The Intel Broadwell-E Review: Core i7-6950X, i7-6900K, i7-6850K and i7-6800K Tested
by Ian Cutress on May 31, 2016 2:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Enterprise
- Prosumer
- X99
- 14nm
- Broadwell-E
- HEDT
Office Performance: Extreme Editions
The dynamics of CPU Turbo modes, both Intel and AMD, can cause concern during environments with a variable threaded workload. There is also an added issue of the motherboard remaining consistent, depending on how the motherboard manufacturer wants to add in their own boosting technologies over the ones that Intel would prefer they used. In order to remain consistent, we implement an OS-level unique high-performance mode on all the CPUs we test which should override any motherboard manufacturer performance mode.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Dolphin Benchmark: link
Many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant boost to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that raytraces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in minutes, where the Wii itself scores 17.53 minutes.
WinRAR 5.0.1: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
3D Particle Movement
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores.
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.
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.
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mapesdhs - Thursday, June 9, 2016 - link
Or a used 3930K, they cost diddly now. Use the cost saving on better SSDs, faster RAM, etc.rtho782 - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
Wow.Minor performance boosts at best was expected and I could swallow that and still be excited for BDW-E.
Minor performance boosts and a 70% price boost? I won't bother upgrading then.
ShieTar - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
There is no 70% price boost. The 6900K that replaces the 5960X basically sells at the same price with a good 10% performance boost.The 6950X needs to be compared to last generations E5-2687W V3, which still costs more than 2k$. So Intel actually hands out a 10% to 15% performance boost with a 20% price drop on that front:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1730?vs=135...
pencea - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
It's been10 days since the embargo on GTX1080 reviews was lifted and previews aside, there is still a deafening silence from Anandtech. Yes the apologists will argue Anandtech does a deeper review, give them time and all that but seriously when your review is this late, it begins to look like incompetence. Or perhaps you consider your reviews to be elitist, the holy grail among tech websites and that therefore any delay is acceptable? What pressing projects are the GPU staff working on that could explain this state of affairs?GET IT TOGETHER ANANDTECH YOU USED TO BE BETTER!
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
"there is still a deafening silence from Anandtech"Feedback is always appreciated. I've mentioned a few times now that it's not done yet and is still in the works. But I'm not sure what else you're looking for?
D. Lister - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
In other news, Guru3D has recently put up their 1070 review. Next time guys, use "Review: Part 1" in title, instead of calling it a "Preview". :Pretrospooty - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
He is looking for it to be done, and not "in the works". =)HighTech4US - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
^ T H I SHighTech4US - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link
Quote: But I'm not sure what else you're looking for?An actual review.
artk2219 - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Sigh, you can't please everyone, and thank you for taking the time and effort to do these reviews in the first place. As always, I look forward to it and hope to see it whenever it's ready.Thank you!