The Intel Broadwell-E Review: Core i7-6950X, i7-6900K, i7-6850K and i7-6800K Tested
by Ian Cutress on May 31, 2016 2:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Enterprise
- Prosumer
- X99
- 14nm
- Broadwell-E
- HEDT
Office Performance
Dolphin Benchmark: link
Many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant boost to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that ray traces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in minutes, where the Wii itself scores 17.53 minutes.
WinRAR 5.0.1: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
3D Particle Movement
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores.
Web Benchmarks
On the lower end processors, general usability is a big factor of experience, especially as we move into the HTML5 era of web browsing. As browsing moves into a multithreaded arena and web applications get more advanced, it is all the more important to have an appropriate level of performance.
Mozilla Kraken 1.1
Google Octane v2
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RussianSensation - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
It's a slap in the face when 6850/6900/6950X are also crap overclockers and will get owned hard in games and every day tasks by a $310 6700K. The only CPU that even remotely makes sense is the 6800K. For workstation use case, dual Xeons will smash the 6950X. Heck, it's better to build a 6900K + 6700K in the same case allowing one to be productive and game at the same time. Phanteks makes such cases now. 6950X is just a way to show your status, nothing more.mapesdhs - Thursday, June 9, 2016 - link
Something usually missing from reviews now is an oc'd 4820K, which is annoying because a 4c IB-E on X79 allows for quite a lot of oc headroom given the high rating of the socket and the beefy power delivery available on boards like the R4E, etc. I bet it would give many of the newer CPUs a serious pelting.Drazick - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
Could we have Extreme Edition with Iris Pro + 128MB eDRAM?That would be a great addition (Even only for the 6 Cores Part).
Eden-K121D - Wednesday, June 1, 2016 - link
Iris pro would be useless but i agree with the eDRAM acting as L4 Cachebarleyguy - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
Great review.One possible omission though: You mentioned that the Xeon E-2640 is a better deal as far as price/performance, but there are no Xeons on the benchmark charts. Do you plan to review the E-2640 at some time in the future?
Thanks.
ShieTar - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
That might indeed be a statement which needs to be proven by tests?The 2640 has 10 Broadwell-Cores at a 2.8GHz All-Cores-Turbo, the 6950X should have a 10-core-Turbo of 3.2GHz, so you might argue you get 87.5% of the Performance for ~60% of the CPU cost. But the 2640 does have a slower verified memory speed, which may have a little impact. And its turbo boost settings are defined to hit a 90W TDP, and I don't think you can change that even in a workstation with plenty of cooling available. Add to that the fact that you can overclock to improve the performance of the 6950X, and that the 700$ price difference should be considered relative to the overall system cost, and you probably end up with very similar price-to-performance ratios.
I think the stronger challenger to the 6950X price-to-performance figures is the 2687W v4, which can be had for just over 2k$, and gets you annother 2 cores at almost the same clocks. That's ~16% more performance for ~16% more CPU cost, which translates into less than 10% higher system cost.
samer1970 - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
Hello ,we all know that games dont use more than 8 threads today ...
so to take advantage of an 8 cores or 10 cores CPU in Gaming you should Disable HT (Hyperthreading) and run the gaming test again to compare it against the 4 cores i7 6700K .
and test it with SLI as well to reach the i7 6700k bottleneck !
let me put it more simple ,
The i7 6700K has 4 cores and can oc to 4.4 ghz easy . this CPU will give us 8 Virtual cores comparable to 2.2 GHZ clock for each virtual core .
However the 8 Coresi7 6900K , With the HT Turned OFF , will give us 8 cores @ 4.4 ghz EACH !
Thats double the speed of the 4 cores i7 ! if the game uses 8 threads .
EVEN if we dont OC the 8 cores , it would be 3.2GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ !!!
if you ask why Disable HT ? simple because the game will never use 16 Virtual cores !!! and the advantage is LOST .
Please run the test again for games with HT turned off .
and to stress the CPU more , TEST SLI as well , we want the i7 6700K to bottleneck !
THANKS
oh and Intel Should release i5 Broadwel-E CPU , 8 cores without HT , CHEAPER and BETTER for GAMERS
RussianSensation - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
Nice try but no cigar. 6700K @ 4.8ghz + HT is the optimal gaming CPU. No current game even scales linearly across 6 cores + HT. 8-10 core CPU with a slower architecture would lose badly to an i7 6700K @ 4.8Ghz + DDR4 4000.There is not a chance 6950X @ 4.4Ghz can keep up with 6700K OC.
http://www.techspot.com/article/1171-ddr4-4000-mhz...
By the time games use 8-10 cores, we'll be on PS5/XB2 generation in 2020-2021 and Icelake-E. Broadwell-E 8-10 cores will be outdated.
adamod - Wednesday, June 1, 2016 - link
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3039552/hardware/te...look at the ashes bench
mapesdhs - Thursday, June 9, 2016 - link
Oh grud not here aswell! You've been banging on about this HT thing on toms for ages.