game FPS.

Agreed. Until the time when the per GB price of a NVMe PCI-E SSD drops to the same level as a current high-end SATA3 SSD (e.g. 850 Pro), I won't bother with upgrade.

 

[Captain_Tom]

Looks like a decent performance boost if claims are true. My Z77 feature set is growing a little stale, so this may be a good upgrade.

Really? A 20% performance increase is worth hundreds of dollars? lol

 

[ZoneDymo]

Pretty much what happens without competition.
Just add as little as possible (they could give you a much better cpu but nooo that would make them less money) so that people still feel the "oh shiny new stuff, must buy".

Minimum effort, lots of power still in the bag for future releases, maximum profit.

 

[Shou Miko]

looks like i found my new cpu

 

[xorbe]

Meh, very incremental. Another round of 2500K owners and up giving it a pass.

 

[ensabrenoir]

.......all this logic and cost/performance mertics.....ITS NEW TOYS FOR SAKES MAN!!!!!! Older chipsets are neices and nephews M UST FEED THE ADDICTION!!!!!!!