Intel Core i7-10700 vs Core i7-10700K Review: Is 65W Comet Lake an Option?
by Dr. Ian Cutress on January 21, 2021 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Core i7
- Z490
- 10th Gen Core
- Comet Lake
- i7-10700K
- i7-10700
CPU Tests: Simulation
Simulation and Science have a lot of overlap in the benchmarking world, however for this distinction we’re separating into two segments mostly based on the utility of the resulting data. The benchmarks that fall under Science have a distinct use for the data they output – in our Simulation section, these act more like synthetics but at some level are still trying to simulate a given environment.
DigiCortex v1.35: link
DigiCortex is a pet project for the visualization of neuron and synapse activity in the brain. The software comes with a variety of benchmark modes, and we take the small benchmark which runs a 32k neuron/1.8B synapse simulation, similar to a small slug.
The results on the output are given as a fraction of whether the system can simulate in real-time, so anything above a value of one is suitable for real-time work. The benchmark offers a 'no firing synapse' mode, which in essence detects DRAM and bus speed, however we take the firing mode which adds CPU work with every firing.
The software originally shipped with a benchmark that recorded the first few cycles and output a result. So while fast multi-threaded processors this made the benchmark last less than a few seconds, slow dual-core processors could be running for almost an hour. There is also the issue of DigiCortex starting with a base neuron/synapse map in ‘off mode’, giving a high result in the first few cycles as none of the nodes are currently active. We found that the performance settles down into a steady state after a while (when the model is actively in use), so we asked the author to allow for a ‘warm-up’ phase and for the benchmark to be the average over a second sample time.
For our test, we give the benchmark 20000 cycles to warm up and then take the data over the next 10000 cycles seconds for the test – on a modern processor this takes 30 seconds and 150 seconds respectively. This is then repeated a minimum of 10 times, with the first three results rejected. Results are shown as a multiple of real-time calculation.
For users wondering why the 5800X wins, it seems that Digicortex prefers single chiplet designs, and the more cores the better. On the Intel side, the 10700 pulls a slight lead.
Dwarf Fortress 0.44.12: Link
Another long standing request for our benchmark suite has been Dwarf Fortress, a popular management/roguelike indie video game, first launched in 2006 and still being regularly updated today, aiming for a Steam launch sometime in the future.
Emulating the ASCII interfaces of old, this title is a rather complex beast, which can generate environments subject to millennia of rule, famous faces, peasants, and key historical figures and events. The further you get into the game, depending on the size of the world, the slower it becomes as it has to simulate more famous people, more world events, and the natural way that humanoid creatures take over an environment. Like some kind of virus.
For our test we’re using DFMark. DFMark is a benchmark built by vorsgren on the Bay12Forums that gives two different modes built on DFHack: world generation and embark. These tests can be configured, but range anywhere from 3 minutes to several hours. After analyzing the test, we ended up going for three different world generation sizes:
- Small, a 65x65 world with 250 years, 10 civilizations and 4 megabeasts
- Medium, a 127x127 world with 550 years, 10 civilizations and 4 megabeasts
- Large, a 257x257 world with 550 years, 40 civilizations and 10 megabeasts
DFMark outputs the time to run any given test, so this is what we use for the output. We loop the small test for as many times possible in 10 minutes, the medium test for as many times in 30 minutes, and the large test for as many times in an hour.
Dolphin v5.0 Emulation: Link
Many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant boost to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that ray traces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in seconds, where the Wii itself scores 1051 seconds.
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HarkPtooie - Saturday, January 30, 2021 - link
Noteworthy points:It is an i7-10700F
On a Gigabyte B460M
Populated with 4x16 GB DDR-3000
With an ancient Quadro K2000 and an NVMe SSD.
Hyperthreading is disabled.
I use it for running FEA simulations aside my Ryzen workstation, and it performs like a champ. The cheap&old wattmeter hoovers around 157 W or so during simulations. 100% CPU load.
So I take it that if I got the Z490, the CPU would draw 60W more. Would it go faster?
Qasar - Saturday, January 30, 2021 - link
as Spunjji said Harkptooie, practically every review out there, says the opposite of what you are.so, who is correct then ?
HarkPtooie - Sunday, January 31, 2021 - link
Oh, they do? Be a sport and link me to all those reviews.TechPowerUp puts it at 2W above the 3700X at stress test.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-1...
Annnnd... that's it. The rest I find are all "compare" sites listing numbers culled from manufacturer sites.
And here comes Anandtech and tells me that my eyes are deceiving me and that my CPU is actually pulling twice as much as I am observing.
The explanation of which would be that better mobos have a power setting that allows it to draw much more than default, with no obvious benefits? I don't get it.
