The Intel Skylake-X Review: Core i9 7900X, i7 7820X and i7 7800X Tested
by Ian Cutress on June 19, 2017 9:01 AM ESTBenchmarking 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 modelling, and so on and so forth.
Chromium Compile (v56)
Our new compilation test uses Windows 10 Pro, VS Community 2015.3 with the Win10 SDK to combile 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.
PCMark8
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
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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Ian Cutress - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Prime95AnandTechReader2017 - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
Are you sure the numbers are correct as the i7 6950X on your graph here states less than the 135W on your original review of it under an all-core load.Ian Cutress - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
We're running a new test suite, different OSes, updated BIOSes, with different metrics/data gathering (might even be a different CPU, as each one is slightly different). There's going to be some differences, unfortunately.gerz1219 - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Power draw isn't relevant in this space. High-end users who work from a home office can write off part of their electric bill as a business expense. Price/performance isn't even that much of an issue for many users in this space for the same reason -- if you're using the machine to earn a living, a faster machine pays for itself after a matter of weeks. The only thing that matters is performance. I don't understand why so many gamers read reviews for non-gamer parts and apply gamer complaints.demMind - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
This kind of response keeps popping up and is highly short sighted. Price for performance matters to high end especially if you use it for your livelihood.If you go large-scale movie rendering studios will definitely be going with what can soften the blow to a large scale project. This is a fud response.
Spunjji - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
Power efficiency will matter again when Intel lead in it. Been watching the same see-saw on the graphics side with nVidia. They lead in it now, so now it's the most important factor.Marketing works, folks.
JKflipflop98 - Thursday, June 22, 2017 - link
Ah, AMD fanbots. Always with the insane conspiracy theories.AnandTechReader2017 - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
Power draw is important as well as temps, it will allow you to push to higher clocks and cut costs.Say your work had to get 500 of these machines, if you can use a cheaper PSU, cheaper CPU and lower power use, the saving could be quite extreme. We're talking 95W vs 140W, a 50% increase versus the Ryzen. That's quite a bit in the long run.
I run 4 high-end desktops in my household, the power draw saving would be quite advantageous form me. All depends on circumstances, information is king.
Ian posted that everything is running at stock speeds, each version overclocked with power draw would also be interesting, also the difference different RAM clock speeds make (there was a huge fiasco with people claiming nice performance increases by using higher RAM clocks with the Ryzen CPU, how much is Intel's new line-up influenced? Can we cut costs and spend more on GPU/monitor/keyboard/pretty much anything else?)
psychok9 - Sunday, July 23, 2017 - link
It's scandalous... no one graph about temperature!? I suspect that if it had been an AMD cpu we would have mass hysteria and daily news... >:(I'm looking for Iy 7820X and understand how can I manage with an AIO.
cknobman - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Nope this CPU is a turd IMO.Intel cheaped out on thermal paste again and this chip heats up big time.
Only 44PCIE lanes, shoddy performance, and a rushed launch.
Only a sucker would buy now before seeing AMD Threadripper and that is exactly why, and who, Intel released these things so quickly for.