Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

[VirtualLarry]

I'm looking forward to SKL, but with some trepidation.

First: Where are the lower-than-i5 unlocked SKUs, if any.

Second: I'm confused by the fact that M.2 SSDs appear to be built using two "halves", each half the size. I would like to run Win7, and I don't know if it is compatible with this sort of arrangement, in the same way that Win8.1 is. (Transparently combining the two halves into one drive.)

See this thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2439448

 

[ShintaiDK]

Nothing to do with M.2. You can find some 2½" SATA drives as the same due to creative manufactors. Just avoid those manufactors.

 

[PPB]

But would you buy a 4790K over a 6700K and choosing Z97 over Z170 if price was the same and you was in for a new system?

Your lowest tier z97 board can attain the average OC on the 4790k.SKL without FIVR, not so much on the Z170 (Z97 SOC FORCE: 8 phases, Z170 SOC FORCE: 24,just like good old Z77 days), heck you can even OC non z97 boards, and some birdie tells me you wont with the new gen of chipsets, only Z170 OCING

You can get DDR3 RAM with better performance because of tighter timinga for lower price than those craptastic DDR4 sticks (2666 CAS 15 LOL, gamers avoid at any cost).

So actual platform price is UP, proccy price same or UP if they go the HW from IB route, but hey, you save 4 bucks a year. Ah and you have to get a cooler this round because no more HSF. So sad.

 

[dooon]

Skylake motherboards price
http://www.compsource.com/searches/search.asp?keyword=Skylake
http://us.directdial.com/vs/go/go.asp?SearchString=Skylake&Search=GO

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

but hey, you save 4 bucks a year.

Does that even apply to Skylake, at 95w TDP?

 

[PPB]

You have to account the power consumption of the ram. Most tests are xmp 1.65v ddr3 vs 1.2v ddr4. Then skylake offer another improvements for aure that will make that tdp figure a mismatch for actual ppwer consumption.

 

[stag3]

i was all set to build a 4790k but decided to wait for skylake to drop, if anything prices should go down on the other stuff after

 

[Volkswagen]

i was all set to build a 4790k but decided to wait for skylake to drop, if anything prices should go down on the other stuff after

Not really- Intel does not cut prices on CPU's- they just discontinue them....

 

[costel78]

Currently I use an old Core i7 860 with 16 GB RAM at 1600MHz. Despite it's age my system feel snappy, even on longs Gentoo compile times. But it's time to upgrade, not due to CPU but because of new technologies as USB 3.0/3.1, SATA3, M.2 or CPU instructions sets like AVX, FPA.
Due to iGPU maybe I'll could get rid of my actual video card (Nvidia GTS 450) to save few wats, improve cooling, skip things like: you have to clean it of dust, too

My answers are:
1. Worst case scenario of Skylake performance - can I expect 170%-200% performance improvement ?
2. I use dual boot. Video performance in Linux is irrelevant as I expect that iGPU will be able to play HD content without any trouble. But in Windows occasionally I play old games like Rise of Nations, Age of Empires II and III, but also Starcraft II or Wolfenstein.
Do you think I will be able to play them on iGPU at 1920x1080@32 ?
Should I keep my old video card ?
Mention: I am just a casual gamer, just to relax, maybe two times per week. So, definitely I am not very exigent about video performance.

Thank you!

 

[phillyman36]

I think I'm going i7 6700k and an Asus z170 Deluxe. I'll just sell my z97 and 4700k to offset the cost. I've got the itch for something new. Don't need it but its turning into a want. Does anyone know if Skylake will be in a limited supply on August 5th?

 

[frozentundra123456]

Is your 860 stock? Then you might see around 70% improvement with a Skylake at 4.0. I think the IPC improvement clock for clock will be more like 40%, assuming no big jump for Skylake, which looks likely based on prelim. benchmarks.

 

[Yuriman]

Currently I use an old Core i7 860 with 16 GB RAM at 1600MHz. Despite it's age my system feel snappy, even on longs Gentoo compile times. But it's time to upgrade, not due to CPU but because of new technologies as USB 3.0/3.1, SATA3, M.2 or CPU instructions sets like AVX, FPA.
Due to iGPU maybe I'll could get rid of my actual video card (Nvidia GTS 450) to save few wats, improve cooling, skip things like: you have to clean it of dust, too

My answers are:
1. Worst case scenario of Skylake performance - can I expect 170%-200% performance improvement ?
2. I use dual boot. Video performance in Linux is irrelevant as I expect that iGPU will be able to play HD content without any trouble. But in Windows occasionally I play old games like Rise of Nations, Age of Empires II and III, but also Starcraft II or Wolfenstein.
Do you think I will be able to play them on iGPU at 1920x1080@32 ?
Should I keep my old video card ?
Mention: I am just a casual gamer, just to relax, maybe two times per week. So, definitely I am not very exigent about video performance.

Thank you!

1. +170%? As in, nearly 3x faster? Not likely. You might get double the performance in highly threaded loads, depending partly on how much benefit hyperthreading gets on Skylake vs older designs.

2. Those games all run pretty well on existing Intel iGPUs, so you should have no problems with Skylake's. I'd toss the video card.

Food for thought - since you won't have any (that you've mentioned) cards in your PC, there's little reason for building it in a tower. Depending on your hard drive setup, you may be able to get away with building it in a case similar to this, which is around the size of 3 DVD cases stacked:

Most modern PCs without discrete video cards can be built in form factors that you can stick on the back of your monitor, with little or no compromise.

 

[costel78]

Yes, stock - 2.8 Ghz - i prefer stability.
Hmmm, after six years the performance won't double ? Disappointing...
What about iGPU and gaming on HD resolution ? 25-30 frames per second are enougth for me. Will it be possible ?

