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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oranos - Sunday, August 31, 2014 - link
Just like with anything in life, there are some people who will pay a premium to have the best of the best. This is exactly that.oranos - Sunday, August 31, 2014 - link
As a matter of fact, for the next generation (nvidia 9xx series and amd xxx) in quad sli/xfire setups, this chip will allow more bandwidth through the PCI-E lanes. So for the top 1% of setups this chip does matter.mlambert890 - Monday, September 1, 2014 - link
no it wont. my p7x79ws with 3960x and tri sli titan has 40 native pcie 3 lanes. sb-e has 40 lanes and pcie 3 support. advanced x79 boards with current bios fully support.this is a non upgrade honestly (x99) vs a high end x79. all you really get is usb3 and sata 6Gb/s native vs third party integrated (BFD), and the mixed bag that is ddr4
Fedor - Monday, September 1, 2014 - link
Very strangely, tomshardware has the 5820 beating out the 5930 and 5960 in gaming benchmarks. The test platforms here and there are very different, but for a start it would be great if you guys could also show us some results with a single GPU for the 5820 and 5930.TiGr1982 - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
IMHO, tomshardware messed up something here - there is no physical reason why 5820 can beat 5930, because they have the same core count and cache structure, but 5930 has higher frequencies and 40 PCIe lanes vs 28 lanes of 5820.Fedor - Wednesday, September 3, 2014 - link
Yup, I'm leaning towards the same conclusion. It's a shame that most reviews do not cover anything but the highest-end chip, but between anandtech, tomshardware, 3dguru and another review I found in Belgian (the graphs were self-explanatory at least ;) only tomshardware has that anomaly, so I'm inclined to agree.Bombreezey - Monday, September 1, 2014 - link
These cpu's would be more beneficial to higher resolution gaming. I love how people are trying to compare this new cpu's to the i5-2500k. There is nothing wrong with the 2500k when gaming at 1080p but when the time comes when people start witching over to 4k gaming when it becomes more affordable your 2500k is gonna struggle big time. Like people have said earlier, there is more to computing than gaming. These cpu's will be vastly faster at video converting/rendering, and other cpu intensive applications when compared to older series of intel cpu's. On another note I see people are complaining about heat because of the high tdp... when there are more cores its gonna need more power......soooooo get a water cooler and problem solve :). At least the tdp isnt 220watts like amd 8 core cpu. So 150watts is pretty fair for a intel 8 core cpu that straight up murders a AMD 8 CORE CPU.untoreh - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
amd octa core costs 1/4 of the intel octa core, if not 1/5.soldier45 - Monday, September 1, 2014 - link
Was thinking of moving from my 2600k at 4.8 to the 5930k but really not worth the $ for a 20% boost in certain apps and little to no improvement in gaming.ryanbrod - Monday, September 1, 2014 - link
Why is it that every review of the haswell-e chipsets doesn't even make an attempt to saturate more then 16 pcie lanes... The whole point of the haswell-e chips in my opinion is the extra PCIe Lanes for tri and quad sli/crossfire set ups. dual gtx 770s is a joke of a review if you ask me. Put in at least 3 of them or dont do a gaming review at all because its going to be less then 2% difference in performance from regular i7s.