Skylake: Intel's Core i7-6700K And i5-6600K

[royalcrown]

I agree with you, not saying it's the most efficient or best solution. It's just what the end of the line will have to be if we want the fastest platforms.

I am not talking about having gobs of architectures, I mean ONE set of hardware for home use. If everyone had the exact same internals, how easy would it be to optimize, or fix a bug and they are fixed for all users.

Different people have different requirements, budgets and applications. If you wanted to force a single hardware platform for everyone, then you would either need to force a horribly over-powered PC on people who only use their PC for email or a grossly under-powered PCs on enthusiast gamers or anything in-between. Different architectures fare better at different workloads, so you often have reasons to consider using different hardware.

Hardware is still nowhere near cheap and powerful enough to enable a one-size-fits-all approach.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Apple is not a mindless cult, no. But they are all about what they think works the best for you. Although they have done more than Steve Jobs would have ever done as he thought what he designed was all you needed.

 

[royalcrown]

I don't necessarily want it because:

The best platform wouldn't be the one people pick.

I am not talking about having gobs of architectures, I mean ONE set of hardware for home use. If everyone had the exact same internals, how easy would it be to optimize, or fix a bug and they are fixed for all users. Yes, there are minuses to the idea, but we'll reach a point where to progress any further (tangible gains, not 1 percent junk) that will be what will be necessary. Home users simply can't keep adding more hardware forever, it'll get cost prohibitive as well as electrically and thermally.

Don't know when it'll happen, but we'll be at that point someday, or we just stop getting faster, more powerful hardware and make due.

The difference between a C-64 and a PC is that the C-64 was one set of hardware to program for. It is much like a XB1/PS4 vs a PC. Same base for the hardware but the PC has so many variables it makes it hard to optimize and take advantage of all the speed from the get go.

That does not mean that the XB1/PS4 is faster than a PC, as we have seen a top end PC with a highly optimized game can make the XB1/PS4 look like last gen. It just means that when you can code for a single set of hardware and software, you can make things work better. With many sets it takes time.

Once we squeeze the code as much as we easily can, we are going to need to dump hardware abstraction and go to a standardized hardware set for any real jumps in performance.

Do you really want to get intimate with the GPU architecture down to clock-accurate compiler models for each and every GPU model? When you get to that point, you need to create optimized code for each architecture you want to support and this become a nightmare of its own. It is extremely unlikely that AMD, Intel, Nvidia and whoever else might make a GPU to pair with an x86 CPU will have exactly the same architecture for a given instruction set, API or whatever and they will all have hardware scaled from basic to enthusiast, so you need an abstraction layer to avoid having to support every possible case individually while still allowing progress and scaling under the hood.

If you look at what has happened on the CPU side, the whole x86 front-end on modern x86 CPUs is basically a hardware abstraction layer for the RISC core that actually runs instructions with the reorder buffer and issue queue taking care of most deep architectural details so programmers can focus on higher-level code.

There is a reason why Apple has never become more than a niche product (their PCs) because there is no one set of hardware and software that works for everyone. Some people just need a tablet in terms of power while others need the top of the line. Apple doesn't do this as well as a PC.

And yes it would be easy. It just wont ever happen.

That and they charge too much. This coming from someone who owned a 27" core i7 Imac and ipad, Iphone. If I could've upgraded the GPU just a bit though...I'd still have it. They really do perform well (Imacs). Macbooks are awesome, but need a lot more airflow than apple gives them.

 

[royalcrown]

Steve Jobs never wanting to update the hardware was the biggest reason they never got market share back when it would've been easier. That and the ugly Imac that looked like a lamp.

Tim Cook has done a lot for the company as far as improving stuff, he should've been in charge a lot sooner. I do have my gripes about them though, such as how much it costs to get more memory in anything apple, the cost for their stupid cables, Macbooks cooking. They have probs for sure.

