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: Linux Performance
Built around several freely available benchmarks for Linux, Linux-Bench is a project spearheaded by Patrick at ServeTheHome to streamline about a dozen of these tests in a single neat package run via a set of three commands using an Ubuntu 11.04 LiveCD. These tests include fluid dynamics used by NASA, ray-tracing, OpenSSL, molecular modeling, and a scalable data structure server for web deployments. We run Linux-Bench and have chosen to report a select few of the tests that rely on CPU and DRAM speed.
C-Ray: link
C-Ray is a simple ray-tracing program that focuses almost exclusively on processor performance rather than DRAM access. The test in Linux-Bench renders a heavy complex scene offering a large scalable scenario.
NAMD, Scalable Molecular Dynamics: link
Developed by the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NAMD is a set of parallel molecular dynamics codes for extreme parallelization up to and beyond 200,000 cores. The reference paper detailing NAMD has over 4000 citations, and our testing runs a small simulation where the calculation steps per unit time is the output vector.
NPB, Fluid Dynamics: link
Aside from LINPACK, there are many other ways to benchmark supercomputers in terms of how effective they are for various types of mathematical processes. The NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) are a set of small programs originally designed for NASA to test their supercomputers in terms of fluid dynamics simulations, useful for airflow reactions and design.
Redis: link
Many of the online applications rely on key-value caches and data structure servers to operate. Redis is an open-source, scalable web technology with a b developer base, but also relies heavily on memory bandwidth as well as CPU performance.
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nsteussy - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
Ian, under the Linux benchmarks you have the graphic for the NAMD Mol Dynamics twice but none for the NPB fluid dynamics. That said, that is quite the nice bump for NAMD (~24% from a 4770 to a 6770). Very tempting.Visual - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I kinda don't like how you keep repeating the generic benchmark descriptions before each graph. I'd prefer if it were hidden by default, visible on hover or toggled by clicking of some info button or similar, or at the very least formatted a bit different than actual article text.I'd also like if you had some comments on the actual results, at least where there are some peculiarities in them.
Case in point: Why is the 5775C IGP so much better in some games?
mapesdhs - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Agree re comments on results, eg. why does the 2600K dip so badly for Shadow of Mordor @ 4K with the GTX 770? It doesn't happen with the 980, but if the dip was a VRAM issue @ 4K then the 3770K shouldn't be so close to the other CPUs. Weird...wyssin - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Has anyone published a review comparing i7-6700k with other cpus all overclocked to, say, 4.5 GHz? For those who typically run an overclocked system, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison to put the new entry up against the older all at stock settings.So to make the best-informed decision, it would be very useful to be able to see head-to-head trials at both (1) stock settings and (2) overclocked to a speed they can all reasonably manage (apparently around 4.4 or 4.5 GHz).
I have the same problems with the Guru3D review and the Gamestar.de review that were mentioned in earlier comments.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
The key is to pick a speed that the worst overclocking examples would be able to get to with reasonable voltage. That takes the luck of the draw out of the scenario.beatsbyden - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
Not much improvent. Only worth the money if you're coming from an I5Darkvengence - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
This lack of CPU power needed in gaming is only temporary once u have photorealistic graphics in 4k u gonna need crazy powerful GPUs which need feeding by beastly CPUs . our current technology will seem like a dinosaur CPU in comparison. That is of course a fair few years away but still one day it will happen . I'm glad current CPU are not being taxed by today's games even less with dx12. Gives my gen 1 MSI nightblade more life with 4970k as u can't change motherboard it all custom front panel connectors and stuff. I used to have a i7 920 and got to say that is still a good CPU especially for single GPU systems. I really like sandy bridge tho very impressive for its age. But older CPUs lose out mainly being tied to older chipsets so u lose new connector and bus speeds for hardware thogasparmx - Thursday, November 19, 2015 - link
I think you're kinda wrong, the point of DX12 is depending less on CPU, NVIDIA says in the future probably you're not going to need a beast CPU to play 4k games.djscrew - Friday, August 14, 2015 - link
I'm so disappointed in SB/DDR4. After all this wait and the IPC gains with discreet graphics are negative? WTF Intel. I Guess my Nehalem system will survive another generation, or maybe three? No compelling reason to upgrade. It's such a shame because I was really looking forward to building a $3k rig. I think I'll shop for a nice 4k panel instead.Ninjawithagun - Friday, August 14, 2015 - link
And just when I was about to purchase the 6600K and a Z170 mini-ITX motherboard as an upgrade to my 4690K and Z97i Plus motherboard...man, am I glad I ran across this article. Saved myself about $600 for a useless upgrade!