The Intel Haswell-E CPU Review: Core i7-5960X, i7-5930K and i7-5820K Tested
by Ian Cutress on August 29, 2014 12:00 PM ESTOverclocked Results
As part of our reviews here at AnandTech we have recently been including a section on overclocked results, because in the end a +10% overclock does not always mean an extra +10% on performance. For our overclocking escapades mentioned earlier in the review, while we were able to achieve 4.6 GHz on the Core i7-5960X, the sweet spot was around 4.3 GHz at a very comfortable temperature. This leads to a +43% overclock over the base frequency, similar to what we saw with Sandy Bridge-E overclocking.
For our overclocking tests, we are using the same graphs as in the last two pages, but adding the data from our overclocked Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge-E, Haswell and Haswell-E CPUs as well, tested fresh for this review on our latest benchmark suite.
In the past overclocking was all about getting the same or better performance for a lower cost, however with Ivy Bridge-E due to its lower frequency, it was a battle to keep on par with Sandy Bridge-E. Now that Haswell-E has the same frequency deficit (200 MHz) but a +8% increase in IPC, it begs the question if Sandy Bridge-E users with good 4.8 GHz+ CPUs should consider upgrading (for anything other than more cores and an upgraded chipset).
SYSmark 2014
SYSmark sees the biggest uplift in its media and office benchmark suites when overclocked, although the financial suite does enjoy the more cores to put the 5960X ahead.
HandBrake v0.9.9: link
Interestingly the overclocked 5960X does aid low quality conversion, showing that with enough frequency all the cores can be constantly fed with data. The 5960X takes the top two spots for 4K conversion.
Agisoft Photoscan – 2D to 3D Image Manipulation: link
Photoscan also enjoys overclocking in combination with the cores, but the 3960X overclocked will beat the 5960X at stock despite the extra cores of the 5960X.
Dolphin Benchmark: link
Dolphin prefers single threaded speed, so the Haswell CPUs at 4.7 GHz win here. Haswell does well in Dolphin's emulation overall, hence why the older extreme processors, even when overclocked, are further down.
WinRAR 5.0.1: link
More top spots for the 5960X, with the two extra cores at stock beating the other extreme processors.
Hybrid x265
Cinebench R15
3D Particle Movement
FastStone Image Viewer 4.9
When overclocked to 4.3 GHz, the 5960X would seem to produce a similar experience in FastStone to the 4790K at stock. This makes sense as the 4790K at stock is 4.4 GHz in turbo mode.
POV-Ray 3.7 Beta RC14
Gaming Benchmarks
F1 2013
The overclocked 5960X scores a few points in minimum frame rates, giving another +20% while in SLI.
Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock average frame rates seem to get a small boost when overclocked, but minimum frame rates are more responsive to the 84W and 88W parts. The variation might be more indicative of the benchmark as a whole, as it only takes one errant slow frame to produce a low result in the minimum FPS results.
Tomb Raider
Sleeping Dogs
Battlefield 4
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StevoLincolnite - Saturday, August 30, 2014 - link
You obviously have never played with an x58 system with it's triple-channel DDR3 set-up.You *can* actually run 48Gb of Ram, but it's also not guaranteed to actually work, some people managed to win the luck of the draw early on.
Some people who installed 48Gb of memory would only have 32Gb of Ram detected.
Conversely, x58 processors actually have a 36-bit address bus, so theoretically they could support even 64Gb of Ram.
Basically, Intel guarantees up-to 24Gb to function, doesn't mean it cannot handle more.
K_Space - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
Agreed. I do think this justifies the switch from Nehalem 920; however the price of DDR4 is far too prohibitive. Given that fact that Skylake is rumoured to be around the corner ?Q3 2015 (will probably get pushed back); I'm just going to a grab a bargain used X5670 6-core for $120. I have to say, I never thought the 4.1Ghz 24/7 920 would hold for this long.Multi-GPU and newer PCI-E storage solutions will mean that 40 lanes will matter in a generation or two.
GammaLaser - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
Cinebench R15 multithreaded score is "1337", coincidence? I think not.ochadd - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
As a gamer it looks like my overclocked 2600k will remain in it's place. Was hoping for more.maroon1 - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
Games are limited by the GPU most of the time. Even if the CPU is 10 times faster, you might not see a big gains in gamingThe_Assimilator - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
So X99 has the same specifications as Z87, just with 4 extra SATA ports that cannot be RAIDed. Warrants a resounding "meh" from me. Intel could have at least increased the number of USB 3.0 ports.wireframed - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
The Z-platform is the enthusiast platform, this is an entirely different segment. For instance, you'll never get 6 cores on the Z-platform, so the comparison is kinda silly. :)garadante - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
I hope you're wrong with your never statement. If we're still on 4 cores on the Z platform by Montlake or the generation afterwards, I will be very, very disappointed. Intel either needs to aggressively expand core counts to give developers a reason to make software utilizing more threads or push aggressively for increased IPC. Otherwise my 2500k could last a very, very long time.Makaveli - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
why do you guys keep referring to the i7 990x chip as nelahem when its Gulftown?nonoverclock - Saturday, August 30, 2014 - link
Good point. I looked it up and Gulftown is a Westmere microarchitecture CPU.