Intel Broadwell Thread

[Arachnotronic]

There's no reason to trade up from a 5820K, is there.

Not particularly. It's worthwhile to upgrade from 6->8/10 core models if you are looking for more cores, but if you are not looking to spend the extra to move up the stack, it's just not really worthwhile to go from a HSW-E to its direct successor.

That is, unless you are the kind of person who just wants to have the latest just because it's the latest. Nothing wrong with that. But from a practical point of view, you're better off saving your money for the next platform -- Skylake-X.

 

[Sweepr]

Broadwell-EX is Here

www.computerbase.de/2016-06/intel-xeon-e7-v4-broadwell-ex

 

[RussianSensation]

6950x is in stock at microcenter in my area for 1599, 6800k for 399.

but 6700k is only 309.

$289.99 now. The i5 6600K went down to $199.99.The $110 savings on the CPU + $50-70 on the mobo + $20-25 savings on fast 2x8GB DDR4 sticks over 4x4GB DDR4 sticks for X99 + $30-50 savings on a CPU cooler gets us close to going i7 6700K + GTX1080 (or 1070 SLI) vs. an i7 6800K + GTX1070. Skylake is a clear winner for those who primarily game.

Not particularly. It's worthwhile to upgrade from 6->8/10 core models if you are looking for more cores, but if you are not looking to spend the extra to move up the stack, it's just not really worthwhile to go from a HSW-E to its direct successor.

That is, unless you are the kind of person who just wants to have the latest just because it's the latest. Nothing wrong with that. But from a practical point of view, you're better off saving your money for the next platform -- Skylake-X.

:thumbsup: Even SKL-X may not be the answer. If you assume someone wanted a cutting edge gaming CPU regardless of cost, they would have purchased an i7 6700K in Q4 2015 and enjoyed it for almost 2 years before SKL-X arrives. The same gamer would be better off waiting for Icelake and skipping SLK-X entirely. Unless games start to use 6-8 cores or benefit greatly from increased cache, a 6-12 core SLK-X won't really be faster than the 6700K. At least during the i7 6700K vs. i7 5820K days, the latter could be justified/recommended due to price premiums for fast DDR4 and inflated pricing of 6700K. Now it the completely opposite scenario where Skylake platform with fast DDR4 is not only faster, but it's cheaper.

Core i7-6900K 8C/16T got to 4.5 GHz in PCLab's review. Looks like more cores come at the cost of slightly decreased OCing potential, which is expected TBH.

Edit: Hardware Canucks pushed the Core i7-6950X 10C/20T beast to 4.43 GHz for all cores.

Did they use AVX in their stress testing? Looking at average 6700K overclocking across 20-30 sites shows 4.5-4.8Ghz, with some hitting 4.85-4.9Ghz. You are using the best case scenario and ignoring that average overclocks for BW-E are all well below the average overclocks for SKL. If you want to use the best overclocks for BW-E, you need to compare them to the best overclocks for 6700K then. HW Canucks achived 4.85Ghz on the 6700K on a $130 board. MicroCenter has an even higher end Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 5 model for $137 after bundling it with the 6700K. This board has 2x Ultra M.2 32GB/sec ports that can be set up in RAID too.

SiliconLottery is selling 6800K/6850K @ 4.2-4.4Ghz and 6900K @ 4.2-4.4Ghz. This suggests the average overclock on BW-E is actually 4.2-4.4Ghz.

i7 6700K @ 4.8Ghz for $449
i7 6850K @ 4.5Ghz for $769.

4.5Ghz even on a 6-core BW-E is pretty rare it seems. Once you take pricing into account, it's a complete fail unless one needs the extra cores for rendering/video encoding, etc. I didn't even add the price of a CPU cooler into the equation. It won't be possible to get those 4.4-4.5Ghz on BW-E with a $20 cooler.

 

[HiroThreading]

Broadwell-EX is Here

Dang.

Looking forward to Anandtech's Johan to review this. Those are some impressive performance claims by Intel.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

$289.99 now. The i5 6600K went down to $199.99.The $110 savings on the CPU + $50-70 on the mobo + $20-25 savings on fast 2x8GB DDR4 sticks over 4x4GB DDR4 sticks for X99 + $30-50 savings on a CPU cooler gets us close to going i7 6700K + GTX1080 (or 1070 SLI) vs. an i7 6800K + GTX1070. Skylake is a clear winner for those who primarily game.



