Broadwell-E: Intel Core i7-6950X, 6900K, 6850K & 6800K Review

[stevenrix]

A 6950K priced at $1700 is completely nuts compared to the older SKU's nomenclature. My next build will be a Xeon with a bunch of cores, time to say goodbye to desktop CPUs Intel became too greedy.

 

[Samer1970]

AMD ZEN will win this round ... I was expecting the 10 Cores extreme to replace the old 8 cores one .. and that we have $450 28 lanes 6 cores ... but intel chosen to be greedy and ask $1700 instead of $1000 ...

we need AMD to teach Intel a LESSON.

Sorry I laughed a bit there. AMD can't touch up here although they can try. Plus the more you hype Zen up the bigger the disappointment will be.

I dont think so , AMD can EASY beat intel 10 cores $1700 ... They already tested the ZEN and said the results were good ... and the new intel Chip is not faster than Haswel-E per core ! So The ZEN is still comparable and not behind.

you will see a 16 cores ZEN for $1000 , want to bet ? and it will outperform Intel CPU.

 

[Samer1970]

Broadwell-E has a major disadvantage in per core performance. Its game performance is well below the Skylake's 6700k. Guess this is why the game list was so lacking. The fact is Broadwell-E only gets a very small advantage over 5820k. The old 5930K is a much better deal than the 6850X due to PCI lane advantage. Mostly the prices are way to high. I suggest Intel drop prices to compete again the 5820k(6800X,6850X), and 5930K(6900X), and 5960X(6950X).

I dont think that the gaming performance of the 4 cores 6700K is better than intel 6 or 8 cores i7 CPU in games ...

Reviewers test the 6 and 8 cores cpu with HT Turned ON , giving us useless 12 , 16 Virtual cores the Game will never use them all ...

The reviewers should turn OFF the Hyper Threading in 6 an 8 cores i7 AND benchmark the games VS the i7 6700k !!!

to make it simple ,

the i7 6700K @ 4.4 GHZ , in virtual 8 cores (HT) at FULL LOAD thats comparable to 8 cores CPU running at 2.2 GHZ

if you turn off HT in 8 Cores i7 thats 8 cores running @4.4GHZ DOUBLE THE SPEED IN GAMES THAT USES 8 THREADS ! even if you dont OC the CPU would be 3GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ!!!

Even the 6 Cores i7 with HT turned off will be faster than 6700k ...

I dont know why reviewers dont test the 8 and 6 cores CPU with HT turned off !!

 

[Samer1970]

Hey Intel , how about i5 Broadwel-E/Haswell-E without HT 6 and 8 cores no HT ?? That would be cheaper and the BEST for Gamers !!!

Lets call them i6 !!!

and change the i7 40 lanes CPU (-E) naming to i8

i6 and i8 , no HT and HT

 

[JamesSneed]

Broadwell-E has a major disadvantage in per core performance. Its game performance is well below the Skylake's 6700k. Guess this is why the game list was so lacking. The fact is Broadwell-E only gets a very small advantage over 5820k. The old 5930K is a much better deal than the 6850X due to PCI lane advantage. Mostly the prices are way to high. I suggest Intel drop prices to compete again the 5820k(6800X,6850X), and 5930K(6900X), and 5960X(6950X).

I dont think that the gaming performance of the 4 cores 6700K is better than intel 6 or 8 cores i7 CPU in games ...

Reviewers test the 6 and 8 cores cpu with HT Turned ON , giving us useless 12 , 16 Virtual cores the Game will never use them all ...

The reviewers should turn OFF the Hyper Threading in 6 an 8 cores i7 AND benchmark the games VS the i7 6700k !!!

to make it simple ,

the i7 6700K @ 4.4 GHZ , in virtual 8 cores (HT) at FULL LOAD thats comparable to 8 cores CPU running at 2.2 GHZ

if you turn off HT in 8 Cores i7 thats 8 cores running @4.4GHZ DOUBLE THE SPEED IN GAMES THAT USES 8 THREADS ! even if you dont OC the CPU would be 3GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ!!!

Even the 6 Cores i7 with HT turned off will be faster than 6700k ...

