Review 6700k vs 3700x in 23games

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fray_bentos

Junior Member
Jul 25, 2019
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Many thanks Head1985 for taking the time to compile all of this! I'm sitting on an i7 4790K @4.92 GHz with 2410 MHz CL11 RAM, and I was getting the twitch to upgrade after finding my 1080Ti is often CPU bottlenecked in AC: Origins @1440p. However, after seeing your results I am now convinced to stick with what I have got, possibly for a few more years!
 
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rbk123

Senior member
Aug 22, 2006
743
345
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Many thanks Head1985 for taking the time to compile all of this! I'm sitting on an i7 4790K @4.92 GHz with 2400 MHz CL11 RAM, and I was getting the twitch to upgrade after finding my 1080Ti is often CPU bottlenecked in AC: Origins @1440p. However, after seeing your results I am now convinced to stick with what I have got, possibly for a few more years!
If you're just gaming then that is wise. You'll be far better served using that upgrade twitch money on a better GPU.
 

fray_bentos

Junior Member
Jul 25, 2019
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He has a 1080Ti - there is no better GPU*.

*$1.2K GPU aside.

Indeed, I went quickly from 970 to 1070 to 1080 to 1080Ti as (used) bargains came along, but I've had the 1080Ti for a year now and even a used 2080Ti is priced at 200%-300% the price of what I paid for my 1080Ti with only a 30% performance uplift (and much less where CPU bottlenecked). Most of the time I am running games at 1440p at 100-165 FPS; CPU-bound drops and stutters are the only place where I could see improvement, but not sure that is worth forking out for until I hit games struggling more widely.
 

GaiaHunter

Diamond Member
Jul 13, 2008
3,628
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Most of the time I am running games at 1440p at 100-165 FPS; CPU-bound drops and stutters are the only place where I could see improvement, but not sure that is worth forking out for until I hit games struggling more widely.

If I were in your shoes I would wait to see what next year brings (unless you have a must play game that is not fun playing due to performance reasons).
It seems unlikely Intel will bring much (maybe a 10 core?) but maybe AMD will release higher clock zen2 skus. 4.5+GHz all cores on 8+ cores should be a nice upgrade (I find it odd that the 3950X will have the higher boost clock). Can always go with a 9900K but it is hard to buy it when one can get 12 cores for the same price on a platform with newer features.
 

GaiaHunter

Diamond Member
Jul 13, 2008
3,628
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The more costly chips get the better binned dies, which happen to clock higher.
Sure. But it seems they are binning for speed/max boost and not cores.

You would expect some of the lower count cores skus to reach same or higher max/boost clocks from past generations.
I wonder if we will see a "refresh" next year with higher clocks.
 

Thala

Golden Member
Nov 12, 2014
1,355
653
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Better grab a chair and sit while waiting.

10nm only for mobile and server cpu's.

Really new Intel desktop cpu only with 7nm and that will be in 2022.
7nm production will start in 2021 but only for new gpu's and server cpu's.

Meanwhile AMD will have Zen3/Ryzen4000 in 2020 @ 7nm+ and Zen 4/Ryzen 5000@ 5nm in 2021.

So what? Zen2 has just proven to be on par performance per clock wise to Skylake - a 4 year old microarchitecture, mind you?. So it is reasonable to wait for the next larger IPC jump for the next upgrade. If Ryzen3/4 can catch Sunnycove and its successors in this regard is still unclear.
 

Dave2150

Senior member
Jan 20, 2015
639
178
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Many thanks Head1985 for taking the time to compile all of this! I'm sitting on an i7 4790K @4.92 GHz with 2400 MHz CL11 RAM, and I was getting the twitch to upgrade after finding my 1080Ti is often CPU bottlenecked in AC: Origins @1440p. However, after seeing your results I am now convinced to stick with what I have got, possibly for a few more years!

