Intel launches the middle i7-6950X at Computex 2016

Ever on account that Intel debuted the “E” family of hardware with Sandy Bridge-E in 2011, these processors have fashioned the spine of Intel’s pinnacle-tier enthusiast services. while the variety of cores on the top of Intel’s normal customer merchandise has stayed steady because 2009’s Nehalem — four cores with Hyper-Threading — the corporation has regularly expanded the wide variety of CPU cores it offered in the “E” family, from six with Sandy and Ivy Bridge, up to eight with Haswell-E.

The hassle with Haswell-E, but, become that its middle counts got here at the value of decrease standard speeds in comparison to the center i7-4970K. This become specifically actual with the 8-center model of the chip, which clocked in at 3GHz base, three.5GHz turbo. In those cases, a center i7-5960X wasn’t continually quicker than the a lot inexpensive 4970K, no matter having more cores.

Intel has made a ramification of changes to Broadwell-E that it hopes will alleviate a number of these discrepencies and create a extra numerous product circle of relatives. permit’s kick off on the high level and work our manner down.

The top-end Broadwell-E is a ten-core CPU with 25MB of L3 cache (2.5MB in step with core). Intel holds this ratio constant in its E-magnificence processors — eight-middle chips have 20MB of cache, while six-center chips have 15MB. This new CPU is a drop-in substitute on the X99 chipset, so if you already have this type of forums for Haswell-E, Broadwell-E have to be a drop-in replacement with the best BIOS flash. So allow’s have a look at the chips themselves:

The 6950X is Intel’s 10-middle CPU, however the charge tag in this chip goes to elevate some serious eyebrows. At $1723, Intel is charging 1.58x extra for a 10-middle CPU than an 8-center chip. The hassle is, you’re only including  more cores and four extra threads. Paying 60% greater coins for 33% greater cores isn’t all that appealing, despite the fact that it’s technically marvelous that Intel controlled to add  cores whilst preserving clock fees the same and with out growing CPU TDP.

The middle i7-6900K carries a $1089 charge tag and the identical center remember at the same time as growing clock speeds slightly (up kind of five%). The decrease-quit SKUs are nevertheless six-middle components and best see 100MHz will increase. This isn’t precisely the upgrades that desires are made from, though we need to observe that the $412 price on the 6800K is honestly quite proper as compared to the 6700K’s $327, furnished you already know you’ll use the extra cores.

In lieu of raw performance upgrades, Intel is relying on some full-size updates to its overclocking feature set to win over fanatic hearts and minds.

per-core overclocking is a pleasant touch, because it offers fans the choice to test every center in my view, decide which frequencies work excellent for which CPU cores, and then set them consequently, with man or woman voltage curves. the one probably considerable caveat to this is that how a core behaves on my own and how it behaves while it’s loaded alongside other cores in the gadget may want to potentially be quite one-of-a-kind. nevertheless, in keeping with-middle frequency goals ought to supply overclockers a few fascinating tuning competencies. let’s say, as an instance, which you determine 4 of your 10 CPU cores are capable of hitting 4GHz, six can attain three.7GHz, eight are capable of three.6GHz, and all 10 can run at three.5GHz. Congratulations — assuming you’ve got the cooling to handle it, your 10-center chip is now going for walks 14-16% over stock on a voltage and frequency curve you may paintings with and define yourself.

