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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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.