:thumbsup: Even SKL-X may not be the answer. If you assume someone wanted a cutting edge gaming CPU regardless of cost, they would have purchased an i7 6700K in Q4 2015 and enjoyed it for almost 2 years before SKL-X arrives. The same gamer would be better off waiting for Icelake and skipping SLK-X entirely. Unless games start to use 6-8 cores or benefit greatly from increased cache, a 6-12 core SLK-X won't really be faster than the 6700K. At least during the i7 6700K vs. i7 5820K days, the latter could be justified/recommended due to price premiums for fast DDR4 and inflated pricing of 6700K. Now it the completely opposite scenario where Skylake platform with fast DDR4 is not only faster, but it's cheaper.



Did they use AVX in their stress testing? Looking at average 6700K overclocking across 20-30 sites shows 4.5-4.8Ghz, with some hitting 4.85-4.9Ghz. You are using the best case scenario and ignoring that average overclocks for BW-E are all well below the average overclocks for SKL. If you want to use the best overclocks for BW-E, you need to compare them to the best overclocks for 6700K then. HW Canucks achived 4.85Ghz on the 6700K on a $130 board. MicroCenter has an even higher end Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 5 model for $137 after bundling it with the 6700K. This board has 2x Ultra M.2 32GB/sec ports that can be set up in RAID too.

SiliconLottery is selling 6800K/6850K @ 4.2-4.4Ghz and 6900K @ 4.2-4.4Ghz. This suggests the average overclock on BW-E is actually 4.2-4.4Ghz.

i7 6700K @ 4.8Ghz for $449
i7 6850K @ 4.5Ghz for $769.

4.5Ghz even on a 6-core BW-E is pretty rare it seems. Once you take pricing into account, it's a complete fail unless one needs the extra cores for rendering/video encoding, etc. I didn't even add the price of a CPU cooler into the equation. It won't be possible to get those 4.4-4.5Ghz on BW-E with a $20 cooler.

Good Lord RS, you're practically pointing a gun at my head to go buy that 6700K with this post. At $290, I almost have to because I have a feeling that the 7700K MSRP is going to go up and I think that Skylake-X is going to be another disappointing release.

So at 4.5 Ghz, it would be about 30% faster than my 2600K. If I pushed it to 4.7 Ghz, that would give it what - another 5% of performance over my 2600K?

Any idea how long that price is good for? I'd have to drive a couple of hours to Cincy to get one.

 

[Brent]

Any idea how long that price is good for? I'd have to drive a couple of hours to Cincy to get one.

The closest Microcenter, for me, is roughly a 4-hour (one-way) drive. 8 hours total driving time, to save $100, isn't worth it to me. If Microcenter's prices were good for their website, then RS' note on the price difference would matter more to me (and yes, I'm definitely jealous of anyone who can jump to a Microcenter or a Frys with little effort, darn it!).

I'd feel differently if I had a 2-hour, one way, drive to a Microcenter. So this is fantastic and definitely a no-brainer if you're close enough to one of those stores to justify the time and gas spent to drive to a Microcenter.

The rest of us are still out here in overpriced CPU land looking at our options and weighing the benefits. I still agree that Skylake is the absolute best gaming CPU. I just want my cake and be able to eat it like the spoiled person that I am.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9117559&cm_re=I7-6700k-_-19-117-559-_-Product <-- I7-6700K is $350

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9117402&cm_re=I7-5820k-_-19-117-402-_-Product <-- I7-5820K is $390 (arguably better overclocker than the 6800K, so a bit more competitive versus a 6700k, perhaps?)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9117649&cm_re=I7-6800k-_-19-117-649-_-Product <-- I7-6800K is $450

With the 6800K going for $100 more than Skylake, that's a substantial chunk of $$ that could go toward a better GPU so the "value" argument is definitely lost on the 6800k - particularly when you consider its apparently-terribly ability to overclock. I'm waiting to see if anyone else is able to coax better OC speeds out of this CPU. I suspect not given that the Silicon Lottery sales site would likely be advertising higher speeds, if they could. That puts me back to looking at the 5820K vs the 6700k.

