Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

[frozentundra123456]

But you wouldn't have the new boards/chipset/features if you bought Haswell...

True if those interest you, but it is kind of sad when one of the strongest arguments for a new processor is the chipset features rather than the cpu performance.

I dont agree with the negativity of some posters regarding Skylake, but it is just "OK" for a tock (well really a tick plus a tock), and unfortunately requires fast, expensive ram for best performance, making the microcenter 4790k an even better deal relative to Skylake.

Point is, I would just wait a bit. I am sure prices will come down.

 

[LTC8K6]

How can the new chipsets and features not interest DIY builders?

If you buy a 4790K now, and it's not fast enough in two years, what will you have to do?
You'll have to buy a new mobo and a new CPU.

If you buy a 6600K now, and it's not fast enough in two years, there will be faster 1151 socket chips for you to drop in. Likely even faster than the 6700K. You can buy one, drop it in, and keep going.

 

[guskline]

How can the new chipsets and features not interest DIY builders?

If you buy a 4790K now, and it's not fast enough in two years, what will you have to do?
You'll have to buy a new mobo and a new CPU.

If you buy a 6600K now, and it's not fast enough in two years, there will be faster 1151 socket chips for you to drop in. Likely even faster than the 6700K. You can buy one, drop it in, and keep going.

The way Intel is changing chipsets, I'm not so sure. BTW, I just built a 4790k with an Asus Maximus VII Hero mb so I guess I could be kicked for not waiting EXCEPT where are the 6700k chips? The 4790k is running solid at 4.7ghz.

 

[frozentundra123456]

If the 4790k is not "fast enough" in two years, I doubt there will be much else that is faster even then. But in those intervening two years, you will have the advantage of a hyperthreaded, faster clocked i7 with the added benefit of cheaper ram.

All I am saying basically though, is just wait. I am sure eventually the price of Skylake will come down, especially at microcenter. They are just screwing you over on the 6600k now because at least in the US, that is about all that is avaliable if you want Skylake. When the i7 becomes available, I bet Microcenter gives a deal on the 6600k.

 

[coercitiv]

I agree with the posters who were arguing for i7 in this price bracket. With games being more multithreaded, DX12 coming, and a new generation 14/16 nm dgpus probably with HBM coming, I would allocate more resources toward cpu now, even at the cost of a less optimal current system for one that is likely to be better long term.

I wholeheartedly disagree: games are significantly more multithreaded now than they were 5 years ago, is the i5 2500k a significant bigger bottleneck in games when compared with i7 2600k?

 

[LTC8K6]

I wholeheartedly disagree: games are significantly more multithreaded now than they were 5 years ago, is the i5 2500k a significant bigger bottleneck in games when compared with i7 2600k?

Yeah, I don't understand the i7 argument. I can't recall any examples of a significant difference in gaming performance with any of the higher end 4C/4T or 4C/8T CPUs.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9320/intel-broadwell-review-i7-5775c-i5-5675c/9

 

[StrangerGuy]

I wholeheartedly disagree: games are significantly more multithreaded now than they were 5 years ago, is the i5 2500k a significant bigger bottleneck in games when compared with i7 2600k?

Nope, the useful life of CPUs lasts so long now that future-proofing is a valid argument compared to the pre-2008 days. What's $100 over 5 years?

 

[Edrick]

I dont agree with the negativity of some posters regarding Skylake, but it is just "OK" for a tock (well really a tick plus a tock), and unfortunately requires fast, expensive ram for best performance

$149 for 16GB DDR4 3000 15-15-15. Skylake will run very nice on that. So what's the problem?

 

[Space69]

Good point! Let's see what Intel tells us about Skylake at IDF next week.

Increased latency (3 to 4), but double pumped units P4 style?

 

[Sweepr]

For a given budget, a 6600K + 980ti makes more sense the similarly priced 6700K + 980 in nearly all scenarios. This shouldn't even be arguable. It's presumptuous to try and say he should have spent more, the money available was well allocated imo.

I agree. Also Skylake Core i5 is keeping up nicely with Haswell Core i7 in games that benefit from 8-threads.

From Eurogamer:

With the new i5 comparing favourably to its predecessors, we thought we'd go one step further, pitting the new chip against the last two generations of mainstream i7s - the epic Devil's Canyon Core i7 4790K and the still-worthy Core i7 3770K, hailing from the Ivy Bridge generation. We've also factored in the new chip running with the 4.5GHz overclock in place. The end results are impressive: average frame-rates at stock speeds beat the 3770K on all but two titles - Crysis 3 and The Witcher 3. The 6600K is also faster than the 4790K in Call of Duty and GTA 5, though its wins in Battlefield 4 and Ryse are margin of error stuff. The i5's performance increases still further with the 4.5GHz overclock in place, beating the stock i7s on all titles.

And just one more point: consider the way that games are made these days. Not every title spreads its computational load equally across four or eight threads. Take Far Cry 4, for example. It's a multi-core game, but it relies to a disproportionate level on one thread to power the others. Take a look at what happens there when we overclock: there's an enormous improvement to overall performance - the boost actually looks unfeasibly high. The i5 propels itself from behind the Devil's Canyon i7 and pulls ahead. Far Cry 4 is a bit of a difficult game to consistently benchmark, but the results here both at stock and overclock were repeatable in our tests and demonstrates that even in the multi-core era, Intel's pursuit of ever high per-clock efficiency can pay dividends in the gaming arena.

If the ever needs more CPU performance Core i7 Skylake GT4e (eDRAM) or Kabylake will be available. The optimists might argue that Cannonlake could be Z170+LGA1151 compatible too, but that remains to be seen (Broadwell-K required new chipsets). IMHO OCed Core i5 6600K will be able to push high-end dGPUs for generations to come.