Everett F Sargent - Sunday, January 31, 2021 - link
Well, now you are almost there. Wherever there is. that is.Watts (power) * Time (seconds) = Energy (e. g. kWh) used
Power (W) versus frequency (Hz) is highly nonlinear (concave up and more so the closer you get to the redline). Your cooling solution can only dissipate so much power per unit time in 247 continuous operation, at a low enough core temperature.
This is all really basic stuff.
So, it will take longer to complete a fixed task at 125W then that same fixed task at 250W (all other things being equal), wherein the first task is running at 4GHz and the 2nd task is running at 5Ghz. These are only example numbers btw.
That TechPowerUp review has plenty of fixed task benchmarks (on the other pages) wherein the total time (in seconds) is given. You might want to check out those pages also.
They use four settings on a Z490 MB. The one that is closest to the out-of-box MB tests mentioned here is their "The third data point (blue bar) sees us relaxing the power limits to enable the maximum turbo frequency available for this processor." or what those bar charts are labeled as "Core i7-10700 Max Turbo" ...
It is a real shame that more sites don't do thorough enough reviews. So, for example, on this review on the 2nd page ...
https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16343/10700KInte...
That is a fixed time test and not a fixed task test. That should have been explained in this review.
Maybe this site will do better next time, by using a low end out-of-the-box MB in addition to their high end out-of-the-box Z490 MB. Report frequency, power, energy and time for all tests/tasks. Use proper recording of all these to get a more complete picture of what the heck is going on (time series and integrals thereof even).
My formal and informal (or on the job) training in doing scientific experiments goes back almost fifty years now. Not that that means anything on the internet. :/
Qasar - Sunday, January 31, 2021 - link
HarkPtooie toms hardware, gamers nexus, redgamingtech, moores law is dead. all pretty much say intel uses more power then amd. in some cases, quite a bit more.so either you have your system set up differently, and are forcing it to use the power it does, and the rest, let the board run as it see's fit, as you said : The explanation of which would be that better mobos have a power setting that allows it to draw much more than default, with no obvious benefits? I don't get it. " actually there is a benefit, when intel's cpus are allowed to use as much power as it can and wants, the performance goes up.
but what ever, you believe what you want.
HarkPtooie - Monday, February 1, 2021 - link
Yes, they do - but they do not say that the i7-10700 non-K uses twice the power of an equivalent Ryzen. That is exclusive to this article, and the explanation is that here they use "boost max all the time" BIOS settings that are not quite the nominal default for this CPU.This is overclocking.
Personally I turn it around and think "I am impressed at the performance Intel managed to squeeze out of this CPU at this power level, considering the process node disadvantage".
I am no fanboy. I usually buy AMD because bang/buck. This time I needed AVX-2 without having to tinker with experimental settings, which is the case with AMD+ANSYS.
HarkPtooie - Monday, February 1, 2021 - link
Ah - so the thing is that my CPU runs default as Intel intended it out of the box, whereas this review uses special motherboard settings that overdrives into a "use any power you need" zone where the max turbo runs all the time?Okay. That would explain things.
That Intel uses more power than AMD is not surprising since there is a substantial difference between 10 nm and 7 nm. And I am well aware that they cheat the numbers to look better - but that does not change the fact that nominally my 10700 draws about as much as my 3700X - and performs more or less equally. A bit faster single-thread, a bit slower multi-thread.
What this review amounts to is "If you reach inside your system and boost the shit out of your i7, it draws much more power than Ryzen." - why not go all the way and overclock them to 6 GHz and shriek about how the Intel draws 800W while the AMD only needs 600W?
Everett F Sargent - Monday, January 25, 2021 - link
What MB are you using and/or can you set PL!/PL2 in your BIOS settings? The article is suggesting that on higher end MB's, or some such, the PL1/PL2 settings are set to infinity or can be changed in the BIOS settings (even on a non-K CPU). PL1 is 125W so it appears that your MB has that limit.Everett F Sargent - Monday, January 25, 2021 - link
OK, made a mistake, the i7-10700 has a PL1 value of 65W and a PL2 of 224W and a PL1 Tau of 28s (those appear to be nominal or default values). Still curious as to the MB and accessible BIOS settings. Also is there any system software to see these settings (e. g. like AIDA64). TIAHarkPtooie - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
I did not set any PL. The systems are default except for the RAM speed with is set by XMP to 3000 and 3200 MHz respectively.Should I interpret it as "during certain settings, the i7 can be made to consume vastly more power than it does by default"? That seems contrived.
All I know is that their power consumptions as measured for the whole system are roughly on par during conditions where incidentally the i7 also outperforms the Ryzen in single-thread applications. It is not a bad CPU.