I dont know why reviewers dont test the 8 and 6 cores CPU with HT turned off !!

They don't test with HT off because really is no point in your suggested test.


"if you turn off HT in 8 Cores i7 thats 8 cores running @4.4GHZ DOUBLE THE SPEED IN GAMES THAT USES 8 THREADS ! even if you dont OC the CPU would be 3GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ!!!"

That is completely wrong.

"Even the 6 Cores i7 with HT turned off will be faster than 6700k ... "

Only if the application being run uses all 6 cores if not then no the 6700K is faster.

 

[gamebrigada]

Disappointment. My now almost 2 years old 5960x OC's far better and will outperform all but the new 10 core 6950x that is way more expensive... 4.3 seems to be a pretty hard ceiling for these things. I was pretty lucky in the silicon lottery and run a 4.5GHz stable OC with very little voltage change.

 

[dgingeri]

Broadwell-E has a major disadvantage in per core performance. Its game performance is well below the Skylake's 6700k. Guess this is why the game list was so lacking. The fact is Broadwell-E only gets a very small advantage over 5820k. The old 5930K is a much better deal than the 6850X due to PCI lane advantage. Mostly the prices are way to high. I suggest Intel drop prices to compete again the 5820k(6800X,6850X), and 5930K(6900X), and 5960X(6950X).

I dont think that the gaming performance of the 4 cores 6700K is better than intel 6 or 8 cores i7 CPU in games ...

Reviewers test the 6 and 8 cores cpu with HT Turned ON , giving us useless 12 , 16 Virtual cores the Game will never use them all ...

The reviewers should turn OFF the Hyper Threading in 6 an 8 cores i7 AND benchmark the games VS the i7 6700k !!!

to make it simple ,

the i7 6700K @ 4.4 GHZ , in virtual 8 cores (HT) at FULL LOAD thats comparable to 8 cores CPU running at 2.2 GHZ

if you turn off HT in 8 Cores i7 thats 8 cores running @4.4GHZ DOUBLE THE SPEED IN GAMES THAT USES 8 THREADS ! even if you dont OC the CPU would be 3GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ!!!

Even the 6 Cores i7 with HT turned off will be faster than 6700k ...

I dont know why reviewers dont test the 8 and 6 cores CPU with HT turned off !!

Broadwell-E has a major disadvantage in per core performance. Its game performance is well below the Skylake's 6700k. Guess this is why the game list was so lacking. The fact is Broadwell-E only gets a very small advantage over 5820k. The old 5930K is a much better deal than the 6850X due to PCI lane advantage. Mostly the prices are way to high. I suggest Intel drop prices to compete again the 5820k(6800X,6850X), and 5930K(6900X), and 5960X(6950X).

I dont think that the gaming performance of the 4 cores 6700K is better than intel 6 or 8 cores i7 CPU in games ...

Reviewers test the 6 and 8 cores cpu with HT Turned ON , giving us useless 12 , 16 Virtual cores the Game will never use them all ...

The reviewers should turn OFF the Hyper Threading in 6 an 8 cores i7 AND benchmark the games VS the i7 6700k !!!

to make it simple ,

the i7 6700K @ 4.4 GHZ , in virtual 8 cores (HT) at FULL LOAD thats comparable to 8 cores CPU running at 2.2 GHZ

if you turn off HT in 8 Cores i7 thats 8 cores running @4.4GHZ DOUBLE THE SPEED IN GAMES THAT USES 8 THREADS ! even if you dont OC the CPU would be 3GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ!!!

Even the 6 Cores i7 with HT turned off will be faster than 6700k ...

I dont know why reviewers dont test the 8 and 6 cores CPU with HT turned off !!

They don't test with HT off because really is no point in your suggested test.


"if you turn off HT in 8 Cores i7 thats 8 cores running @4.4GHZ DOUBLE THE SPEED IN GAMES THAT USES 8 THREADS ! even if you dont OC the CPU would be 3GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ!!!"

That is completely wrong.

"Even the 6 Cores i7 with HT turned off will be faster than 6700k ... "

Only if the application being run uses all 6 cores if not then no the 6700K is faster.