I dont agree with the negativity of some posters regarding Skylake, but it is just "OK" for a tock (well really a tick plus a tock), and unfortunately requires fast, expensive ram for best performance, making the microcenter 4790k an even better deal relative to Skylake.

Point is, I would just wait a bit. I am sure prices will come down.

Most reviews showing nice >10% per clock gains compared to Haswell are using DDR-2666 which is not a lot more expensive than bottom of the barrel DDR4. There might be benefits from DDR4-3000+ but the lesson from the reviews is: avoid DDR4-2133 @ CL15 crap.

 

[CakeMonster]

Patiently waiting for a review that pits different DDR4 speeds and timings against each other..

 

[Edrick]

Patiently waiting for the damn 6700K to become available.

 

[AtenRa]

Out of pure curiosity, which games would perform significantly better on i7 2600k + GTX 980 versus i5 2500k + GTX 980Ti?

None, default or OCed.

 

[phillyman36]

I ordered this ddr4 2133 ram 13-15-15-28
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233831

Is ddr4 2666 ram 16-18-18-25 going to make that much a a difference?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233834

 

[phillyman36]

Patiently waiting for the damn 6700K to become available.

You aint the only one lol

 

[CakeMonster]

Heh, I'm waiting for the motherboards...

Already bought what I thought was a cheap 2666MHz C15 1.2v set, but this week I noticed a ton of new mem modules in stores, and a bit cheaper. Still a premium for higher speeds though, but it seems that I was a bit too quick on the trigger...

 

[CakeMonster]

I ordered this ddr4 2133 ram 13-15-15-28
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233831

Is ddr4 2666 ram 16-18-18-25 going to make that much a a difference?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233834

Looking at the timings, the 2666 should not be much faster, if at all.

There are some rather cheap 2666/2800/3000 C15 sets out there just in the last couple of days though.

 

[CakeMonster]

I thought we had figured it out - Skylake is hampered by the poor latency of the lower clocked DDR4 parts. Other reviews have shown ~10% gains when running faster DDR4 memory.

Aha, that's good news. Now waiting for that huge DDR4 roundup.... :biggrin:

 

[CakeMonster]

Nope, the useful life of CPUs lasts so long now that future-proofing is a valid argument compared to the pre-2008 days. What's $100 over 5 years?

We need to make the distinction between frequent upgraders and the somewhat less committed enthusiasts. I don't worry in the slightest about my probable 6700K choice over 5820K since I know I won't keep any CPU more than 2 years anyway. The kind of multithreading that will be required in 5 years is of no relevance to the CPU i buy today.

 

[AtenRa]

Kinda regretting that I posted anything about my upcoming rig, didn't realize how much I would get criticized for getting i5 over i7.

The choice was yours to make, dont regret it. If your budget was not enough for the Core i7 and the games you play now are more GPU limited than CPU bound then it was a good call, for now.

Just my opinion, i would get the Core i7 5820K with the R9 390 or GTX980. As things are progressing with Windows 10/DX-12 and the timing of the 16nm FF dGPUs coming within 6-12 months from now (???), the X99 + 6-Core CPU platform combo will last you longer.
A 16nm dGPU upgrade in one-two years time would be all that you would need. But you would also have the choice of a new 6-8 core Brodwell as an added bonus.

 

[phillyman36]

Heh, I'm waiting for the motherboards...

Already bought what I thought was a cheap 2666MHz C15 1.2v set, but this week I noticed a ton of new mem modules in stores, and a bit cheaper. Still a premium for higher speeds though, but it seems that I was a bit too quick on the trigger...

From Newegg?(If not where) Are you keeping the 2666MHz?

 

[AtenRa]

We need to make the distinction between frequent upgraders and the somewhat less committed enthusiasts. I don't worry in the slightest about my probable 6700K choice over 5820K since I know I won't keep any CPU more than 2 years anyway. The kind of multithreading that will be required in 5 years is of no relevance to the CPU i buy today.

Agreed, if you upgrade every one-two years even the Core i5 Skylake is perfectly fine with the GTX980Ti today and for the next year.

 

[CakeMonster]

From Newegg?(If not where) Are you keeping the 2666MHz?

Nope, I'm in EU. But it seems I ordered just before the arrival of tons of new DDR4 sets that were probably planned for the Skylake release. The 3000 C15 set is still €60 more expensive than what I paid for 2666, but my current set is now €50 cheaper... Too late to return anyway, so yeah I'm keeping it :/

 

[phillyman36]

Nope, I'm in EU. But it seems I ordered just before the arrival of tons of new DDR4 sets that were probably planned for the Skylake release. The 3000 C15 set is still €60 more expensive than what I paid for 2666, but my current set is now €50 cheaper... Too late to return anyway, so yeah I'm keeping it :/

I ordered mine on August 5th. Still have time to return if but unsure if its really worth it to pay more for say ddr4 3000(extra 30 bucks)

Especially since I don't really overclock.
I know why get a k and not overclock? Like the higher stock speeds and too afraid of making a mistake and frying my pc.

 

[Enigmoid]

Does anyone have any idea what it will take to fix that discrete graphics "bug" on Skylake platforms as described in the AT review? Its hardly a big issue since it takes really close examination of several benchmarks to even identify it, but I'm wondering if this can be fixed with driver/software updates, or BIOS updates, or if it will take a new motherboard/CPU to sort it out.

Any theories?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/10

AT's dgpu testing is really bad. Looks to be within the margin of error (+/-2%) for the most part. It is also possible (IMO) that their motherboard has some problem, perhaps an immature BIOS.

Including two decimal places on these numbers with this kind of error is completely dumb.