Intel Skylake i5 6600K & i7 6700K 1151 Z170 Review

[SpencerUk]

The cheapest I've found i6700k is at Ebuyer@£263.99

And lets face it, you're gonna want that sexy Asus ROG Z170 Maximus VIII Hero so in total I make that approx £40 saving over an X99 platform give or take.

KitGuru has some comparisons against the 5820K.

You know..when I built my socket 939 opteron..I never had this problem..I know what I wanted haha

 

[Menta]

At the end of day, and after reading all the reviews, skylake this that, very impressive, powerfull, super chip....all words i have heard today but the benchmarks don't show that, the only real benefit is those extra lanes for new storage solutions chipset wise....i just feel like some mixed feelings going on here ...powerful chip with hardly no extra performance on what ever area you might want to test....price wise i think is over priced but that has other reasons and so on!

i just fail to see what the improvement on the cpu side is...reviewer screams great but why?? i am not comparing nor going into sandy, cant possibly launch a new line thinking of sandy users and how great that would be for them...imho we can only compare to haswell last year performance metric, anything else is only for historical purposes

this is not backed by numbers on the charts, factor in silicone lottery on the OC testes and other variations when bench marking, really like the shiny boards my heart says yes but the grey cells are having a hard time processing information

 

[NeverBackDown]

It is backed. In the OC3D review most of the time the new i5 tends to be better than the previous i7 and the new i7 is quiet a bit faster(relative to tick-tock improvements) than the new i5.

 

[BradB111]

Ive just got myself a 6700k and am interested in overclocking it when it arrives. I'm just not sure why you settled for 4.8GHz (200*24) when you got 5GHz (100*50).
Whats the reason behind this? stability?
(not 100% clued up on OC'ing)

 

[NeverBackDown]

Ive just got myself a 6700k and am interested in overclocking it when it arrives. I'm just not sure why you settled for 4.8GHz (200*24) when you got 5GHz (100*50).
Whats the reason behind this? stability?
(not 100% clued up on OC'ing)

He wanted a more balanced OC.. meaning instead of pure clock speed he opted for a slight decrease in clock speed for a bigger gain in memory and cache clock speed to offset and hopefully increase the performance overall.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

At the end of day, and after reading all the reviews, skylake this that, very impressive, powerfull, super chip....all words i have heard today but the benchmarks don't show that, the only real benefit is those extra lanes for new storage solutions chipset wise....i just feel like some mixed feelings going on here ...powerful chip with hardly no extra performance on what ever area you might want to test....price wise i think is over priced but that has other reasons and so on!

i just fail to see what the improvement on the cpu side is...reviewer screams great but why?? i am not comparing nor going into sandy, cant possibly launch a new line thinking of sandy users and how great that would be for them...imho we can only compare to haswell last year performance metric, anything else is only for historical purposes

this is not backed by numbers on the charts, factor in silicone lottery on the OC testes and other variations when bench marking, really like the shiny boards my heart says yes but the grey cells are having a hard time processing information

I have to agree with you, and was surprised it came so highly recommended. I could buy into Skylake and throw a 1000 at it, and I'll gain nothing in performance at all while playing a game.

 

[Dicehunter]

It is backed. In the OC3D review most of the time the new i5 tends to be better than the previous i7 and the new i7 is quiet a bit faster(relative to tick-tock improvements) than the new i5.

Actual game performance which is what most of us are looking at let's be honest wouldn't exactly be an upgrade from the previous gen.

I have to agree with you, and was surprised it came so highly recommended. I could buy into Skylake and throw a 1000 at it, and I'll gain nothing in performance at all while playing a game.

If you're a gamer it's always best to wait at least 1-2 gens between CPU purchases otherwise you're not really going to see a difference if any at all, Yeah sure you might see some slightly higher benchmark scores but that's it.

Money is best spent on a GPU upgrade before a CPU upgrade.

 

[BradB111]

He wanted a more balanced OC.. meaning instead of pure clock speed he opted for a slight decrease in clock speed for a bigger gain in memory and cache clock speed to offset and hopefully increase the performance overall.

Ahh, makes sense. Thank you.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

Actual game performance which is what most of us are looking at let's be honest wouldn't exactly be an upgrade from the previous gen.



If you're a gamer it's always best to wait at least 1-2 gens between CPU purchases otherwise you're not really going to see a difference if any at all, Yeah sure you might see some slightly higher benchmark scores but that's it.

Money is best spent on a GPU upgrade before a CPU upgrade.