That's not exactly how HT works. With Intel cores, they have two pipelines that can handle memory loads and stores only, and then three pipelines that each handle different sets of instructions. With HT enabled, two pipelines can be executing different instructions at the same time, giving nearly double performance, but that doesn't happen often. So, 4 cores at 4.4GHz with HT enabled is more like 8 cores at about 2.5-3.2GHz, depending on the code. Also, in gaming with HT turned on, the game can be using 4 cores (usually the max for gaming) while the OS is handling other operations on the extra HT cores while not interfering with the game at all.

side note: There is word that AMD is introducing quad threaded cores in the Zen architecture, with 4 pipelines able to handle any instruction and 2 able to handle loads and stores. So, we might see some significant boosts from their version of HT. We'll have to wait and see.

I have noticed on my laptops (Core i5 dual core with HT) that HT doesn't seem to have any performance gains in games, but I have noticed performance gains from HT on my desktop Core i7 4790k, just not very much. It could be that 4 cores is the magic number where HT makes a difference. Now if Intel would just put enough PCIe lanes on their quad core chips to make them useful enough.

 

[joex444]

The old 5930K is a much better deal than the 6850X (sic) due to PCI lane advantage.

The 6850K is a 40 PCIe lane part like the 5930K. The only 28 lane parts are the 5820K and the 6800K - the lowest priced 6 core parts from each generation.

5930K, 5960X, 6850K, 6900K, and 6950X are all 40 lane PCIe parts and the difference between what can and can't be run concurrently from a PCIe configuration perspective is up to the motherboard - it's identical for any of these CPUs. The 5820K and 6800K are also identical on any given motherboard, and distinct from any of the previously mentioned 40 lane CPUs.

 

[joex444]

One set of benchmarks I'd actually want to see would be the new Broadwell-E CPUs overclocked versus the Haswell-E CPUs overclocked versus the 6700K overclocked with each CPU at stock.

 

[elbert]

The old 5930K is a much better deal than the 6850X (sic) due to PCI lane advantage.

The 6850K is a 40 PCIe lane part like the 5930K. The only 28 lane parts are the 5820K and the 6800K - the lowest priced 6 core parts from each generation.

5930K, 5960X, 6850K, 6900K, and 6950X are all 40 lane PCIe parts and the difference between what can and can't be run concurrently from a PCIe configuration perspective is up to the motherboard - it's identical for any of these CPUs. The 5820K and 6800K are also identical on any given motherboard, and distinct from any of the previously mentioned 40 lane CPUs.

Yup I kind of went by the leaks on the lane issue. Still tho given no advantages to upgrading prices need changed.

 

[cmegone]

Devil's Canyon still best bang by far!

 

[MasterMace]

Because the 6800k has less than 32 lanes, I would recommend any of these for gaming. Might as well go dual Xeon

 

[none12345]

These charts are hard to read. Unless you are very familiar with intel skus its very hard to tell what chip is what, just number salad. I know thats not the authors fault its intels. But maybe color coding at least these chips so its easier to pick out....

On overclocking you say its not worth it from an efficiency/thermal stanpoint. But one should really mention that increasing the voltage is going to drastically shorten the cpus life. So its even more not worth it for taht reason alone. I dont care if my power bill is a little higher, but i do care if i kill my $1700 cpu in 2 years because i put a big overvolt on it.

At intel, wtf are they doing using old cores and not their skylake or newer cores. Why does the enthusist chip get the old cores? Makes no sense for a flagship product.

At amd, man i really really want zen to kick ass, so we can finally have some competiton at the high end. This offering from intel is rather a joke.

 

[InvalidError]

On overclocking you say its not worth it from an efficiency/thermal stanpoint. But one should really mention that increasing the voltage is going to drastically shorten the cpus life. So its even more not worth it for taht reason alone.

A mild over-volt will have negligible to no impact on lifespan as long as the chip is kept within specified operating temperatures. I ran a 90MHz Pentium overclocked to 133MHz for about 10 years in one of my spare PCs and a 650MHz P3 overclocked to 866MHz for about 10 years as well.