So.. cake and eating it too. Hmm.


http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=I7-6700KBX (has a $10 off coupon through today (06/06) or "while supplies last".. brings the CPU price to $328.99.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=I7-5820KBX - selling the 5820k for $369.99

That's a $41 price difference to net those 2 additional CPU cores. A smaller price difference, to be sure. The 5820K has the "added advantage" of being the older/established HDET CPU so all motherboards out are fair game for it, so it is possible to get "cheap" motherboards for it.

The argument that the 6700K and its faster memory would outbenchmark the 5820K is still absolutely valid and it likely is still the better buy. I'm hung up on having the extra 2 cores for no logical reason, funny enough. I just have to figure out how hung up I really am on that idea.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Yeah, I have another advantage - the closest Microcenter might be two hours away in Cincinnati, BUT the wife and I like to go to Cincy periodically because of several other stores so we might be able to make it over this weekend. And actually, I think you CAN buy the CPU online but have to pick it up instore, so I can buy it online today and just pick it up Saturday.

I know you and I have discussed the extra cores and I'm still of the opinion that if you want to buy a platform now and have it last the longest, the X99 platform might still be a better investment because you can always add more cores down the road. Of course, if you're on a 3-5 year PC upgrade lifecycle, that assumes that more cores are going to become very important in the next 3-5 years for your most important applications and I'm still not sure that will hold true for gaming. So if that's the case, you just buy the fastest processor for your most used applications and just upgrade again if more cores are necessary down the road.

Decisions, decisions. I still have to remind myself that Zen is still coming so maybe I should just be patient.

EDIT: Microcenter has the 5820K for $320. Hmmmm.....

 

[Porter_]

$289.99 now. The i5 6600K went down to $199.99.The $110 savings on the CPU + $50-70 on the mobo + $20-25 savings on fast 2x8GB DDR4 sticks over 4x4GB DDR4 sticks for X99 + $30-50 savings on a CPU cooler gets us close to going i7 6700K + GTX1080 (or 1070 SLI) vs. an i7 6800K + GTX1070. Skylake is a clear winner for those who primarily game.

this is exactly the same conclusion i came to saturday when i ordered my 6700K build. i don't have access to a microcenter but each cpu scaled up accordingly in price at newegg. my options for a purely gaming rig were 1) 6700K + GTX1070 SLI or 2) 6800K + GTX1080. i chose the 6700K GTX1070 SLI option.

 

[Nutero]

I know you and I have discussed the extra cores and I'm still of the opinion that if you want to buy a platform now and have it last the longest, the X99 platform might still be a better investment because you can always add more cores down the road.

On the point of longevity, say I was thinking about getting BW:E octa-core (6900k), I am struggling to figure out what upgrade path there is (if any) apart from getting a 6950x at some point down the road. I could not find any information on future releases for x99. Sorry if this is a daft question, I am new to all of this.

Also I would really appreciate any advice on 5960x vs 6900k, this will mainly be used for production (3d modelling, rendering, texturing and some video editing).

At the moment it seems like the 5960x is the better chip as with the rest of HW:E chips vs BW:E equivalents.

Any thoughts on why the 6900k would be better?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

On the point of longevity, say I was thinking about getting BW:E octa-core (6900k), I am struggling to figure out what upgrade path there is (if any) apart from getting a 6950x at some point down the road. I could not find any information on future releases for x99. Sorry if this is a daft question, I am new to all of this.

So, I guess I should've qualified my remark by stating that X99 makes sense in terms of upgrade possibilities if you're looking at the 6-core models now, because you have a couple of upgrade options. If you're looking at the 8-core model, then obviously the 10 core will be the only option for you in the future.

Also I would really appreciate any advice on 5960x vs 6900k, this will mainly be used for production (3d modelling, rendering, texturing and some video editing).

I'd go with whichever one you can find cheapest.

 

[supaidaaman]

What a disappointment BW-E has been for me...

My 4ghz 970 just failed and now its only running at stock 3.2. I was hoping it was a no-brainier to upgrade, but the pricing and low OC potential is making me think otherwise.

I was hoping my current rig would just fail so I could have an excuse to upgrade, but I just dont see the point. I use a 5930k on windows 10(garbage for media production) at work and it doesn't seem any better than what I currently have...I dont think its worth it to upgrade.

maybe skylake-x will have what I want?

