The Intel Skylake i7-6700K Overclocking Performance Mini-Test to 4.8 GHz
by Ian Cutress on August 28, 2015 2:30 PM ESTLinux Performance
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 strong developer base, but also relies heavily on memory bandwidth as well as CPU performance.
Conclusions on Linux-Bench
Our Linux testing actually affords ten tests, but we chose the most important to publish here (the other results can be found in Bench). But here we see some slight differences when it comes to overclocks - the NPB tests rely on multi-dimensional matrix solvers, which are often more cache/memory dependent and thus a higher frequency processor doesn't always help. With Redis, we are wholly cache/memory limited here. The other results are in-line with CPU performance deltas over the overclock range.
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MrSpadge - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
If HB exposes errors which the other programs do not find, it is a stress test. Just a different one. It's not about the highest power draw & temperature, but about a code path which apparently takes a bit longer to complete than others and hence can't be pushed to such high frequencies.Dr_Orgo - Sunday, August 30, 2015 - link
The conditionally stable overclocking results were pretty interesting. When I overclocked my GTX 970, I primarily used Unigine Heaven to stress test. Got to 1500 MHz stable with voltage maxed in Precision X. Used it in a number of games with zero crashing even with sustained 100% usage, seemed completely stable. Running the unit preloader (loads all units/annimations) in Starcraft 2 would make the game crash every time. Dropping the overclock to 1460 MHz made it stable. I'm not sure what specifically makes that unit preloader less overclock friendly.LemmingOverlord - Monday, August 31, 2015 - link
I think the premise behind the Discrete Graphics tests are incorrect. If you max out the settings you are capping the performance of the system by the graphics card. If you lower the settings just a bit, you'll definitely see how the CPU influences overall game performance. I know this is a mini-test, but these discrete tests prove absolutely nothing on how the overclock impacted the game performance.Either lower the detail on these tests, or test with a game that is non-GPU Intensive. Civ V is an excellent benchmark for CPU tests, because it really is CPU-intensive...
dimonakid - Sunday, September 6, 2015 - link
In the past couple of months, we see alot of BSOD and freez and what not from media encoding softwares.Some of our friends mentioned (while they were testing), that this maybea a global XMP issue.
Same resaults regarding handbrake were showing on z77 z68.
Just to comment
SeanJ76 - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Not impressed, my 4690k does 4.8ghz with a $29 Hyper Evo....InstinctXIV - Friday, November 20, 2015 - link
I would love to see your 4690K do this http://imgur.com/U6ZZ1Ll (It is my PC)gravy1958 - Monday, October 19, 2015 - link
I have a 6700k with an asus maximus ranger viii MB and an hours gaming produces regular clock_watchdog_timeout errors if I use the overclocking... and frequent boot fails with the random overclocking failed press F1 to enter setup 8^(gravy1958 - Monday, October 19, 2015 - link
should add it is set at 4.6Ghz and all advice points to the voltage being too low.jonainpdx - Thursday, May 5, 2016 - link
It's pretty obvious that overclocking a new, state of the art CPU is nothing more than a waste of money for a gamer.