Intel Core i9-7900X Review: Meet Skylake-X

[Kai Dowin]

I'm disappointed with this thing. Yes, the performance is great, but If the 10 core part is so hot and power hungry, just imagine what the 16 core will look like.

 

[Giroro]

So it's twice the power consumption and twice the cost of an 1800x - with significantly less than trace the performance.

So I guess the big questions are:
Are there dual socket mobos that work with 1800x?
Or even better, isn't threadrypper basically just 2 1800x in one package?

If so, all they need to do is price threadrypper at $800 and AMD will totally eat Intel's lunch.

 

[s17speedex]

"To be fair, the significantly less expensive AMD Ryzen 7 1800X keeps up with Intel's latest in a number of places. This comes as a surprise, since the numbers we generated when Ryzen launched were markedly worse"

 

[JamesSneed]

So it's twice the power consumption and twice the cost of an 1800x - with significantly less than trace the performance.

So I guess the big questions are:
Are there dual socket mobos that work with 1800x?
Or even better, isn't threadrypper basically just 2 1800x in one package?

If so, all they need to do is price threadrypper at $800 and AMD will totally eat Intel's lunch.

Yes threadripper is basically two Zen cores in one package although its going to be on B2 stepping which if rumors are right its "uncore" bug fixes stuff / memory related. Yes it should really hit Intel hard once its out. Looking at the thermals and given less than 1% of people will be overclocking, 16 core parts from AMD should make a killer workstation part. With the high thermals Intel is going to have a heck of a time keeping frequencies up with the 12-18 core parts. Really impressed how the 1800x held its own so well, AMD did a fantastic job tweaking things since launch, evens TH review made note of how well it did and how surprised they were. This competition is fun to watch.

 

[rantoc]

For you who pointed out that lower res is generally more cpu bound and higher res is gpu bound are correct and that was not the reason i requested a test of higher res, merely to see the diffs with equally graded hardware in the gaming department.

That said i found several tests that had 1440p and 2160p benchmarks as well and as suspected... very few tests had any significant advantage over the Ryzen 1800x that's a lot cheaper and seems far more mature by now than this release. Heck the 1800x also runs cooler and draws less power.

 

[photonboy]

Hey, photonboy, Intel is showing that they are in damage control when they release a CPU in such a shape. The thermal results are a joke. This is a 10 Cores CPU, not 32. This product was rushed to respond to competition... and this is what you get.

My 1700x is running better and better with every AGESA update.

I agree that the Wattage drawn (thus heat) is really high. No idea how an 18-core version is going to work properly, other than to drop the frequency and voltage lower. That may SEVERELY limit the performance especially considering even well threaded apps still tend to have diminishing returns per core.

That said, my comment was not about the HEAT but strictly the performance, and in particular those programs that can take full advantage of all the threads.

RYZEN is an excellent product too, but it all comes down to HOW you use the CPU.

 

[mac_angel]

$1k + for a CPU, and Intel skimps out and uses thermal paste? WTF?

 

[maxwellmelon]

Omg the power usage and temps intel really trying to create the issues amd did with the fx 9000 series. Guess so.

 

[XtremeGamerZ21]

I don't like this TIM bashing because it's under performing. You need to take into account the environmental consequences of mining. Also, there are a lot of social injustices derived from slavery in mines. I applaud the decision of going eco-friendly in lieu of ultimate performance for just a handful of people.

 

[jn77]

While I understand the "need" for Intel's "Extreme" edition CPU's, historically they ran about $999. How is starting at $999 and going up to $1999 ccompetitive? Especially with Ryzen 1700's so much less expensive.

I never thought I would consider dropping Intel CPU's from my PC's. And Intel has technically had 10-18 core chips for years in the server line with the xeon's so, while these are not exactly the same, it's not like Intel put an extra $499-$999 worth of R&D into the I9 CPU's. What a joke.

 

[bit_user]

...

Thanks for the core latency & bandwidth benchmark, BTW.

 

[logainofhades]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($299.39 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H5 Universal 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($54.86 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Motherboard: ASRock - X370 KILLER SLI/ac ATX AM4 Motherboard ($148.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($143.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $647.22
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-19 13:30 EDT-0400



My personal build is in no way something one would consider a budget build either.

I did type a whole post on this, but it got lost in the ether. In any case, we get screwed for prices here in the UK; speccing something very similar here would come out at about $800, and my personal "wish list" on Amazon of Ryzen 5 1600/Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8GB 3200MHz CL16/MSI B350M Mortar would approach $540. Either would be a massive upgrade from my Athlon X4 860K/Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB 2133MHz/ASUS A88XM-A, and probably use less power as well.

And it would still be a better buy than even the cheapest x299 build that you could buy. I really do not understand Intel's thinking that this launch is a good thing for consumers, because it really isn't..