The 6700k@4.5-4.7Ghz with 3200 c14 ddr4 is 5-20% faster than Haswell in many titles, so you'd see much more of a gain than the OP. Haswell is quite old in the tooth IMO.
 

ondma

Platinum Member
Mar 18, 2018
2,718
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So what? Zen2 has just proven to be on par performance per clock wise to Skylake - a 4 year old microarchitecture, mind you?. So it is reasonable to wait for the next larger IPC jump for the next upgrade. If Ryzen3/4 can catch Sunnycove and its successors in this regard is still unclear.

Yea, not to mention it still trails in clockspeed.
 

fray_bentos

Junior Member
Jul 25, 2019
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The 6700k@4.5-4.7Ghz with 3200 c14 ddr4 is 5-20% faster than Haswell in many titles, so you'd see much more of a gain than the OP. Haswell is quite old in the tooth IMO.

Really, which games? AVX loaded ones? I'd guess differences are smaller at 1440p. Indeed, it seems that my 4790K benchmark scores are generally close to a 7700K @4.7 GHz. In the worse case scenario, just behind a stock 7700K in Cinebench (AVX load). Some of the single-thread scores are up there with the 8700K and 9700K, hence solid gaming performance in all but heavily threaded games. The reality is that there was little progress from 4790K to 7700K, so if you find a 4790K that overclocks well then you approximate 7700K performance (minus ~200 MHz clock-to-clock, minus ~400 MHz AVX clock-to-clock):

CPU-Z: single 535, multi 2765
Geekbench: single 5791, multi 20079
Cinebench R20: single 475, multi 2330
Cinebench R15: single 200, multi 988
PassMark 9.0: single CPU 2947, 13804 CPU overall, 3391 RAM overall.
7-Zip: 29057 MIPS
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,582
10,785
136
@Head1985

Thanks! That's the tool I used to use some time ago when I last played Fallout4. I had forgotten the name of it. Anyway now I can replicate your settings this weekend.
 

javibrz

Junior Member
Aug 27, 2019
1
0
6
hello! im new here , first of all, thanks for the benchmark!! these are AWESOME work ;)

im also have a 6700k and after seeing your benchmarks, im not sure to update to a 3700x , there are minimal diferences at 1080p, but I play at 4k with a 2080ti, therefore the differences between the 6700k and 3700x will be even lower, not to say 0 .

but your benchs are a bit cheat, you are comparing the 3700x with stock clocks against 6700k with 500mhz oc , the right comparison will be the 6700k stock and the 3700x stock.

anyway at 4k that is the resolution i play on my 2080ti both cpus will run the 2080ti at 99% usage , the only differences will be the games that use more than 8 threads ,i dont know what to do, but the update to 3700x cost me almost 700EUR , guys, what do you think of updating 6700k to 3700x knowing that i will play at 4k (1800p on assasins creed games because of insane gpu requeriments) i will also play at 1440p on games with rtx effects.

now im playing metro exodus on the 2080ti and it runs superb at 4k, dlss, high settings and high rtx, hairworks, etc. with some drops to 50fps here and there.

what do you think? worth the update to 3700x or not worth it?? thanks

(sorry for the english, im spanish)
 

fray_bentos

Junior Member
Jul 25, 2019
4
3
41
hello! im new here , first of
but your benchs are a bit cheat, you are comparing the 3700x with stock clocks against 6700k with 500mhz oc , the right comparison will be the 6700k stock and the 3700x stock.

(sorry for the english, im spanish)

I disagree; the best benchmark to compare is a modest 6700K OC (since 4.5 GHz is easily attainable by the vast majority of people), to the stock 3700X (since the 3700X has almost no overclocking headroom).

There is little excuse for owning a "K-class" CPU, particularly when it is a few years old and not overclocking it, particularly by a modest amount (with little to no extra voltage applied). So the real consideration is: if you haven't overclocked your own 6700K, do it! That would be the best thing to do in your shoes given the very convincing data presented here. Buy a new cooler if you need one. Save your hundreds of EURs for a future Ryzen generation (or Intel offering, if any good).
 