Why does the enthusist chip get the old cores? Makes no sense for a flagship product.

The LGA2011 CPUs are made from dual-socket Xeon dies and the 'real' Xeons launch a year (apparently two now) later so Intel can give itself more time to find, document and (hopefully) fix bugs before making server chips based on a new architecture.

 

[HistoryBuff44]

why does intel label E class chips with higher numbers? i see they have done it consistently for several generations now, im just curious why, since this is broadwell, they don't with 5 instead of the skylake 6000 series numbers.

 

[Aspiring techie]

Hehe, the only way to cool these babies is either through phase change or liquid nitrogen.

 

[InvalidError]

why does intel label E class chips with higher numbers? i see they have done it consistently for several generations now, im just curious why

Marketing: using the "proper" numbers would make the new high-end enthusiast chips sound too much like last year's models.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

Am I correct in saying I could build a PC that's 5 FPS off the 6950X for it's price?

possibly you could make 2 that are within 8-10 fps just for the price of the chip.

 

[snakyjake]

Does it have support for ECC ram?

I need that too! I don't need a game machine nor a server. I need a workstation, and I don't want hash/math/memory errors.

 

[bit_user]

Hehe, the only way to cool these babies is either through phase change or liquid nitrogen.

Srsly? I have an air-cooled Sandy-E. With a down-draft cooler, no less. Stays in the mid-70's, even with all cores/threads under sustained load.

Traditionally, the socket-2011 CPUs have the IHS attached via solder, which certainly helps dissipate the higher thermal load.

 

[Nuckles_56]

By the thermals I wouldn't be surprised if intel had gone with thermal paste for the CPUs now

 

[Aspiring techie]

Hehe, the only way to cool these babies is either through phase change or liquid nitrogen.

Srsly? I have an air-cooled Sandy-E. With a down-draft cooler, no less. Stays in the mid-70's, even with all cores/threads under sustained load.

Traditionally, the socket-2011 CPUs have the IHS attached via solder, which certainly helps dissipate the higher thermal load.

I meant that the only way to keep these guys at decent temps overclocked would be to use those styles of cooling.

 

[asd_1_]

Just look at ARM efficiency, Intel doesn't have a chance.

The fastest ARM-based CPUs in mobile devices today are slower than the slowest current desktop i3 despite the i3 having one quarter as many cores.

The reason why ARM is "so efficient" is because ARM-based CPUs still lack or massively scale down many power-hungry performance tweaks common in desktop CPUs. Until someone puts together an ARM CPU architecture with all those higher power optimizations, ARM will not become a credible threat to desktop CPUs.

AMR is superior for average user. Look at remix mini It consumes around 10W max (complete platform) compare to casual PC at least 30W when idle and much more when working hard. I just look an average user and i'm still certain ARM can do all the casual stuff that Intel can for less.

 

[Samer1970]

Broadwell-E has a major disadvantage in per core performance. Its game performance is well below the Skylake's 6700k. Guess this is why the game list was so lacking. The fact is Broadwell-E only gets a very small advantage over 5820k. The old 5930K is a much better deal than the 6850X due to PCI lane advantage. Mostly the prices are way to high. I suggest Intel drop prices to compete again the 5820k(6800X,6850X), and 5930K(6900X), and 5960X(6950X).

I dont think that the gaming performance of the 4 cores 6700K is better than intel 6 or 8 cores i7 CPU in games ...

Reviewers test the 6 and 8 cores cpu with HT Turned ON , giving us useless 12 , 16 Virtual cores the Game will never use them all ...

The reviewers should turn OFF the Hyper Threading in 6 an 8 cores i7 AND benchmark the games VS the i7 6700k !!!

to make it simple ,

the i7 6700K @ 4.4 GHZ , in virtual 8 cores (HT) at FULL LOAD thats comparable to 8 cores CPU running at 2.2 GHZ

if you turn off HT in 8 Cores i7 thats 8 cores running @4.4GHZ DOUBLE THE SPEED IN GAMES THAT USES 8 THREADS ! even if you dont OC the CPU would be 3GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ!!!

Even the 6 Cores i7 with HT turned off will be faster than 6700k ...

