The Intel Kaby Lake-X i7 7740X and i5 7640X Review: The New Single-Threaded Champion, OC to 5GHz
by Ian Cutress on July 24, 2017 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Kaby Lake
- X299
- Basin Falls
- Kaby Lake-X
- i7-7740X
- i5-7640X
Benchmarking Performance: CPU Rendering Tests
Rendering tests are a long-time favorite of reviewers and benchmarkers, as the code used by rendering packages is usually highly optimized to squeeze every little bit of performance out. Sometimes rendering programs end up being heavily memory dependent as well - when you have that many threads flying about with a ton of data, having low latency memory can be key to everything. Here we take a few of the usual rendering packages under Windows 10, as well as a few new interesting benchmarks.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Corona 1.3: link
Corona is a standalone package designed to assist software like 3ds Max and Maya with photorealism via ray tracing. It's simple - shoot rays, get pixels. OK, it's more complicated than that, but the benchmark renders a fixed scene six times and offers results in terms of time and rays per second. The official benchmark tables list user submitted results in terms of time, however I feel rays per second is a better metric (in general, scores where higher is better seem to be easier to explain anyway). Corona likes to pile on the threads, so the results end up being very staggered based on thread count.
More threads win the day, although the Core i7 does knock at the door of the Ryzen 5 (presumably with $110 in hand as well). It is worth noting that the Core i5-7640X and the older Core i7-2600K are on equal terms.
Blender 2.78: link
For a render that has been around for what seems like ages, Blender is still a highly popular tool. We managed to wrap up a standard workload into the February 5 nightly build of Blender and measure the time it takes to render the first frame of the scene. Being one of the bigger open source tools out there, it means both AMD and Intel work actively to help improve the codebase, for better or for worse on their own/each other's microarchitecture.
Similar to Corona, more threads means a faster time.
LuxMark v3.1: Link
As a synthetic, LuxMark might come across as somewhat arbitrary as a renderer, given that it's mainly used to test GPUs, but it does offer both an OpenCL and a standard C++ mode. In this instance, aside from seeing the comparison in each coding mode for cores and IPC, we also get to see the difference in performance moving from a C++ based code-stack to an OpenCL one with a CPU as the main host.
Luxmark is more thread and cache dependent, and so the Core i7 nips at the heels of the AMD parts with double the threads. The Core i5 sits behind the the Ryzen 5 parts though, due to the 1:3 thread difference.
POV-Ray 3.7.1b4: link
Another regular benchmark in most suites, POV-Ray is another ray-tracer but has been around for many years. It just so happens that during the run up to AMD's Ryzen launch, the code base started to get active again with developers making changes to the code and pushing out updates. Our version and benchmarking started just before that was happening, but given time we will see where the POV-Ray code ends up and adjust in due course.
Mirror Mirror on the wall...
Cinebench R15: link
The latest version of CineBench has also become one of those 'used everywhere' benchmarks, particularly as an indicator of single thread performance. High IPC and high frequency gives performance in ST, whereas having good scaling and many cores is where the MT test wins out.
CineBench gives us singlethreaded numbers, and it is clear who rules the roost, almost scoring 200. The Core i7-2600K, due to its lack of instruction support, sits in the corner.
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Alistair - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
I look at it this way: in 2016 I bought a 6600k for $350 CAD. In 2017 I bought a Ryzen 1700 for $350 CAD. Overall speed increase 240%. So AMD delivered 240 percent more performance at the same price in one year. Intel continues to deliver less than 10 percent per dollar. I could care less if the single performance is the same.Call me next time Intel releases a chip a year later that is 240 percent faster for the same price.
Hurr Durr - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
So you bought yourself inferior IPC and a sad attempt at ameliorating it by piling up cores, and now have to cope with this through wishful thinking of never materializing performance percents. Classic AMD victim behavior.Alistair - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
First of all, stop using IPC, an expression you don't understand. Use single core performance. In almost every single benchmark I see dramatic speed improvements. I'm comparing the i5 with a Ryzen 1700 as they were the same cost. People harping over the i7-7700k apparantly didn't notice the 1700 selling for as low as $279 USD.Also get higher fps in almost every single game (Mass Effect Andromeda, Civilization and Overwatch in particular).
Alistair - Tuesday, July 25, 2017 - link
I have tremendous respect for Ian, whose knowledge and integrity is of the highest order. I just think some of his words in this review lose the plot. As he said, "it would appear Intel has an uphill struggle to convince users that Kaby Lake-X is worth the investment". He should have emphasized that a little more.In Canada, Ryzen 1700 plus motherboard = $450. i5 (not i7) plus motherboard is $600. Yes, $150 dollars more!
Intel has 20 percent faster single core performance and yet Ryzen is 2.4 times (+140 percent) faster overall... Numbers should speak for themselves if you don't lose the plot. I agree single threaded performance is very important when the divergence is large, such as Apple's A10 vs Snapdragon 835, or the old Bulldozer. But the single threaded gap has mostly closed and a yawning gulf has opened up in total price/performance. Story of the year!
Hurr Durr - Tuesday, July 25, 2017 - link
Extolling price slashing right after launch, boy you`re on a roll today.silverblue - Tuesday, July 25, 2017 - link
I think you should prove why you think Intel is the superior buy, instead of just trolling and not actually providing any rationale behind your "arguments".On Amazon.co.uk right now, there are four Ryzen and one FX CPU in the top 10. Here's the list (some of the recommended retail price values are missing or a bit - in the case of the 8350 - misleading):
1) i7-7700K £308.00; RRP £415.99
2) R5 1600 £189.19; RRP £219.95
3) R7 1700 £272.89; RRP £315.95
4) i5-7600K £219.99; RRP £?
5) i5-7500 £173.00; RRP £?
6) FX-8350 £105.50; RRP £128.09
7) i5-6500 £175.09; RRP £?
8) R5 1500X £165.99; RRP £189.98
9) Pentium G4400 £48.90; RRP £?
10) R5 1600X £215.79; RRP £249.99
There must be a ton of stupid people buying CPUs now then, or perhaps they just prefer solder as their thermal interface material of choice.
Advantages for Intel right now: clock speed; overclocking headroom past 4 GHz; iGPU (not -X CPUs)
Disadvantages for Intel right now: price; limited availability of G4560; feature segmentation (well, that's always been a factor); overall platform cost
An AMD CPU would probably consume similar amounts of power if they could be pushed past 4.1GHz so I won't list that as a disadvantage for Intel, nor will I list Intel's generally inferior box coolers as not every AMD part comes with one to begin with.
The performance gap in single threaded workloads at the same clock speed has shrunk from 60%+ to about 10%, power consumption has tumbled, and it also looks like AMD scales better as more cores are added. Unless you're just playing old or unoptimised games, or work in a corporate environment where money is no object, I don't see how AMD wouldn't be a viable alternative. That's just me, though - I'm really looking forward to your reasons.
Gothmoth - Tuesday, July 25, 2017 - link
no first of = stop arguing with stupid trolls...prisonerX - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
I can double my IPC by having another core. Are you really that dumb?Hurr Durr - Tuesday, July 25, 2017 - link
AMD victim calling anyone dumb is peak ironing. You guys are out in force today, does it really hurt so bad?wira123 - Tuesday, July 25, 2017 - link
yeah intel victim is in full force as well today, which is indeed ironic