it is unlikely that there is a
difference at all between the CPUs.
Interestingly enough, when you
overclock the 5820K to the same
4.2GHz, but disable Hyper-threading.
You end up with the 5820K matching
the 6700K in all the game tests but
one, then proceeding to assert its
dominance in the multi-threaded
benchmarks. Even though only six
threads are available, it looks as
if real cores are still better than
virtualized cores. This is actually a
direct comparison between the CPUs
per clock performance. There’s no
questioning that the 6700K is the
fastest INTEL CPU thus far clock for
clock. However the IPC difference
between the Haswell-E and Skylake-S
CPU are smaller than you may think.
This could be for several reasons
including the quad channel memory
controller, and larger cache size, giving
the performance edge to the 5820K in
some instances. The differences in
performance efficiency between the
two generations
of CPUs in fact becomes none existent
for the most part or may swing the
opposite direction.
Of course if you go even higher with
the clock speeds, then the 6700K
will likely attain CPU clocks are not
feasible for the 5820K. In which case
the 5820K in the game results at
4.5GHz is a hair slower than the 6700K
at 4.6GHz. In only a single game did
the 5820K come out ahead, but that
title (Tomb Raider) in particular seems
to be GPU bound even at 1280x720.
The numbers are from this point of
view very interesting because they
speak to precisely what was the main
concern coming into this review. As
stated in the beginning, the 4790K and
the 6700K cost about same. The Z97
motherboards however are in general
a little cheaper along with DDR3
which is extremely cheap. There was
a case to be made for the value aspect
of the Z97 platform which can't be .
made for the Z170 platform. DDR4
kits by and large cost the same and
enthusiasts
along with power users are buying
4x4GiB DDR4 kits. The motherboards
again are many times matched in
features and price, thus it is purely
down to the $53 price difference
between the two CPUs.
It’s a tough choice to make really,
especially because both these CPUs
are K-SKUs thus overclocking is very
much a real and important part of the
debate between them. As a step up
from Z97 and the 4790K, I’m generally
content with what INTEL has provided.
The overclocking flexibility alone is
what sold the platform for me over
the performance improvements.
I have great expectations of what
overclocking results will come with
this CPU and there’s a level
of excitement that is undeniable.
Admittedly that is not the case
for everyone and for those purely
interested in gaming and some multithreaded productivity applications you
may want to take a closer look at X99
as an alternative.
[ The Overclocker ]
Issue 35 | 2015 The OverClocker 25