 

[Sweepr]

Core i7-6950X Overclocking Review:

www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/intel_core_i7_extreme_edition_broadwell_e_cpu_overclocked

Crushing Cinebench with 4x Broadwell-EX: 96C/192T action:

www.servethehome.com/william-harmon-crushes-cinebench-r15-now-xeon-e7-v4

 

[Aristotelian]

Thanks Sweepr. I'd like to paste the conclusion here but hope that others still go through the review. The conclusion reads:

"If you put in the tuning and testing time, you can maximize the performance of Intel's 14nm 10-core beast, the Core i7 6950X. With the CPU you get a couple of new options with by-core overclocking using the best cores to eek out the top level performance. You can overclock by using traditional methods that may not pay as handsome a clock speed dividend, but nevertheless you get improved performance. By using the AVX workload offset, you can drop the core clock speed ratio at a user defined level that helps drop down the clock speed under heavy AVX related workloads. The goal with using this strategy is that you reduce the clock speed and the associated voltage needed to run the lower clock speed number. The one caveat here is that you need to be running the voltage on auto.

The single biggest hurdle when running higher voltages and clock speeds is thermal management. A nice air cooler or even some of the nicer AIO kits are going to be fully overwhelmed with the thermal load displaced by the Core i7 6950X when overclocked and over volted. I had to resort to a full on water cooling setup to reach the observed 4.34GHz and 4.28GHz speeds I ran in my testing. Usually the hefty 240mm radiator I use for overclocking processors is sufficient to handle the typical load. Not so with this beast. I had to back up and put in a second radiator to handle the load discharged into the liquid. By doing so, I was able to keep the processor from throttling and bouncing off the 99 °C max temperature before the chip could throttle.

Overall, most of your usual overclocking tools and methods that we have worked with over the past few generations of Intel processors work well with this generation of Intel's Extreme series chips. The new flexibility adds some wrinkles, but nothing that cannot be easily overcome. The Intel Core i7 6950X Broadwell-E processor is one hell of a processor."

I'm looking forward to cooling this on 3x480mm radiators, with two gtx 1080s in sli. Once this gets setup I'll be really happy to post my own benchmarks, but yeah, these custom loops take a long time.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Core i7-6950X Overclocking Review:

www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/intel_core_i7_extreme_edition_broadwell_e_cpu_overclocked

Crushing Cinebench with 4x Broadwell-EX: 96C/192T action:

www.servethehome.com/william-harmon-crushes-cinebench-r15-now-xeon-e7-v4

What happened to the 6700k? Hard to tell because the games seem gpu limited, but it is consistently slightly slower than Haswell even at a slightly higher overclock. Too bad they did not use a better gpu.

 

[Sweepr]

Silicon Lottery already got Broadwell-E: https://siliconlottery.com/collections/2011-3

 

[2blzd]

Did they use AVX in their stress testing?

Doesn't matter anymore..

On Haswell, one AVX instruction on one core forced all cores on the same socket to slow down their clockspeed by around 2 to 4 speed bins (-200,-400 MHz) for at least 1 ms, as AVX has a higher power requirement that reduces how much a CPU can turbo. On Broadwell, only the cores that run AVX code will be reducing their clockspeed, allowing the other cores to run at higher speeds.

 

[Sweepr]

Crushing Cinebench with 4x Broadwell-EX: 96C/192T action:

www.servethehome.com/william-harmon-crushes-cinebench-r15-now-xeon-e7-v4

Result is out:
8299 cb with 4x Intel Xeon E7 8890 V4 at 2700MHz (Cinebench R15 MT)

http://hwbot.org/submission/3234137

Probably not taking full advantage of this beast.