Apple is not a mindless cult, no. But they are all about what they think works the best for you. Although they have done more than Steve Jobs would have ever done as he thought what he designed was all you needed.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Steve Jobs never wanting to update the hardware was the biggest reason they never got market share back when it would've been easier. That and the ugly Imac that looked like a lamp.

Tim Cook has done a lot for the company as far as improving stuff, he should've been in charge a lot sooner. I do have my gripes about them though, such as how much it costs to get more memory in anything apple, the cost for their stupid cables, Macbooks cooking. They have probs for sure.

Apple is not a mindless cult, no. But they are all about what they think works the best for you. Although they have done more than Steve Jobs would have ever done as he thought what he designed was all you needed.

It was a double edge sword. Without Jobs, APple was failing (in the 90s). With him they succeed but they remain a niche product.

 

[InvalidError]

I agree with you, not saying it's the most efficient or best solution. It's just what the end of the line will have to be if we want the fastest platforms.

If you want the absolute fastest CPU/GPU for a specific task, you need to go full-custom ASIC for your application.

For anything else, there will always be a set of compromises between performance in some cases vs performance in other cases for the benefit of better overall balance. It is extremely unlikely that any single architecture will ever be simultaneously best at everything, so there will always be a need for architectures more heavily geared towards some specific applications. If you look at Intel, they have the Core iX series for desktop software that relies heavily on single-threaded performance and Xeon Phi for servers and high-performance computing which uses many more much simpler quad-threaded cores for massively threaded workloads. Two different use-cases that use drastically different approaches to deliver performance for the applications they are intended for.

Even 50 years from now we will probably still have a handful of different architectures for different purposes and multiple versions of each architecture to accommodate different scales or mix of computing power requirements.

 

[palladin9479]

Apple is not a mindless cult, no. But they are all about what they think works the best for you. Although they have done more than Steve Jobs would have ever done as he thought what he designed was all you needed.

I believe Steve Job's design philosophy was "Freedom from Choice". It's actually based on human psychology and how we react to having to make decisions. If you take an average human "Bob" and give him a task that involves pushing a single button, he will gladly push that button with very little stress. Put two buttons in front of him, one red and one blue, then tell him when there is a red light push the red button, blue light push the blue one, and you just increased his stress levels slightly. Continue to escalate this with more and more levers, buttons, dials and gauges and bob's stress level goes up and up. He doesn't want to have to read gauges and be responsible for making the right choice. This holds true even if the task remains simple, (red / blue) but you introduce useless "fluff" buttons and gauges. Humans don't like having to be responsible for making choices. Jobs' capitalized on that human nature and pressured his design departments to limit the amount of user decisions required to do any action. Make a device that requires minimal input so that users don't feel decision anxiety when faces with the UI. It worked marvelously for turning their products into house hold names.

As enthusiasts, or in some of our cases engineers, we like having the option to do read gauges and make decisions. For us it's almost like a game or test of skill, how we personally optimize a specific build, balance the GPU, CPU, tune the OS, and do all the cool stuff that makes our rigs personal. For the vast majority of humans, this would just add stress to their purchasing decision, they just want something "that works" without them having to make it work.

 

[royalcrown]

Along with that I believe he was heavily into minimalism as far as design was concerned, hence the home button.

Apple is not a mindless cult, no. But they are all about what they think works the best for you. Although they have done more than Steve Jobs would have ever done as he thought what he designed was all you needed.

I believe Steve Job's design philosophy was "Freedom from Choice". It's actually based on human psychology and how we react to having to make decisions. If you take an average human "Bob" and give him a task that involves pushing a single button, he will gladly push that button with very little stress. Put two buttons in front of him, one red and one blue, then tell him when there is a red light push the red button, blue light push the blue one, and you just increased his stress levels slightly. Continue to escalate this with more and more levers, buttons, dials and gauges and bob's stress level goes up and up. He doesn't want to have to read gauges and be responsible for making the right choice. This holds true even if the task remains simple, (red / blue) but you introduce useless "fluff" buttons and gauges. Humans don't like having to be responsible for making choices. Jobs' capitalized on that human nature and pressured his design departments to limit the amount of user decisions required to do any action. Make a device that requires minimal input so that users don't feel decision anxiety when faces with the UI. It worked marvelously for turning their products into house hold names.

