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 Office Tests
The office programs we use for benchmarking aren't specific programs per-se, but industry standard tests that hold weight with professionals. The goal of these tests is to use an array of software and techniques that a typical office user might encounter, such as video conferencing, document editing, architectural modeling, and so on and so forth.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Chromium Compile (v56)
Our new compilation test uses Windows 10 Pro, VS Community 2015.3 with the Win10 SDK to compile a nightly build of Chromium. We've fixed the test for a build in late March 2017, and we run a fresh full compile in our test. Compilation is the typical example given of a variable threaded workload - some of the compile and linking is linear, whereas other parts are multithreaded.
Our Chrome Compile test is a mix of load, but also loves L3 cache. We've seen before that the L3 victim cache on AMD can be a defecit here, but even then the Core i5 cannot overcome the 3:1 thread deficit to the Ryzen 5 CPUs. The Core i7-7740X hits the nail on the head for threads and single thread performance, although users that play in this space would look straight to the Core i7-7800X, and likely decide that +16.5% better performance is worth the +18.2% extra cost.
PCMark8: link
Despite originally coming out in 2008/2009, Futuremark has maintained PCMark8 to remain relevant in 2017. On the scale of complicated tasks, PCMark focuses more on the low-to-mid range of professional workloads, making it a good indicator for what people consider 'office' work. We run the benchmark from the commandline in 'conventional' mode, meaning C++ over OpenCL, to remove the graphics card from the equation and focus purely on the CPU. PCMark8 offers Home, Work and Creative workloads, with some software tests shared and others unique to each benchmark set.
SYSmark 2014 SE: link
SYSmark is developed by Bapco, a consortium of industry CPU companies. The goal of SYSmark is to take stripped down versions of popular software, such as Photoshop and Onenote, and measure how long it takes to process certain tasks within that software. The end result is a score for each of the three segments (Office, Media, Data) as well as an overall score. Here a reference system (Core i3-6100, 4GB DDR3, 256GB SSD, Integrated HD 530 graphics) is used to provide a baseline score of 1000 in each test.
A note on context for these numbers. AMD left Bapco in the last two years, due to differences of opinion on how the benchmarking suites were chosen and AMD believed the tests are angled towards Intel processors and had optimizations to show bigger differences than what AMD felt was present. The following benchmarks are provided as data, but the conflict of opinion between the two companies on the validity of the benchmark is provided as context for the following numbers.
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Chaser - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
Go 2600K. LMAO!YukaKun - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
Hey, I'm still using my 4.6Ghz 2700K, so these numbers bring joy to me!Cheers! :P
mapesdhs - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
4.6? Outrageous! I would be offended if I were a 2700K at a mere 4.6! Get that thing up to 5.0 asap. 8) Mbd-dependent I suppose, but I've built seven 2700K systems so far, 5.0 every time, low noise and good temps. Marvelous chip. And oh yeah, 2GB/sec with a 950 Pro. 8)lowlymarine - Tuesday, July 25, 2017 - link
Either you're water cooling those systems, or you should consider investing in lottery tickets. My 2600k wouldn't push past 4.4 without very worrying amounts of voltage (1.4V+) and even 4.4 ran so hot I on my 212+ I settled for 4.2 to keep the core under 1.3V.soliloquist - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
Yeah, Sandy Bridge is holding up nicely. Its pretty ridiculous actually.colonelclaw - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
Wait, am I reading these graphs correctly? Unless I'm going mad, they seem to say that for gaming there's no need to upgrade if you already have a 2600K. Huh?If true, and I have no reason to doubt the data, that would make the 2600K one of the greatest processors ever?
Icehawk - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
Yup, it's been said many times - if you have an i7 processor you really don't need to upgrade it for gaming, spend the money on a new GPU every few years. I have a 3700k & GF970, other than the video card the system is 6yrs old - I used to build a new one every other year. I've been considering the 7800\7820 though as I do a lot of encoding.Gothmoth - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
"...Intel’s official line is about giving customers options. ..."yeah like.. if you want more PCI lanes to use all oyu mainboard features just buy the 999$ CPU..... LOL.
mapesdhs - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
Indeed, just like the "option" of a CPU like the 4820K (4-core but with 40 lanes) suddenly vanished after X79. :D Intel's current lineup is an insult.Kalelovil - Monday, July 24, 2017 - link
Some mistakes for the Ryzen entries in the comparisons on page 1.PCI-E (Ryzen die has 20 lanes non-chipset, not 16), clockspeeds (too high), TDP (1700 is 65W).
Also, I see your point of comparing non-sale prices, but the 1700X seems to be widely and consistently available at near the i7-7740x MSRP. It's all but an official price cut.