 

[Sweepr]

The Broadwell-E overclocking guide

Having tested hundreds of Broadwell-E CPUs internally, we’re in a position to share meaningful data related to core frequencies:

Percentage of capable CPUs Frequency Vcore
20% 4.4GHz 1.38V
75% 4.3GHz 1.35V
5% 4.2GHz 1.35V

These frequencies represent Handbrake encoding stability. Most samples are capable of running at 4.3GHz with 1.35Vcore, and a few achieve 4.4GHz with a little more voltage. The worst samples we have seen require 1.35V for 4.2GHz. These frequencies are not exactly scintillating, but you can extend Broadwell-E’s overclocking headroom for light-load applications by using the ASUS Thermal Control Tool.

http://edgeup.asus.com/2016/06/17/broadwell-e-overclocking-guide

 

[Burpo]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10401...4800-v4-and-e78800-v4-families-up-to-24-cores

 

[Sweepr]

Hardware.info did a Turbo Boost 3.0 review:

Intel Turbo Boost 3.0 review: boost for single-threaded applications

As we pointed out in the Broadwell-E review, Intel has delivered a remarkable job with Turbo Boost 3.0. As a result, there is despite the fact that only a Broadwell-E 'tick' is, there are considerable performance improvement. On average, the single-threaded performance with more than 10% with Turbo Boost 3.0 enabled, which is impressive. This is significant, since single-threaded performance traditionally been the weak point of the high-end processors. With Turbo Boost 3.0 is the performance gap between high-end and mainstream platform in terms of single-threaded performance considerably smaller.

Also with multi-threading makes Turbo Boost 3.0 processor but a lot faster. Although 4.8% does not seem that much, it is the performance that we now can expect a new processor generation. In conjunction with the IPC improvements Broadwell-E, which proved not to be breathtaking, it still delivers a respectable performance gains for this generation.

https://nl.hardware.info/reviews/68...review-boost-voor-single-threaded-applicaties

 

[Sweepr]

Hardware.fr reviews Broadwell-E:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/946-1/intel-broadwell-e-i7-6950x-6900k-6800k-test.html

 

[Sweepr]

New (custom) SKUs?

Xeon E5-2699 v4 22C/44T
E5-2699 v4：2.2-3.6GHz
E5-2699A v4：2.4-2.8?GHz
E5-2699C v4：2.2-2.4?GHz
E5-2699R v4：2.2-?GHz

https://world.taobao.com/item/538136967124.htm?fromSite=main

ASUS X99-Deluxe II Review

https://www.overclockers.ru/lab/79623/obzor-i-testirovanie-materinskoj-platy-asus-x99-deluxe-ii.html

 

[Sweepr]

Broadwell-EP gets a clock boost.

Intel’s Xeon family of processors dominates the November 2016 Top500 list. Intel holds over 92% market share in the most recent Top500 list. Extending on this lead Intel is launching a new Xeon E5-2699A V4. The company is also showing off Skylake-EP at the show.

https://www.servethehome.com/new-intel-xeon-e5-2699a-v4-skylake-ep-details

Also Broadwell-EP with FPGA:

https://www.servethehome.com/intel-demonstrating-broadwell-ep-fpga-package/

 

[Sweepr]

Broadwell-E Direct Die Mounting (Silicon Lottery)

After removing the integrated heat spreader (IHS), the height of our processor is much lower. Cooling solutions will no longer make good contact with the 2011-3 mounting mechanism attached. We will also need to lower the height of our cooler to make proper contact with the CPU die. Lowering the back plate is the easiest way to do this with motherboards that support it. Our delidding service includes the tools and accessories needed.

An example of before and after temperatures on a 6950X @ 4.4GHz running at 1.35V during 15 minutes of Asus Realbench on a Corsair H105:

- Before:

- After:

https://siliconlottery.com/pages/broadwell-e-direct-die


Fairly impressive results for Broadwell-C @ Watchs Dogs 2 - especially with an old driver:

http://gamegpu.com/тест-apu/watch-dogs-2-test-apu

 

[frozentundra123456]

Broadwell-E Direct Die Mounting (Silicon Lottery)



An example of before and after temperatures on a 6950X @ 4.4GHz running at 1.35V during 15 minutes of Asus Realbench on a Corsair H105:

- Before:

- After:

https://siliconlottery.com/pages/broadwell-e-direct-die


Fairly impressive results for Broadwell-C @ Watchs Dogs 2 - especially with an old driver:

http://gamegpu.com/тест-apu/watch-dogs-2-test-apu

I suppose, but it just goes to prove how pathetic igpus (either intel or AMD) are for gaming with modern demanding titles. I mean, barely playable at 720 low??? And the presence of the new 14/16 nm dgpus just makes it worse. What would a hundred dollar 460/1050 give, 2 or 3 times the performance.