As enthusiasts, or in some of our cases engineers, we like having the option to do read gauges and make decisions. For us it's almost like a game or test of skill, how we personally optimize a specific build, balance the GPU, CPU, tune the OS, and do all the cool stuff that makes our rigs personal. For the vast majority of humans, this would just add stress to their purchasing decision, they just want something "that works" without them having to make it work.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Steve Jobs never wanting to update the hardware was the biggest reason they never got market share back when it would've been easier. That and the ugly Imac that looked like a lamp.

Tim Cook has done a lot for the company as far as improving stuff, he should've been in charge a lot sooner. I do have my gripes about them though, such as how much it costs to get more memory in anything apple, the cost for their stupid cables, Macbooks cooking. They have probs for sure.

Apple is not a mindless cult, no. But they are all about what they think works the best for you. Although they have done more than Steve Jobs would have ever done as he thought what he designed was all you needed.

It was a double edge sword. Without Jobs, APple was failing (in the 90s). With him they succeed but they remain a niche product.

There is no denying that when Jobs was alive Apple did seem to be pushing newer more popular products. Look at the iWatch - big flop on Tim Cook's part there. Jobs had fantastic ideas on products, and really did help bring about the modern day smart phone and tablet.

 

[bystander]

Was the iWatch a Jobs idea? If so, I wouldn't blame Cook on it, as the whole concept of an iWatch makes no sense to me at least. Why would I want to wear a watch if I still have to carry my phone with me.

 

[mrface]

once they integrate it with real time health monitoring that automatically alerts a doctor or nurse (think fibrillation or aneurysm) the iWatch and other such devices will make billions.

 

[ThatDevGuy]

It's worth noting the Broadwell desktop "C" socket 1150 parts with superior graphics listed in all the comparisons are *still* not available anywhere in the USA either for end-users or in OEM systems despite being listed by Intel as released last quarter in June. With Skylake essentially here there's a lot of speculation Intel is going to quietly kill off the Broadwell 1150 CPUs and wasted a lot of reviewer's time even sending out review samples.

It's also really sad even relatively high-end Skylake parts like these don't have Iris Pro graphics and, as this article clearly shows, their graphic performance is far inferior to the non-existant Broadwell "C" parts.

I get that most gamers will use external graphics but there's still a very significant market for Iris Pro on the desktop. And, as of now, we have no idea when that will be available in Broadwell or Skylake. Intel is doing a *really* poor job these days with their CPU roadmap and roll-outs. I suppose we can partly blame AMD for not providing any real competition.

Ultimately, Intel is only hurting their own sales by causing many people to just keep their existing desktop hardware. They have been teasing us for nearly a year with Iris Pro for the desktop and it's still not available. It also seems like a giant waste of all the R&D that went into the i7-5775C and i5-5765C if they're never going to make them widely available.

With any luck they'll announce something more promising at IDF but I'm not holding my breath. Despite their press releases, and coddling reviewers at Tomshardware and elsewhere, Intel's actions say they don't care much about the desktop anymore.

 

[BadBoyGreek]

Some decent improvements, but no compelling reasons to upgrade from the i7-4790k yet.

 

[jimmysmitty]

It's worth noting the Broadwell desktop "C" socket 1150 parts with superior graphics listed in all the comparisons are *still* not available anywhere in the USA either for end-users or in OEM systems despite being listed by Intel as released last quarter in June. With Skylake essentially here there's a lot of speculation Intel is going to quietly kill off the Broadwell 1150 CPUs and wasted a lot of reviewer's time even sending out review samples.

