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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AntDX316 - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
as my last greatest laptop was back in like 2007.. I had bad laptops ever since and when skylake had huge power saving options I decided to get an Alienware 17 R3 with 4k IGZO screen and 980mmikael.skytter - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Looking forward to read up :) Gonna be an awsome review - as always!Thanks!
Zponxie - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
In the section "Skylake's Launch Chipset: Z170":
"In the previous Z97 chipset, there are a total of 18 Flex-IO ports that can flip between PCIe lanes, USB 3.0 ports or SATA 6 Gbps ports. For Z97, this moves up to 26 and can be used in a variety of configurations"
Was that last Z97 meant to be Z170?
Also, thank you for another quality review
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
"Was that last Z97 meant to be Z170?"Indeed it was. Thank you for pointing it out.
ingwe - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Man I have been waiting for this! Pumped about DDR4.freaqiedude - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
why? it basically has no performance impact whatsoever...and the powerbenefits are negligable, and it's more expensive...
I never understand why people buy premium RAM anymore, it simply has no impact on performance except for very very specialized benchmarking applications.
richardginn - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
This CPU is a total joke.... Why Intel would make us pay over 300 bucks for a CPU and not put in GT4e graphics is a total fail.A5 - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Good integrated graphics are a waste here.richardginn - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
A full on waste. If you are going to spend 300 bucks plus on a CPU you are going to spend at least 200 bucks on a GPU, BUTTT when you can throw in GT3e graphics in a broadwell i7-5775c CPU you must no bring us the pile of crap that is GT2 graphics for the 6700k CPU.8steve8 - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
not true, i'd gladly pay for the best CPU, but have littler interest in buying a GPU that takes extra space and energy/heat.Not everyone who wants CPU performance is a hardcore gamer.