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 Web Tests
One of the issues when running web-based tests is the nature of modern browsers to automatically install updates. This means any sustained period of benchmarking will invariably fall foul of the 'it's updated beyond the state of comparison' rule, especially when browsers will update if you give them half a second to think about it. Despite this, we were able to find a series of commands to create an un-updatable version of Chrome 56 for our 2017 test suite. While this means we might not be on the bleeding edge of the latest browser, it makes the scores between CPUs comparable.
SunSpider 1.0.2
The oldest web-based benchmark in this portion of our test is SunSpider. This is a very basic javascript algorithm tool, and ends up being more a measure of IPC and latency than anything else, with most high-performance CPUs scoring around about the same. The basic test is looped 10 times and the average taken. We run the basic test 4 times.
Sunspider goes after peak frequency most of the time, althoguh there is some variation as it moves into basically becoming a legacy test.
Mozilla Kraken 1.1
Kraken is another Javascript based benchmark, using the same test harness as SunSpider, but focusing on more stringent real-world use cases and libraries, such as audio processing and image filters. Again, the basic test is looped ten times, and we run the basic test four times.
Kraken is more of an intense attack on JS, and still regularly sorts by IPC and frequency.
Google Octane 2.0
Along with Mozilla, as Google is a major browser developer, having peak JS performance is typically a critical asset when comparing against the other OS developers. In the same way that SunSpider is a very early JS benchmark, and Kraken is a bit newer, Octane aims to be more relevant to real workloads, especially in power constrained devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Octane seems to be an optimization target, and with the new Skylake-X it shows.
WebXPRT 2015
While the previous three benchmarks do calculations in the background and represent a score, WebXPRT is designed to be a better interpretation of visual workloads that a professional user might have, such as browser based applications, graphing, image editing, sort/analysis, scientific analysis and financial tools.
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Flunk - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
I'm surprised by how well the $249 Ryzen 5 1600x holds on in those benchmarks. Seems like the processor to go for, for the majority of people. It should keep up in games for years to come. Yes, the top-end stuff is great and all, but it's a < 1% product.prisonerX - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Value for money seems to take a back seat to bragging rights for some people. Makes them look silly I think, but they seem to think it makes them look good.asendra - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
?? In a professional setting, being 20-30% or whatever faster is well worth the 500-1000$ extra. Sure, it may only make that render 5/10min faster, But those gains sure add up over the course of a year.Gaining tens of hours of productivity over the course of a year sure is worth the extra $.
Sarah Terra - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
So does the power bill. you'll note the "superior" intel profs have a much higher thermal rating.ScottSoapbox - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
People spending $999 on a CPU alone aren't worried about an extra few dollars on their power bill.Lolimaster - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
The thing AMD's Threadripper offers much more power for the same price or probably less, intel is not an option for workstation :DTimoo - Saturday, July 1, 2017 - link
ThreadRipper is not available yet, so it's not an option. Yes, Intel rushed the X299 platform to beat AMD. Which makes it a "bad bet", to my opinion. But we simply cannot compare it to TR, as of yet. Intel in a workstation is very much an option. Just not one I would take :-)Integr8d - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
People $999 on a CPU to fill 1,000s of blades in a datacenter are definitely worried about a few dollars on their power bill...jospoortvliet - Thursday, June 22, 2017 - link
Sure but this CPU is for work stations not blades. Epic and Xeon compete in that market..melgross - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Well, since one might expect to make at least tens of thousand on a single machine in a quarter, or more likely, a month, for a real business, considering depreciation, the extra costs are well worth it. In fact, they're negligible.