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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
264 Comments
View All Comments
Slappi2 - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Running 1080s, doubt I'll notice.Luckz - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
That's an impressive review / article considering the source.prophet001 - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
The TDP on the chip is 140W. If they can't cool it then there's a problem with the heat spreader.How well it overclocks is another point of discussion separate from this one.
prisonerX - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
And yet the only reason you're seeing it at all is becuase of AMD. You epitomise the pure, untrammeled genius of typical Intel customers.Spunjji - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
This is lost on Slappi.FreckledTrout - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Slappi2, you reading the same charts? Also have you seen game reviews on other sites. The 1800x holds its own pretty well compared to t he 7820x 8-core, yes the 7820x is faster but not by a huge margin. We don't have Thredripper just yet to see AMD's 10 core comparison so saying Intel's 10 core is killing AMD's 8-core models is a bit disingenuous.AnandTechReader2017 - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
The review is missing power consumption, clock speed and current price.At no point is it stated what clock speed anything is running at, it could be that Ryzen is running at base and Intel running overclocked (as speedshift would allow). There are also no comparisons with speedshift on/off.
There is no mention of power draw, the Intel processors are all using a 112/130/140W envelope, but are probably way below that with base, while Ryzen is 95/65W with no mention if overlocked above that envelope or underclocked.
If you check Amazon, one can get the R7 1800X for $439 versus the $499 they posted.
Also, the top Intel chips are competing with Thread Ripper, not Ryzen 7.
You're probably going to accuse me of fanboyism, I just don't like it if so many test details are missing. There is also no mention of temperature at max load, etc.
AnandTechReader2017 - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
To add: They also have 2666MHz and 3000MHz RAM, yet they don't state what clock speed the test is run at.There is so much information missing.
Ian Cutress - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Power consumption is added. Sorry, I'm currently half-way around the world suffering jet lag - I had the graph compiled, I just forgot to write about it. It's been added.Clock Speed: As per the first page.
Current Pricing: As per the first page.
With regards the recent price drops from AMD on the Ryzen chips - everything seems to point that this is distributor driven. We've not seen anything official from AMD (such as price lists) that confirm an official price drop. If you have a link to that, please share.
On the DRAM: our standard policy as with every review is to run JEDEC for the maximum officially supported frequency. Nothing changes in this review. So that's DDR4-2666 for the 7900X and 7820X, and DDR4-2400 for the 7800X.
Tamz_msc - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
What benchmark was used for the power consumption data?