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 ESTLegacy Tests
At AnandTech, I’ve taken somewhat of a dim view to pure synthetic tests, as they fail to be relatable. Nonetheless, our benchmark database spans to a time when that is all we had! We take a few of these tests for a pin with the latest hardware.
Cinebench R10
The R10 version of Cinebench is one of our oldest benchmarks, with data going back more than a few generations. The benchmark is similar to that of the newest R15 version, albeit with a simpler render target and a different strategy for multithreading.
For a few years I was under the impression that CineBench’s workload was not amenable to more IPC increases, as we hovered around 7000 pts with new microarchitectures not making much of a difference. Being high frequency the i7-7700K pulls out a lead here, but it’s worth noting that Kaby Lake as a whole scores well, perhaps indicating that other features (such as frequency speed changing) can help.
The multithreaded test gives different results, as this test typically prefers many cores. Rather than the new Cinebench tests dividing the scene up into over a hundred pieces (depends on threads), CB10 purely divides the scene into exactly how many threads are present. If a thread finishes early, it will try and cut the work of another thread in half. This sort of approach to multithreading has a different approach to frequency, cores and IPC, hence why R11.5 and R15 do bigger separations with core workloads.
Cinebench R11.5
CB11.5 has been popular for many years as a performance test, using easy to read and compare numbers that aren’t in the 1000s. We run the benchmark in an automated fashion three times in single-thread and multi-thread mode and take the average of the results.
Similar to other tests, the i7-7700K takes the single thread crown, again beating an overclocked Devil’s Canyon i7-4790K, showing the out-of-the-box performance. Again, Kaby Lake as a whole seems to do well here, thanks to 4.2 GHz turbo modes on the i5-7600K and i3-7350K.
7-zip
As an open source compression/decompression tool, 7-zip is easy to test and features a built-in benchmark to measure performance. As a utility, similar to WinRAR, high thread counts, frequency and UPC typically win the day here.
The Core i7-7700K shows the benefits of frequency over a stock i7-6700K, however at the same frequency they perform roughly the same as expected.
POV-Ray
Ray-tracing is a typical multithreaded test, with each ray being a potential thread in its own right ensuring that a workload can scale in complexity easily. This lends itself to cores, frequency and IPC: the more, the better.
AES via TrueCrypt
Despite TrueCrypt no longer being maintained, the final version incorporates a good test to measure different encryption methodologies as well as encryption combinations. When TrueCrypt was in full swing, the introduction of AES accelerated hardware dialed the performance up a notch, however most of the processors (save the Pentiums/Celerons) now support this and get good speed. The built-in TrueCrypt test does a mass encryption on in-memory data, giving results in GB/s.
The encryption benchmark loves both threads and memory bandwidth, so we see the extreme processors pull out large leads due to 6+ cores and four memory channels. However, we see a similar picture as before to the Devil’s Canyon part: an out-of-the-box Core i7-7700K will beat an overclocked Core i7-4790K at 4.7 GHz.
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HardwareDufus - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
This is exactly what I was thinking. Why didn't they add the eDRAM to this K-Series chip. Maybe we will see another higher clocked variant with Iris Pro.... I would buy that. Meanwhile, I'll keep using my I7-3700K CPU.Vash63 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
It's mentioned in the article that Linux doesn't support Speedshift. That seems to be at odds with the p-state driver documentation on kernel.org:https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cpu-freq/...
"If the processor is capable of selecting its next P-State internally, then the driver will offload this
responsibility to the processor (aka HWP: Hardware P-States). If not, the driver implements algorithms to select the next P-State."
Looks like they call it HWP instead of 'Speedshift', marketing names don't often make it into the kernel. This was added in Nov 2014: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/5246361/
oranos - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
so basically if you have a 6700k you good to goBrokenCrayons - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
Or anything as old as a 2500K apparently as long as you don't have a need for some of the features included on more modern motherboards. Honestly, the last six or so years have been pretty dull ones for x86 processors.iwod - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
To American viewers, ( which i expect many would be on Anandtech ), and dont know who Jerermy Clarkson is, He is a former host of UK BBC's Car / Motoring Show "Top Gear", and current host of Amazon's The Grand Tour.And in case you dont know the show, you should watch it :P
P.S - Why specifically American? Because Top gear is the world most watched TV shows ( Non-Drama ) and it is popular is everywhere in the world EXCEPT America.
stardude82 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
...Except it's been canceled. I hear you can watch some blowhard prattle on about rich boy toys on this little American website called Amazon.com.stardude82 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
Oh wait... The was a British version?Manch - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
What are you on about? Top Gear was quite popular in the states among gearheads and their ilk. So popular, they made a US version which sucks.fanofanand - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link
Manch is correct. Americans "in the know" about car stuff all know about and revere Top Gear. The American version was awful, and I haven't watched the Amazon version but heard the first episode was impressive, the others not so much. I like Jeremy Clarkson but the other two hosts made the show, IMO.iwod - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
So the i7700K gets you 8% more clock speed for the same power usage. And you get roughly 10% more performance due to clock speed and slight IPC improvement.