It's also really sad even relatively high-end Skylake parts like these don't have Iris Pro graphics and, as this article clearly shows, their graphic performance is far inferior to the non-existant Broadwell "C" parts.

I get that most gamers will use external graphics but there's still a very significant market for Iris Pro on the desktop. And, as of now, we have no idea when that will be available in Broadwell or Skylake. Intel is doing a *really* poor job these days with their CPU roadmap and roll-outs. I suppose we can partly blame AMD for not providing any real competition.

Ultimately, Intel is only hurting their own sales by causing many people to just keep their existing desktop hardware. They have been teasing us for nearly a year with Iris Pro for the desktop and it's still not available. It also seems like a giant waste of all the R&D that went into the i7-5775C and i5-5765C if they're never going to make them widely available.

With any luck they'll announce something more promising at IDF but I'm not holding my breath. Despite their press releases, and coddling reviewers at Tomshardware and elsewhere, Intel's actions say they don't care much about the desktop anymore.

Because there will be Skylake parts with better graphics coming out. No reason to wats time and money producing products that wont be widely bought when a superior version comes out.

 

[d3fd3f]

how does my i7-3930k stack up? thx

 

[BadBoyGreek]

how does my i7-3930k stack up? thx

Your 3930k is nothing to sneeze at. Unless you have a burning need or desire for the new features that the Z170 platform brings, the 3930k is still a very capable CPU that you should get at least a couple more years from.

 

[PCDesignerR]

I don't understand the negativity. It's brand new. Even the mobos and memory will be fresh and new. I honestly think that Intel still has a sucker-punch waiting to be revealed depending on what Zen is capable of. Why bring out your very best when mediocre is enough to beat your closest competitor, after all? It's far more lucrative to keep providing small incremental updates and charge a premium for every iteration than it is to say wham-bam and provide the masses with your very best effort and then have to charge a massive premium for it. I say be happy, every new bit of tech comes with advantages. I AM disappointed about the IGP though. These days I find myself playing MOBA games that don't require a lot of muscle - I'd love it if I could get a brilliant CPU and more than adequate IGP without having to shell out more money for a discrete GPU. I hope they do release something more top tier in both areas on the same CPU - I'll definitely purchase something like that.

Because, some people always have to be negative about something. I personally am running an i7-5960X Haswell-E and I love my processor. Get the best forget the rest, and all of the the negativity too, y'all can hold onto that as well.

 

[Jeff_2]

I'm really shocked and disappointed that Intel would take a step backward with their integrated graphics chip 530 on what is suppose to be their top-of-the line 6th generation 14nm Skylake desktop processors. They are suppose to be at the forefront of cutting edge technology. The fact that the previous generation's Broadwell i7-5775C and i7-5775R graphics 6200 chip beat Skylake's 530 graphics chip is inexcusable! Plus you can barely find any motherboards that support those 2 Broadwell desktop processors. On top of that everyone is out-of-stock on these 2 processors which are ridiculously expensive at well over $400! Plus the new Skylake desktop processors use 91 watts which is more power then Broadwell (65 watt), Haswell (81 watt), and Ivy Bridge (77 watt). But yet they promised us greater speed with LESS power because of the 14nm architecture. Plus, and this one really makes me mad, is that the CPU PassMark for the Broadwell i7-5775C is 10,757 and the Skylake i7-6700K is only 10,807 running at 26 watts more power than Broadwell. Skylake is only 50 more PassMarks greater than Broadwell (source: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html). Skylake is a freaking fiasco!!!!!!!!!!! I think for now I'll just stick with my Ivy Bridge i7-3770 with WQHD (2560 x 1440) graphics support and just wait for 4K support with the 7th generation 9nm processors. Maybe Intel will get it's act together by then. But physics tells me that they will have a very difficult time getting the architecture down to 9nm.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Jeff, Broadwell processors are highly underclocked which is why they use less power. At the same frequency, Skylake uses less power. Also, LGA1150 motherboards support Broadwell, so I'm not sure how you say you can barely find any motherboards to support Broadwell CPUs.