It’s not clear precisely what VccU stands for, however the AVX ratio offset is associated with a function Intel has presented on its Xeon processors for several years. in case you’ve paid interest to Intel’s lengthy-time period FLOPS scaling, you’re conscious that Intel doubled the range of FLOPS it may perform in step with clock whilst it released AVX, then doubled that determine once more with AVX2.

these chronic doublings don’t happen without spending a dime, but — the 256-bit AVX2 registers draw extra energy, which lowers the maximum frequency Intel can guide. beginning with the Xeon E5v3 family, Intel commenced putting decrease maximum frequencies for its CPUs when they were executing sustained AVX2 workloads. It’s going to present enthusiasts the choice to set the ones offsets manually, defining distinct throttle factors or probable eliminating them altogether if you may cope with the heat the CPU is kicking out (word that Intel’s thermal experience protections will preserve to characteristic commonly). Intel is also claiming that its faster Max 3.0 characteristic can supply up to a 15% improvement in comparison to the middle i7-5960X’s technique of regulating clock velocity; we’ll must affirm that during benchmark trying out (our test motherboards didn’t even arrive till Friday, that's why we don’t have a overview ready to roll for you satisfactory parents).

Platform upgrades

There are two more factors to the release that we want to cover. First, Broadwell-E does bump up formal aid for faster DDR4, up to DDR4-2400 instead of DDR4-2133. In practice, DDR4-3200 is already to be had, and we suspect many lovers will choose this as an alternative, however if you care about sticking to Intel’s spec, well, things are a chunk faster.

Secondly, Intel is now operating with motherboard providers to build Thunderbolt 3 assist into specific motherboards that are rated for the characteristic, as proven below:

Thunderbolt three has been transport on extra structures than its predecessor thanks to the selection to change to the USB type-C connector. in case you’ve got a combined laptop surroundings with both Apple and computer hardware, including Thunderbolt support to the computer facet of the equation is a beneficial functionality — and Thunderbolt 3 is notably quicker than Thunderbolt 2, with more flexibility and uncooked throughput.

Early thoughts

If Intel can deliver giant clock velocity improvements through faster enhance Max three.0, it could increase its normal CPU performance by a larger margin than the raw clock speed figures indexed right here. We frankly hope that is the case, as the overall argument for buying a Broadwell-E over Haswell-E isn’t very strong.

There are two points to be made here: First, whilst there’s in reality no evidence that Intel is sitting on more overall performance it doesn’t need to unencumber, it's miles honest to note that Intel has faced certainly no competition inside the high-give up area because it released the core i7 own family 8 years in the past. Intel’s present day product stack is priced by using core count extra than clock velocity, and it hasn’t stretched itself to push center counts higher inside the consumer marketplace. From 2003 – 2006, Intel moved from one core to 4. Six-center chips didn’t debut for every other 4 years, and eight-core CPUs took four years after that. If Intel were beneath true aggressive pressure, it'd’ve rolled those improvements extra speedy than it did, and for a far lower price.

but — and that is important — pushing higher CPU center counts into the market doesn’t imply that software program will magically materialize to take advantage of these cores. in step with Steam’s hardware survey, forty seven.12% of customers are nonetheless on dual-middle CPUs, even as forty five.86% have quad-core chips. the overwhelming majority of client software is still quad-threaded or much less.

Now, it’s viable that the arrival of DX12 will usher in an era where higher-give up multi-center CPUs will prove themselves, AMD’s Zen will offer stronger opposition for Intel, and high-stop desktop users will rejoice to find out their CPU investments in gaming are eventually paying off. That’s a quite huge jump to make from where we are to where we’d want to be, however, and it usually takes the enterprise 3-4 years to make a pass that widespread, specially while it entails API updates and essential engine overhauls.

in case you’re a computing device consumer who wishes a ten-center CPU at a better clock for much less cash than an equal Xeon might cost, then the center i7-6950X is precisely what you’re looking for. most gamers are still going to higher served through the core i7-6700K, even though the ones of you who blend computing device and gaming workloads might need to take a look at the core i7-6800K — whilst you trade off a few clock speed, you still get 50% extra cores for 26% extra price. It’s a internet gain in case you use workloads that may advantage. And if you’re using older hardware, like a Westmere or Sandy Bridge-E device, then the choice to step up to a 10-core rig will also be extremely attractive. normal gamers and users, we suspect, will do exceptional with a 6700K or possibly some thing from the Kaby Lake refresh Intel is expected to launch this 12 months.