What's the hubbub with Skylake? What's your i5 CPU recommendation?

[rahlo]

Pretty much as the title says. What's up with the Skylake? Why does it seem everyone is losing their mind over it? Am I missing out by going with a different CPU?

I'm about to purchase a new CPU for gaming. I was about to make a move on the Intel Core i5-4690K Devil's Canyon Quad-Core 3.5 GHz LGA 1150 but all this Skylake talk has me second guessing it.

What is your CPU recommendation (regardless of what is listed above) for gaming? But most importantly why?

Current Games: WoW, D3, HotS, CoH2
Future Games: The Division, Far Cry titles, Tom Clancy titles

Thanks in advance. As always your feedback is much appreciated.

~R

 

[thor220]

Skylake is only good for it's integrated graphics, which are on par with amd's a10 series. It's still just integrated graphics so don't expect anything amazing. Skylake has less performance than previous generation chips, so it's not worth anything to systems that have a dedicated graphics card.

I would stick with the CPU you selected. It's faster than the skylake equivalent.

 

[Dunlop0078]

Who is freaking about about skylake? I think most people are dissapointed by skylake including myself it performs no better than haswell in the majority of work loads.

 

[rgd1101]

Skylake is only good for it's integrated graphics, which are on par with amd's a10 series. It's still just integrated graphics so don't expect anything amazing. Skylake has less performance than previous generation chips, so it's not worth anything to systems that have a dedicated graphics card.

I would stick with the CPU you selected. It's faster than the skylake equivalent.

your source?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skylake-intel-core-i7-6700k-core-i5-6600k,4252.html
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation

 

[rgd1101]

It have a chipset functionality, better m.2 support.
easier to overclock.

 

[synphul]

I don't think skylake is quite what some were expecting though not a total disappointment. Better m.2 support is a bonus, additional support always is but I don't think many people are even making use of the m.2 support that's been around on 1150. The igpu is a bit better though a downgrade from broadwell's igpu. It does have better overclocking options going back to a non integrated voltage regulator and incremental mhz increases rather than large jumps but not everyone's experienced the best results. I believe it was anandtech who was testing overclocking on skylake and out of three chips the one that oc'd the least was an off the shelf model. The other two were engineering samples. Granted it's a very small test batch to make any determinations on but it's not looking promising if the wow factor is limited to cherry picked engineering chips while off the shelf real world results are lower.

I think the prices are a bit much especially considering no stock cooler (k series). They should have been more in line with haswell/d.c. rather than significantly higher AND lacking a cooler. That means with a cooler they would be priced another $10, 15, 20 higher? Pricing would really be outrageous in that respect for the performance gains (which are slight). People would be choosing between a $230 4690k and a $270 6600k or a $330 4790k and an i7 6700k pushing almost $400.

They do bring ddr4 to mainstream but it's not really earth shattering since ddr4's been around in systems on the x99 for quite some time and in quad channel no less. The fact that a 6700k is $375 while a 5820k is $395 makes it no more attainable for mainstream than x99. For an extra $20 I'd rather get an overclocking k series with 50% more cores and threads and twice the cache with quad channel memory support over dual channel. It's a very poor value comparatively speaking. People can't even argue that the 5820k has the hidden cost of no cooler like they could compared to the 4790k since the 6700k has no cooler either.

 

[thor220]

Skylake is only good for it's integrated graphics, which are on par with amd's a10 series. It's still just integrated graphics so don't expect anything amazing. Skylake has less performance than previous generation chips, so it's not worth anything to systems that have a dedicated graphics card.

I would stick with the CPU you selected. It's faster than the skylake equivalent.

your source?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skylake-intel-core-i7-6700k-core-i5-6600k,4252.html
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation

http://www.techspot.com/review/1041-intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake/

 

[rgd1101]

Skylake is only good for it's integrated graphics, which are on par with amd's a10 series. It's still just integrated graphics so don't expect anything amazing. Skylake has less performance than previous generation chips, so it's not worth anything to systems that have a dedicated graphics card.

I would stick with the CPU you selected. It's faster than the skylake equivalent.

your source?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skylake-intel-core-i7-6700k-core-i5-6600k,4252.html
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation

http://www.techspot.com/review/1041-intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake/

http://www.techspot.com/review/1041-intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake/page13.html
better if you have the right RAM.
Budget wise, it better to go with 4690K.

 

[synphul]

The comment in that techspot article was referring to broadwell's iris pro 6200 igpu, not skylake. The hd530 igpu in skylake is a step backwards and is sort of in the middle between the hd4600 igpu of haswell/d.c. and broadwell's iris pro.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/core_i7_6700k_processor_review_desktop_skylake,15.html

 

[trifler]

I would choose the i5-6600K over the i5-4690K any day if I was building from scratch. You don't want to be tied to an old socket, memory that can't be transferred, etc. The LGA 1151 motherboards are much better. I don't see why you would want the 4690k unless you're trying to reuse an existing motherboard. Otherwise, there's no additional cost in getting the Skylake model.

Here's another link:
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/578/Intel_Core_i5_i5-4690K_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-6600K.html

 

[rahlo]

I would choose the i5-6600K over the i5-4690K any day if I was building from scratch. You don't want to be tied to an old socket, memory that can't be transferred, etc. The LGA 1151 motherboards are much better. I don't see why you would want the 4690k unless you're trying to reuse an existing motherboard. Otherwise, there's no additional cost in getting the Skylake model.

Here's another link:
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/578/Intel_Core_i5_i5-4690K_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-6600K.html

Thank you for the link and I feel that the point you have made about the socket type is solid. I do new builds about every 5 years and in between the new build and next build I'm just upgrading components. It would likely be beneficial to have the newer socket. Thanks for this info.