I'm on Sandy Bridge so waiting for four gens lol

 

[Dicehunter]

I'm on Sandy Bridge so waiting for four gens lol

I'm waiting for Kabylake, Makes a lot more sense that upgrading a CPU every year

CPU - Upgrade every 2+ gens

GPU - Upgrade every gen

That's my upgrade cycle going forward anyway ^_^

 

[Agost]

Well, I'm actually a bit disappointed by the CPU itself, but the platform is great, I'll switch to Skylake since my X58 is growing too old.

Is it safe for these 14nm chips to run at higher voltages than 22nm? Or they're just bad overclockers?

 

[SpencerUk]

I'm waiting for Kabylake, Makes a lot more sense that upgrading a CPU every year

CPU - Upgrade every 2+ gens

GPU - Upgrade every gen

That's my upgrade cycle going forward anyway ^_^

I agree the GPU has more importance these days. No doubt HBM will be a big thing over the next 18 months.

I think its fair to say whether you go for a 4690K, 4790K, 6600K, 6700K or 5820k you're in good stead for the next 3, possibly 4 years.

Maybe food for thought for long term planners

LGA1155 - Released 2011 Replaced in June 2013
LGA1150 - Released 2013 Replaced in July/Aug 2015

..On Intel's current trend of mainstream i5 and i7, you're potentially replacing your chip and motherboard every 2 years if you want the latest and greatest.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

I'm waiting for Kabylake, Makes a lot more sense that upgrading a CPU every year

CPU - Upgrade every 2+ gens

GPU - Upgrade every gen

That's my upgrade cycle going forward anyway ^_^

I don't think that Kaby Lake will be much more than a pacifier due to the Cannonlake delay. If it offers a few more MHz on the turbo and maybe the odd bits here and there that'll be it. Just my two cents.

I upgrade GPUs when I need to only, too costly a hobby to go with every generation.

 

[Dicehunter]

I don't think that Kaby Lake will be much more than a pacifier due to the Cannonlake delay. If it offers a few more MHz on the turbo and maybe the odd bits here and there that'll be it. Just my two cents.

I upgrade GPUs when I need to only, too costly a hobby to go with every generation.

I'll get Kabylake but skip cannonlake as Kabylake is the refreshed version and final 14nm chip so every 2nd gen final version for me

 

[TheF34RChannel]

I'll get Kabylake but skip cannonlake as Kabylake is the refreshed version and final 14nm chip so every 2nd gen final version for me

I can follow that logic, sure! Unless Cannonlake will be released shortly after maybe? Or Skylake-E even? All depending on what they bring to the table.

 

[NeverBackDown]

I can follow that logic, sure! Unless Cannonlake will be released shortly after maybe? Or Skylake-E even? All depending on what they bring to the table.

Next 10nm CPUs will be in 1H 2017, which will be CannonLake according to Intel. Kabylake will be only one next year that is "new" and be released in 2H of 2016. None of which is guaranteed due to them already delaying future chips.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

Next 10nm CPUs will be in 1H 2017, which will be CannonLake according to Intel. Kabylake will be only one next year that is "new" and be released in 2H of 2016. None of which is guaranteed due to them already delaying future chips.

Sure, to me that's the Cannonlake release relatively shortly after Kaby Lake. Anything definitive known in Skylake-E yet? Specification wise that is.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Sure, to me that's the Cannonlake release relatively shortly after Kaby Lake. Anything definitive known in Skylake-E yet? Specification wise that is.

Not even whisper about it afaik. They don't really have time for it either. They are delaying and having trouble with their mainstream products, they probably moved the extreme team over to help out. I think they will wait for 10nm for a new extreme lineup, it's a smarter business choice as it doesn't hurt them now for resources and in the future it will actually be worth their time to create it since it'll be quiet a big jump in performance and people will actually buy it.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

Not even whisper about it afaik. They don't really have time for it either. They are delaying and having trouble with their mainstream products, they probably moved the extreme team over to help out. I think they will wait for 10nm for a new extreme lineup, it's a smarter business choice as it doesn't hurt them now for resources and in the future it will actually be worth their time to create it since it'll be quiet a big jump in performance and people will actually buy it.

I can see them sacrificing Broadwell-E for Skylake-E, but not the latter as well for Icelake-E (?) - Cannonlake-E; too wide a gap from a sales perspective.

 

[ShaunB-91]

Nice review Tom, I haven't read through any recently but this one seems to be written up nicer.

Like Dice though, I'am going to wait until next year when I will do a new build, go 4K and all that goodness.