 

[costel78]

1. +170%? As in, nearly 3x faster? Not likely. You might get double the performance in highly threaded loads, depending partly on how much benefit hyperthreading gets on Skylake vs older designs.

2. Those games all run pretty well on existing Intel iGPUs, so you should have no problems with Skylake's. I'd toss the video card.

Food for thought - since you won't have any (that you've mentioned) cards in your PC, there's little reason for building it in a tower. Depending on your hard drive setup, you may be able to get away with building it in a case similar to this, which is around the size of 3 DVD cases stacked:

So, good by dedicated video card.

My poor English didn't help me this time. Not +170%/+200%, just 170%-200% - I mean 2x not 3x.
I understand that "170%-200% performance improvement" could be understand as 3x, but I am not native English speaker. Sorry.

Well, 1.7x-1.9x CPU improvement and no video card. I will upgrade to Skylake then.

Thank you!

P.S: I already have an HTPC, an AMD 5350 APU and unfortunately I can't go Mini-ITX on main PC - 4 HDD on Linux software RAID 10, two SSD, 1xODD, 1 internal 2.5/3.5 HDD RACK and a fan controller. Actually I plan to buy a bigger case. From Lancool K-62 to Phanteks Enthoo Pro.

 

[tential]

I'm looking forward to SKL, but with some trepidation.

First: Where are the lower-than-i5 unlocked SKUs, if any.

Second: I'm confused by the fact that M.2 SSDs appear to be built using two "halves", each half the size. I would like to run Win7, and I don't know if it is compatible with this sort of arrangement, in the same way that Win8.1 is. (Transparently combining the two halves into one drive.)

See this thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2439448

Unlocked skus below the i5 aren't a given lol....

 

[frozentundra123456]

I think the meant 170% of the performance of what he is using, or a 1.7x increase.

 

[dark zero]

Mmm.. Let me check this...
The improvement of IPC is:
From Nehalem from SB - 25%
From SB to Ivy Bridge - 15%
From Ib to Haswell - 10%
From Haswell to Broadwell - 10%
From Broadwell to Skylake - 15% (estimated and TBD)
So in total it could get up to 75% at minimun.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Mmm.. Let me check this...
The improvement of IPC is:
From Nehalem from SB - 25%
From SB to Ivy Bridge - 15%
From Ib to Haswell - 10%
From Haswell to Broadwell - 10%
From Broadwell to Skylake - 15% (estimated and TBD)
So in total it could get up to 75% at minimun.

 

[LTC8K6]

Yes, stock - 2.8 Ghz - i prefer stability.
Hmmm, after six years the performance won't double ? Disappointing...
What about iGPU and gaming on HD resolution ? 25-30 frames per second are enougth for me. Will it be possible ?

Some benches comparing a couple of Haswells to 860 and 870. Add a bit for Skylake, particularly in multi threading, I think. Haswell is already spectacularly faster most of the time.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/108?vs=836

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/108?vs=1199

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/107?vs=1199

 

[Fjodor2001]

From SB to Ivy Bridge - 15%
From Ib to Haswell - 10%
From Haswell to Broadwell - 10%
From Broadwell to Skylake - 15% (estimated and TBD)
So in total it could get up to 75% at minimun.

Those numbers are totally BS. Cut them in half and you're getting close to reality, for general CPU benchmarks.

 

[Dave2150]

Those numbers are totally BS. Cut them in half and you're getting close to reality, for general CPU benchmarks.

Yep. This graph that ShintaiDK posts in every thread is also complete BS, it only applies to specific server applications utilizing AVX/AVX2 etc etc.

 

[justanotherboy]

Currently I use an old Core i7 860 with 16 GB RAM at 1600MHz. Despite it's age my system feel snappy, even on longs Gentoo compile times. But it's time to upgrade, not due to CPU but because of new technologies as USB 3.0/3.1, SATA3, M.2 or CPU instructions sets like AVX, FPA.
Due to iGPU maybe I'll could get rid of my actual video card (Nvidia GTS 450) to save few wats, improve cooling, skip things like: you have to clean it of dust, too

costel78, I use gentoo too and I have a i7-4790K. I can check the compiling times for the top offenders (chromium, firefox) so you can have an idea of the jump in performance (at least for haswell). Just give me a couple of hours to arrive home.

 

[mikk]

it only applies to specific server applications utilizing AVX/AVX2 etc etc.

Do you have a source? The graph doesn't look far off. Of course it always differs a bit from benchmark parcours to benchmark parcours. With AVX2 the difference would be much bigger than 10% nevertheless.

 

[userstefan]

Mmm.. Let me check this...
The improvement of IPC is:
From Nehalem from SB - 25%
From SB to Ivy Bridge - 15%
From Ib to Haswell - 10%
From Haswell to Broadwell - 10%
From Broadwell to Skylake - 15% (estimated and TBD)
So in total it could get up to 75% at minimun.

You do realize that that's not how you add up percentages - or percentage points to be more exact.

Presuming the numbers are right, the performance gain from Nahlem to Skylake would actually be 1.25 * 1.15 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.15 = 2.00028 ~ 1.00028 or 100.028% improvement.

 

[Dave2150]

Do you have a source? The graph doesn't look far off. Of course it always differs a bit from benchmark parcours to benchmark parcours. With AVX2 the difference would be much bigger than 10% nevertheless.

Sure.

That graph shows Haswell being a 10% IPC increase over Ivy Bridge.

Lets look at the official Anandtech review for Haswell, from June 2013.

Same clockspeeds of the 3770k (Ivy Bridge) and 4770k (Haswell)

Thats 5% faster IPC, not the 10% from ShintaiDK's BS graph.

Here's the link to the official Anandtech Haswell review, if you want to compare other benchmarks:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-review-intel-core-i74770k-i54560k-tested/6