The Intel Core i7-7700K (91W) Review: The New Out-of-the-box Performance Champion
by Ian Cutress on January 3, 2017 12:02 PM ESTProfessional Performance: Windows
Agisoft Photoscan – 2D to 3D Image Manipulation: link
Agisoft Photoscan creates 3D models from 2D images, a process which is very computationally expensive. The algorithm is split into four distinct phases, and different phases of the model reconstruction require either fast memory, fast IPC, more cores, or even OpenCL compute devices to hand. Agisoft supplied us with a special version of the software to script the process, where we take 50 images of a stately home and convert it into a medium quality model. This benchmark typically takes around 15-20 minutes on a high end PC on the CPU alone, with GPUs reducing the time.
Here we report the overall time to complete the test – sub-test results can be found in Bench.
Here’s another instance where a stock Core i7-7700K can overcome an overclocked Devil’s Canyon. Agisoft spends a good time of its workload using cache heavy threads, showing that large core parts do really well, however the i7-7700K is on par with the six-core Core i7-3960X, showing that extra IPC and frequency can make up for a core or two.
Cinebench R15
Cinebench is a benchmark based around Cinema 4D, and is fairly well known among enthusiasts for stressing the CPU for a provided workload. Results are given as a score, where higher is better.
While Cinebench R15 is more a synthetic, it remains a popular test to measure professional performance and is free to use. For single threaded performance, the Core i7-7700K hits the top of the pile. With the Skylake and Kaby Lake parts both at 4.8 GHz, there’s almost nothing between them, showing the identical IPC. In multithreaded mode the 7700K is on top of all the mainstream processors as expected, and when overclocked can mix it up with some of the extreme processors as well.
HandBrake v0.9.9: link
For HandBrake, we take two videos (a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short) and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
The LQ video emphasizes IPC due to its low cache overhead, meaning that the i7-7700K wins again, and when overclocked, performs the same as the 6700K at the same frequency.
The higher resolution video however means that cores with frequency dominate. The i7-7700K stands above processors such as the i7-5820K, the i7-4930K and the i7-3960X, which is no small feat. But if you really want performance here, the big boys are still top performers (if you can afford them).
Hybrid x265
Hybrid is a new benchmark, where we take a 4K 1500 frame video and convert it into an x265 format without audio. Results are given in frames per second.
Our Hybrid test is somewhat similar to the HandBrake HQ test, showing the i7-7700K sitting tall as the mainstream champion.
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1PYTHON1 - Saturday, January 21, 2017 - link
u do realize the 6700k only clocks to 4.5 or 4.6 if u get a good one...this will do 5ghz. so saying theres 0 improvement is crap.Gasaraki88 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link
Why are you testing with Win7 when the CPUs have more functionality under Windows 10?ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
I thought Intel wasn't going to release Windows 7/8.1 drivers for 200-series chipsets and Kaby Lake in accordance with Microsoft's policy that Skylake was the last new CPU family to be officially supported by those OS. If Anandtech tested Z270 motherboards and Kaby Lake with Windows 7 did Intel end up releasing Windows 7 drivers for 200-series chipsets after-all or do existing 100-series drivers work with the 200-series or is some other workaround being done?jimbo2779 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
I dont think it was intel saying they wouldn't release drivers for win 7, that would be them shooting themselves in the foot big time. Microsoft were saying they would not be supporting new features in CPUs.I believe this means things like a new sse instruction set would not have native support in windows prior to 8. However this does not stop a CPU manufacturer from implementing support via drivers which is what intel would likely do at some point if not at launch.
Shadow7037932 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
Probably because they don't want to re-test the old systems under Windows 10 just for this review. But yeah, I do think it's about time AnandTech move on to Windows 10 as the baseline OS.Iketh - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link
Identical IPC yet AVX Offset support? Can clarify plz?Iketh - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link
nevermind, you clarified in overclocking sectionIketh - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link
for anyone else wondering, AVX Offset is not an additional instruction set, it's a bios settingUser.Name - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link
It's really time for a new suite of gaming tests if they aren't showing any difference between the CPUs.For one thing, average framerates are meaningless when doing CPU tests. You need to be looking at minimum framerates.
Just look at the difference between CPUs in Techspot's Gears of War 4 performance review: http://www.techspot.com/review/1263-gears-of-war-4...
Or GameGPU's Watch Dogs 2 CPU test: http://gamegpu.com/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/...
So many people keep repeating that CPUs don't matter for gaming these days, but that's absolutely wrong. The problem is that many of the hardware review sites that have been around for a long time seem to have forgotten how to properly benchmark games.
takeshi7 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link
I agree that AnandTech should improve their gaming benchmarks. Some frame time variance measurements would be nice, and also some runs with lower graphics settings so that the CPU is the bottleneck rather than the GPU.