I dont know why reviewers dont test the 8 and 6 cores CPU with HT turned off !!

They don't test with HT off because really is no point in your suggested test.


"if you turn off HT in 8 Cores i7 thats 8 cores running @4.4GHZ DOUBLE THE SPEED IN GAMES THAT USES 8 THREADS ! even if you dont OC the CPU would be 3GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ!!!"

That is completely wrong.

"Even the 6 Cores i7 with HT turned off will be faster than 6700k ... "

Only if the application being run uses all 6 cores if not then no the 6700K is faster.

I am talking about modern games that use 8 threads.

let us do the Benchmarks then and see ?

i3 and i5 are 4 virtual/real cores and the i5 is faster in games .

the same for i7 4 (8 virtual) cores and i7 8 true cores (HT Turned off) , the 8 cores will outperform the 4 cores one if HT is turned off.

lets do benchmark please ?

and to do so , we need to bottle neck the CPU .. because you only see the difference when the CPU is fully utilized.

lets say we test it with 2x1080GTX in SLI or even 4xGTX980 ti
and test games that use more than 4 threads please

I hope some one tests it

 

[elbert]

Broadwell-E has a major disadvantage in per core performance. Its game performance is well below the Skylake's 6700k. Guess this is why the game list was so lacking. The fact is Broadwell-E only gets a very small advantage over 5820k. The old 5930K is a much better deal than the 6850X due to PCI lane advantage. Mostly the prices are way to high. I suggest Intel drop prices to compete again the 5820k(6800X,6850X), and 5930K(6900X), and 5960X(6950X).

I dont think that the gaming performance of the 4 cores 6700K is better than intel 6 or 8 cores i7 CPU in games ...

Reviewers test the 6 and 8 cores cpu with HT Turned ON , giving us useless 12 , 16 Virtual cores the Game will never use them all ...

The reviewers should turn OFF the Hyper Threading in 6 an 8 cores i7 AND benchmark the games VS the i7 6700k !!!

to make it simple ,

the i7 6700K @ 4.4 GHZ , in virtual 8 cores (HT) at FULL LOAD thats comparable to 8 cores CPU running at 2.2 GHZ

if you turn off HT in 8 Cores i7 thats 8 cores running @4.4GHZ DOUBLE THE SPEED IN GAMES THAT USES 8 THREADS ! even if you dont OC the CPU would be 3GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ!!!

Even the 6 Cores i7 with HT turned off will be faster than 6700k ...

I dont know why reviewers dont test the 8 and 6 cores CPU with HT turned off !!

They don't test with HT off because really is no point in your suggested test.


"if you turn off HT in 8 Cores i7 thats 8 cores running @4.4GHZ DOUBLE THE SPEED IN GAMES THAT USES 8 THREADS ! even if you dont OC the CPU would be 3GHZ VS 2.2 GHZ!!!"

That is completely wrong.

"Even the 6 Cores i7 with HT turned off will be faster than 6700k ... "

Only if the application being run uses all 6 cores if not then no the 6700K is faster.

I am talking about modern games that use 8 threads.

let us do the Benchmarks then and see ?

i3 and i5 are 4 virtual/real cores and the i5 is faster in games .

the same for i7 4 (8 virtual) cores and i7 8 true cores (HT Turned off) , the 8 cores will outperform the 4 cores one if HT is turned off.

lets do benchmark please ?

and to do so , we need to bottle neck the CPU .. because you only see the difference when the CPU is fully utilized.

lets say we test it with 2x1080GTX in SLI or even 4xGTX980 ti
and test games that use more than 4 threads please

I hope some one tests it

Your missing the bigger picture. Most games being DX11 uses only 4 physical cores at best. DX12 was designed to use more but there is only a hand full of titles. In the review Ashes of singularity and F1 2015 is DX12 were bioshock isn't. All the reviews using more DX11 games shows the per core performance of for the 68xx and 69xx to be far less than skylake 6700K. The skylake is the newer design thus faster per core. The enthusiasts 2011 will be replaced next year with the Skylake-E and LGA 3647 with 6 channel ddr4.