 

[kyotokid]

..so Intel cut corners, between the chip and heat spreader which results in poor heat dissipation, not good. While I do not overclock as I only work in 3D CG this is a matter of concern. as it will still run at higher temps than the 7700 evne at stock clock speeds.

It is nice to see benchmarks for workstation use and not just gaming (I wish the same would be done for consumer grade GPU cards as most enthusiast 3D artists do not have a budget to afford the far more expensive Pro grade cards). This is where the 7900 seems to shine. This may polarise the two companies with AMD supporting the gaming community while Intel moves more to the graphics/scientific enthusiast workstation community.

One question not answered here is does it support older versions of the Windows OS like Skylake-S does? From what I gathered in the review to use Turbo Boost 3.0 one will need W10 but if you don't overclock, can you still use W7/8.1? For myself, that would be a major selling point as W10 reserves a noticeable portion of VRAM on Consumer grade GPU cards (not on pro cards like the Firepro and Quadro series), which along with MS's force fed updating policy are two major reasons I am avoiding it (there are other reasons as well).

Another is PCI lanes and memory channels. Ryzen architecture s limited to dual channel memory support only and the 7-1800 supports 24 PCI lanes ves the 44 of the 7900x. The former may not be as important for gaming which is more GPU intensive but it is in 3D rendering, especially when working with engines which do not support GPU rendering as well as computation tasks,. Furthermore the X-299 boards support up to 128 GB of memory (8 x 16 GB Quad channel), a nice optimal amount for a serious graphics workstation.

Of course until AMD's Threadripper (and awful name for a workstation CPU), is out we are in a "wait and see" mode. Hopefully in the meantime some of the issues with Skylake-X will get ironed out as the dust settles (particularly heat dissipation which may require a new closed loop cooler design). in the coming months. What remains to be seen with Threadripper is memory channel and OS support. If it follows the Ryzen model and does not support any OS below W10, and Skylake-X (non overclocked) does, the extra cost will be worth it. If neither do it's back to the drawing board, hoping either the Broadwell CPUS come down in price. or going back to dual 8 core Sandy Bridge Xeons for my next workstation.

 

[bit_user]

One question not answered here is does it support older versions of the Windows OS like Skylake-S does?

Pfft. Don't count on it. Even if people get it to run, you'll be missing a lot of your board's features.

Microsoft could make a mint if they'd port the Win 7 GUI to run on the Win 10 kernel (and without all the spy ware). Sell it as "Windows 7 Classic", or something like that.

hoping either the Broadwell CPUS come down in price. or going back to dual 8 core Sandy Bridge Xeons for my next workstation.

Why go all the way back to Sandybridge? I'd be looking at picking up some used Haswell or possibly Ivybridge Xeons. Broadwell is too new, but I'd imagine some datacenters should already be upgrading from the others.

 

[kyotokid]

One question not answered here is does it support older versions of the Windows OS like Skylake-S does?

Pfft. Don't count on it. Even if people get it to run, you'll be missing a lot of your board's features.

Microsoft could make a mint if they'd port the Win 7 GUI to run on the Win 10 kernel (and without all the spy ware). Sell it as "Windows 7 Classic", or something like that.

hoping either the Broadwell CPUS come down in price. or going back to dual 8 core Sandy Bridge Xeons for my next workstation.

Why go all the way back to Sandybridge? I'd be looking at picking up some used Haswell or possibly Ivybridge Xeons. Broadwell is too new, but I'd imagine some datacenters should already be upgrading from the others.

..so Haswell Xeons have come down in price since I was last shopping around. Haswell supposedly supports DDR4 however The Intel site is listing contemptible ratings of only 1600 and 1866 which as I recall are DDR3 clock speeds (does the Intel site have that wrong as I am only able to find 64 GB DDR4 2133 [and up] kits?)

hmmm....need to sleep on this. Crikey it's almost 04:00, time to hit the pillow.

 

[DrillSEO]

Wow, i9 Processor, Thanks for Let me Know about Intel New Processor

 

[iam2thecrowe]

Wow, compared to the Ryzen 1800X, the Intel Core i9-7900X:

is about 25-30% faster
costs 105% more
uses 35-40% more power

Ryzen looks really good here, and together with the temperature problems, Intel seems to be in some deep shit.

You do remember the release of the Pentium 4 right? Theyre in no kind of shiZ. even if intel produces a bad cpu it still outsells AMD 10:1

Marketing and reputation go a long way unfortunately.

 

[scannall]

A swing and a miss. I want to say 'Nice try though'. But it's really not even that.

 

[rasmusdf]

Ncie review - I will enjoy re-reading it and pore over the technical details. Well done, Paul.