Also, CPUbenchmark is not a good source. It puts the 4790K above the 6700K, it's all faulty and does not represent actual performance,

 

[jimmysmitty]

I'm really shocked and disappointed that Intel would take a step backward with their integrated graphics chip 530 on what is suppose to be their top-of-the line 6th generation 14nm Skylake desktop processors. They are suppose to be at the forefront of cutting edge technology. The fact that the previous generation's Broadwell i7-5775C and i7-5775R graphics 6200 chip beat Skylake's 530 graphics chip is inexcusable! Plus you can barely find any motherboards that support those 2 Broadwell desktop processors. On top of that everyone is out-of-stock on these 2 processors which are ridiculously expensive at well over $400! Plus the new Skylake desktop processors use 91 watts which is more power then Broadwell (65 watt), Haswell (81 watt), and Ivy Bridge (77 watt). But yet they promised us greater speed with LESS power because of the 14nm architecture. Plus, and this one really makes me mad, is that the CPU PassMark for the Broadwell i7-5775C is 10,757 and the Skylake i7-6700K is only 10,807 running at 26 watts more power than Broadwell. Skylake is only 50 more PassMarks greater than Broadwell (source: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html). Skylake is a freaking fiasco!!!!!!!!!!! I think for now I'll just stick with my Ivy Bridge i7-3770 with WQHD (2560 x 1440) graphics support and just wait for 4K support with the 7th generation 9nm processors. Maybe Intel will get it's act together by then. But physics tells me that they will have a very difficult time getting the architecture down to 9nm.

The Skylake CPU is a direct replacement for Haswell and has better integrated graphics than Haswell. Broadwell is more targeted at HTPC and it shows with how the iGPU is what was focused on over the CPU.

The CPU of Skylake is a better performer than Haswell and uses less power. The TDP is always higher than what it actually uses.

There will be a Skylake version of their CPU that uses GT4e which will be up to 50% faster than the GT3e in Broadwell.

The i7/i5 6000 series are meant for enthusiasts who tend to use a dedicated GPU rather than the iGPU.

 

[TechyInAZ]

how does my i7-3930k stack up? thx

Your 3930k is nothing to sneeze at. Unless you have a burning need or desire for the new features that the Z170 platform brings, the 3930k is still a very capable CPU that you should get at least a couple more years from.

3930K will easily beat any quad core skylate in heavily threaded tasks.

 

[jimmysmitty]

how does my i7-3930k stack up? thx

Your 3930k is nothing to sneeze at. Unless you have a burning need or desire for the new features that the Z170 platform brings, the 3930k is still a very capable CPU that you should get at least a couple more years from.

3930K will easily beat any quad core skylate in heavily threaded tasks.

I would say it could be close if the heavily threaded task can take advantage of newer features Skylake might have that the 3930K might not.

But for most cases, yes it should. 50% more cores and all....

 

[atheus]

Any word on when i7's are coming to the US market?

 

[Faceboy]

I just installed the i5 6600k into an Asus hero 8 motherboard with a kraken x61 for cooling. 16 gb of ram EVGA 980ti card. I installed the kraken incorrectly at first and then reseated it after removing it. Did not clean off or add new paste. My cpu idles at around 40c and pops up to 75c during benchmarking. Based on this article it seems it should be much lower. My question is: Will properly reseating it after cleaning and applying new thermal paste fix this issue?

 

[Aspiring techie]

What intel needs to do is at every die shrink (ex. IB, Broadwell) they need to just design the CPU the same way that the previous generation was, except shrink the transistors. If they did that, then Broadwell's design would be exactly the same as Haswell's, just at a smaller process node. That would allow for higher clock rates and lower temps.

I'm just wondering if this would work. Am I just dumb, or is this actually a viable idea?