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moinmoin

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2017
4,933
7,619
136
hello! im new here , first of all, thanks for the benchmark!! these are AWESOME work ;)

im also have a 6700k and after seeing your benchmarks, im not sure to update to a 3700x , there are minimal diferences at 1080p, but I play at 4k with a 2080ti, therefore the differences between the 6700k and 3700x will be even lower, not to say 0 .

but your benchs are a bit cheat, you are comparing the 3700x with stock clocks against 6700k with 500mhz oc , the right comparison will be the 6700k stock and the 3700x stock.

anyway at 4k that is the resolution i play on my 2080ti both cpus will run the 2080ti at 99% usage , the only differences will be the games that use more than 8 threads ,i dont know what to do, but the update to 3700x cost me almost 700EUR , guys, what do you think of updating 6700k to 3700x knowing that i will play at 4k (1800p on assasins creed games because of insane gpu requeriments) i will also play at 1440p on games with rtx effects.

now im playing metro exodus on the 2080ti and it runs superb at 4k, dlss, high settings and high rtx, hairworks, etc. with some drops to 50fps here and there.

what do you think? worth the update to 3700x or not worth it?? thanks

(sorry for the english, im spanish)
If gaming is all you do your system is perfectly fine and should last you one more year, if not more.
 

nicalandia

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2019
3,330
5,281
136
Sure. But it seems they are binning for speed/max boost and not cores.

You would expect some of the lower count cores skus to reach same or higher max/boost clocks from past generations..
Binning with Zen 2 has become much simpler with the quad core CCX, The absolute best CCXs will go to the Top Chips(Epyc, TR and 3800X and 3950X) worst CCXs will go to the lower end models
 

eek2121

Platinum Member
Aug 2, 2005
2,904
3,906
136
Well if you want to go by that logic it looks like a 3 year old Intel just about caught up to Intel. What does that tell you about what Intel's been doing?

Hah! Nice.

I've heard the driver rumor before and it sounds rather plausible. Is there any Zen 2 benches using Vega or Navi that are out there? I can't seem to find any.

Driver issues are easy to detect, but I doubt anyone has the right hardware to do it. You would need and Intel and AMD system, and something like the 5700xt and a 1080ti. Then you would need to benchmark both systems using each graphics card. The Intel system would ideally be a 9900k and the AMD system a 3800x. After that you can get a rough idea based on FPS differences. The AMD card would be used to control the test. You could get rough estimate by benching both with and without SMT.

I would second this. It's gotten better since Coffee Lake but its been way to clear that Nvidia card take weird unexplained hits when It breaks from the typical 4c8t configuration even between Intel CPU's when using DX12 more than DX11, but still it pops up at weird locations. Honestly even if its just one reviewer I'd like to see someone use a Radeon VII or 5700xt since both can be CPU bound at 1080p, to test against these CPU's. Maybe we are wrong in that assumption, but it would be nice to see it put to the test.

I haven’t seen any hits to performance. Honestly though, benchmarks should use a 2080ti to ensure the GPU isn’t a bottleneck. Note that looking at GPU activity does not guarantee there is no bottleneck. A GPU can have 20% usage and still bottleneck a CPU.

Nice work!

I guess your still working on the 720P benchmarks. /s

4K god gamer here. Don’t forget about me!
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,582
10,785
136
the 3700X has almost no overclocking headroom

Not entirely true. You can either do a lot of goofy stuff to try and amp up your boost clocks (use PBO, fiddle with LLC settings), or you can go for static OC which will get you some decent gains in games that spawn a fair number of threads. I think 4.2 GHz static is attainable on almost any 3700x in games. I know that my 3900x, despite being able to boost to 4.6 GHz, runs games faster with a static OC of 4.4 GHz (or even 4.375 GHz) since the boost duration is so short. Max boost for a 3700x is supposed to be 4.3 GHz and PBO + Auto OC is often quite useless. If I had a 3700x, 4.2 GHz static on all cores would be my target for games. Or at least 4.15 GHz.