The Intel Broadwell Desktop Review: Core i7-5775C and Core i5-5675C Tested (Part 1)
by Ian Cutress on June 2, 2015 7:45 AM ESTProfessional Performance: Windows
Agisoft Photoscan – 2D to 3D Image Manipulation: link
Agisoft Photoscan creates 3D models from 2D images, a process which is very computationally expensive. The algorithm is split into four distinct phases, and different phases of the model reconstruction require either fast memory, fast IPC, more cores, or even OpenCL compute devices to hand. Agisoft supplied us with a special version of the software to script the process, where we take 50 images of a stately home and convert it into a medium quality model. This benchmark typically takes around 15-20 minutes on a high end PC on the CPU alone, with GPUs reducing the time.
The presence of Crystal Well had a small effect on Photoscan, occurring mostly in the second phase of the calculation which is the one that also has an option to enable the GPU, indicating that memory bandwidth is an potential limitation in that segment.
Cinebench R15
Cinebench is a benchmark based around Cinema 4D, and is fairly well known among enthusiasts for stressing the CPU for a provided workload. Results are given as a score, where higher is better.
Cinebench is a historically CPU-limited benchmark, and the results show this again here. The fact that the 3.6GHz Broadwell-based i5-5675C performs so closely to the 3.9GHz Haswell-based i5-4690 is a promising sign here, as it means that despite being a mere "tick" in Intel's development efforts, there are tangible IPC increases on the desktop from Broadwell.
HandBrake v0.9.9: link
For HandBrake, we take two videos (a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short) and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
While no obvious improvement was seen in the low quality conversion, the double UHD conversion put the i7 above what was otherwise expected.
Hybrid x265
Hybrid is a new benchmark, where we take a 4K 1500 frame video and convert it into an x265 format without audio. Results are given in frames per second.
Unlike the Handbrake H.264 tests, the Hybrid x265 tests show a clear uptick in performance on the Broadwell processors. It is not fast enough to catch the i7-4790K and its 4.4GHz turbo clockspeed, but we see the i5-5675C shoot well past the i5-4690 despite the clockspeed deficit. Whether this is due to Broadwell architecture enhancements, Crystal Well acting as an L4 cache, or a combination of the two is difficult to determine, but the end result is substantial.
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Zingam - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Well, nothing to see here! Move along, sir!Where is the Skylake?
ryrynz - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Ian, what driver was used? Intel just released a new one with some significant performance improvements (15.36.21.4222) Retest?Phartindust - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Please fix the graphs for GRID Min frames, or did the A10-7700k really beat everything else by 10fps?unityole - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
"due to time constraint we will save overclocking for part 2" care to explain why both you and tomshardware don't do OC? i have a feeling intel not allowing reviewers to do OC at first for sample, until at least few weeks or even months later.can't blame you though, need to continuously get sample from intel.
unityole - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
im extremely interested in OC, voltage used, power consumption and also performance is what we're after, before moving onto skylake.Notmyusualid - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
I'll second the request for identical-speed benchmarks too, thanks.albert89 - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
I've got to say I like what Intel has done to its iGPU side of the APU no matter how you read this review it actually doesn't look good for them. Overall Broadwell from these results seems to be between 1.5-3 times more expensive than AMD and if that doesn't both you, then its performance in the games above was between 1.6-6 points ahead while in one game beating AMD by 10 points (not good) while AMD beating Intel by 10 fps (nice). And don't forget we are comparing AMD (28nm) against Intel (14nm) which casts a not so flattering picture of Intel. And need I mention the latency gain over AMD, hardly to write home about by Intel. If your an all round user or a gamer the only thing you'll notice from Broadwell is the hole in your wallet.unityole - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
true that, most people here are for CPU performance though, doesn't hurt to have additional good IGPU in case of discrete dies on you, can still boot without dGPU and iGPU can still do things at 1080p.NvidiaWins - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
Literally no gain over Devils' Canyon.......zodiacfml - Friday, June 5, 2015 - link
Interesting. I could see a particular niche for this for users needing very good cpu performance and wants occasional gaming that is better than an entry level graphics card. Can't wait for overclocking results.I hope prices go down with Skylake's...