The Intel 6th Gen Skylake Review: Core i7-6700K and i5-6600K Tested
by Ian Cutress on August 5, 2015 8:00 AM ESTWhat You Can Buy: Windows Professional Performance
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.
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.
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.
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.
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SuperVeloce - Saturday, August 8, 2015 - link
Wait, what? Skylake and 2011-3 in the same sentence? Who, for the love of god, would say such a thing? Power delivery is (again) new and very different from Haswell/Broadwell, so there is no chance to reuse 1150 and 2011-3Oxford Guy - Saturday, August 8, 2015 - link
The belief put forward was that Broadwell would be compatible with Haswell desktop motherboards and Skylake would be compatible with Haswell-E motherboards.KAlmquist - Saturday, August 8, 2015 - link
The analysis by Puget Sound Systems offers a plausible explanation of why Skylake has a higher TDP than Haswell or Ivy Bridge: the integrated GPU that comes with Skylake is faster and draws more power. It appears that if you don't use the integrated GPU, Skylake draws slightly less power than Haswell.SuperVeloce - Saturday, August 8, 2015 - link
That's definitely plausible. The other thing here is the TDP 4790K uses. 88W is too conservative for the clocks and voltages from that chip. They needed to up that I am sure.bobbozzo - Saturday, August 8, 2015 - link
Error in graph on final page:"Gains over Sandy Bridge.png" - the key for green says IVY bridge.
tuklap - Saturday, August 8, 2015 - link
I don't know... Intel seems to keep pushing forwards every year with profit in mind. The thing that they are really making breakthrough is the non volatile, high bandwidth memory or Xpoint...If Xpoint will be available maybe this will give a new speed bump... But Sandy-Skylake is really good...
wizyy - Saturday, August 8, 2015 - link
There is a review which shows 6600k to be quite a nice improvement over popular I5 processors in 10 recent games, over at eurogamer.net. Check it if you're a gamer thinking to upgrade your older I5.SilverManSachs - Saturday, August 8, 2015 - link
There is a good jump in IPC for the Core i5, less so for the Core i7. This makes sense as its harder to push the top end performance higher at smaller nodes but they did improve the i5 performance which is great as i5's are the most sold parts. Also, good overclocking room on the i7.Would be very interested to see 'Skylake vs Excavator' CPU only benchmarks on the mobile 17W parts. Please so that test for us AT!
soldier45 - Sunday, August 9, 2015 - link
Spending $500+ on Skylake over my 2600k to get 3-5 fps in my games isn't really worth it. Having said that at the end of the day,I'm about to spend $700 on a 980Ti over a 780 classified so yeh I will end up going with Skylake.asmian - Sunday, August 9, 2015 - link
The interesting fact for me faced with building a new rig is how the i7-6700K compares with the 28-lane Haswell-E i7-5820K. For my usage (design/programming, no interest in SLI/Crossfire, regular Handbrake use), with very comparable mid-range boards (ASRock Z170 Extreme6+ versus ASRock X99 Extreme4 with the USB 3.1 A/C card) the price of mobo + board is almost identical at £490 or so in the UK right now - in fact, the Haswell-E combo would be £15 cheaper. All other added components (DDR4 memory, new OS, M2 SSD etc.) would be identical.So do the extra 2 cores at a somewhat lower eventual overclock for that Handbrake usage make up for extremely marginal extra IPC on 4 cores at a higher price (and trading a few extra features for many less SATA ports)? Somehow I doubt it... The only question remaining would be whether waiting another year or more for Skylake-E would be worth it for even more chipset features over X99, but that looks rather marginal as well.