 

[cryoburner]

It is nice to see benchmarks for workstation use and not just gaming (I wish the same would be done for consumer grade GPU cards as most enthusiast 3D artists do not have a budget to afford the far more expensive Pro grade cards). This is where the 7900 seems to shine. This may polarise the two companies with AMD supporting the gaming community while Intel moves more to the graphics/scientific enthusiast workstation community.

That doesn't seem to be the case at all. Ryzen is at its best in heavily-threaded workloads. Keep in mind when looking at these benchmarks that they're comparing 6 and 8-core Ryzen processors against the 10-core 7900X. And also keep in mind that this is a thousand-dollar processor, and that AMD's upcoming 16-core CPU will likely still be priced lower and perform better in those kinds of multithreaded applications, while probably running cooler and consuming less power.

If anything, Intel arguably has the edge in the higher-end gaming market, since most games currently don't benefit as much from having more than four cores as they do from having higher per-core performance, resulting in the higher-clocked 7700K typically achieving higher frame rates than AMD's current CPUs. Unless a player is live streaming or something, those additional cores won't see much use when playing a majority of today's games. In the mid-range, AMD can be more competitive due to the i5's lack of hyperthreading though.

Another is PCI lanes and memory channels. Ryzen architecture s limited to dual channel memory support only and the 7-1800 supports 24 PCI lanes ves the 44 of the 7900x. The former may not be as important for gaming which is more GPU intensive but it is in 3D rendering, especially when working with engines which do not support GPU rendering as well as computation tasks,. Furthermore the X-299 boards support up to 128 GB of memory (8 x 16 GB Quad channel), a nice optimal amount for a serious graphics workstation.

"Ryzen architecture" is not limited to dual channel memory or 24 PCIe lanes. Threadripper will support quad channel memory and have 64 PCIe lanes while still costing significantly less than the i9 processors. Sure, maybe the existing consumer-platform Ryzen CPUs don't, but since you can get an 8-core Ryzen 1700 that can be clocked similar to an 1800X for $300, we're not even talking anywhere remotely close to the same price segment as an i9-7900X here.

I don't like this TIM bashing because it's under performing. You need to take into account the environmental consequences of mining. Also, there are a lot of social injustices derived from slavery in mines. I applaud the decision of going eco-friendly in lieu of ultimate performance for just a handful of people.

One result of using thermal compound under the heat spreader is that you'll need a larger heat sink attached to keep the chip operating at reasonable temperatures. Heat sinks are metal. Metal comes from mines.

 

[DDaerborn]

Hmmm

Any processor running full blown high end water cooling that cannot complete Prime95 testing without throttling due to thermal issues at stock speeds (not overclocked) isn't a viable consumer chip, let alone one that could ever, ever be trusted in a commercial environment of any kind. In fact it appears that the i9-7900X is quite literally an electronic hand grenade just waiting to blow up.

"To illustrate our point, we plotted the temperature for all of the Core i9-7900X’s cores at stock settings running Prime95 or LuxRender. A good custom water-cooling loop does fairly well, which shouldn't come as a surprise. However, no other thermal solution will be able to keep up. Even the motherboard manufacturers we spoke to agree, telling us about their all-in-one liquid coolers running out of headroom as soon as they ran Prime95 without limiting AVX"

No professional in their right minds is going to buy a chip with motherboard that is well north of $1300 that can't run at full load at stock clocks, even with water cooling without thermal throttling. And clearly any gaming customer willing to spend this kind of money isn't going to accept those limitations either.

The chip is obviously being overclocked well beyond its designed thermal limits in a desperate attempt to answer Ryzen and the upcoming Thread Ripper. The truth is that this chip should be running a stock clock around 3 ghz in order to prevent throttling. Of course at those speeds the chip would not have been able to consistently beat Ryzen at anything, despite having 20% more cores and costing more than twice as much.

Intel has no answer for the current Ryzen chips, let alone the up coming Thread Ripper at this time. This chip as presented at the current clock speeds is DOA in my humble opinion.

 

[BadBoyGreek]

I didn't expect AMD to send Intel scrambling so bad, so fast... just goes to show how complacent Intel became in the absence of competition.

I expect that prices of the Core i9 parts will come down quickly, based on the prediction that demand for Ryzen will increase even more in the face of this latest launch and the out of touch pricing Intel is still pushing forward with.

And where's the price drop on the i7-6950X, given that the new 7900 beats the snot out of it at half the price?

 

[Guest]

I forgot to say that i run x99 platform with 5930k and one positive thing of this release is to get i7 6950 for < $200. Just saying

 

[g-unit1111]

Pros: 10/20 cost now $999
Cons: Everything else

My biggest problem with this Intel lineup is that if you want 44 PCIe you have to pay $999. No, thanks. My money goes to AMD ThreadRipper.

Good review!

Threadripper isn't exactly going to be cheap either - base model is going to start at $850. Hope you got deep pockets!

 

[Guest]

I hope you people have a good laugh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xah84cJwdxE