2017 was a real challenge for Intel, something that hasn't been seen in years since the Intel Core lineup debuted on the market. First of all, this is due to the release of a very successful line, which required Intel to hastily prepare the third generation of 14nm processors in order to strengthen its position.
Under other circumstances, Intel could have completely ditched the 14nm Intel Coffee Lake and Intel Kaby Lake R (8th generation mobile Intel Core) lines altogether, focusing its resources on accelerating the release of the 10nm Intel Ice Lake and Intel Cannon series. Lake respectively. Moreover, the processing power of Intel Kaby Lake processors is quite enough for a wide range of home, school or office computers. But the competitor left no choice.
The first 8th Gen Intel Core models were unveiled at the end of August. They are aimed at the mobile market, and many laptop manufacturers have already announced new or updated products based on them. At the end of September, a presentation of the desktop line took place along with the Intel Z370 chipset, which we will talk about in a separate article.
The first to appear on the market are six processor models, each of which is iconic for its series. So, Intel Core i3-8100 and Intel Core i3-8350K are the first full-fledged 4-core CPUs in this series, which previously had only 2-core, 4-thread solutions. For the first time, the Intel Core i5 line has been replenished with 6-core, 6-thread representatives - Intel Core i5-8400 and Intel Core i5-8600K. And the Intel Core i7 series is now dominated by the 6-core, 12-thread Intel Core i7-8700 and Intel Core i7-8700K models, which have replaced the 4-core, 8-thread. In the first half of 2018, the list of available processors in each series will be expanded. The rest of the Intel 300-series chipsets and motherboards based on them will also appear.
8th Gen Intel Core solutions are targeted primarily at gamers, content creators and overclockers. They will be especially useful in cases where the software is optimized for multithreading. In addition, Intel processors are traditionally characterized by excellent performance in single-threaded mode, so they look decent even in outdated applications and games.
Gamers are promised a performance increase of up to 25% (recorded in Gears of War 4 when comparing systems based on Intel Core i7-8700K and Intel Core i7-7700K) and a comfortable frame rate in multitasking mode, when you need to not only play, but simultaneously record a game session and broadcast it on the Internet.
Tasty facts are also prepared for content creators: up to 32% acceleration when editing 4K video (Intel Core i7-8700K vs Intel Core i7-7700K). And if we compare the performance of Intel Core i7-8700K and Intel Core i7-4790K (Intel Devil`s Canyon), then you can expect a 4.5 times acceleration when creating HEVC video in PowerDirector, 65% when editing files in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and 7.8x when transcoded in Handbrake Transcode.
In turn, overclockers are bribed with new features: overclocking a separate core, increasing the memory multiplier to 8400 MT / s, monitoring memory latency in real time and others. If you are worried about possible processor failure as a result of overclocking experiments, then you can optionally buy the Performance Tuning Protection Plan. It allows you to replace the CPU once in case of damage during off-line operation. The cost of such a plan depends on the specific model. For example, for Intel Core i7-7700K it is set at $ 30, and owners of Intel Core i9-7980XE will need to pay $ 150.
No microarchitectural changes are mentioned in the presentation, although you can admire the wonders of engineering embodied in the crystals themselves.
The main emphasis in the press materials is made on the increase in the number of physical cores and cache memory, enhanced overclocking capabilities and the use of an improved 14nm technical process. More specifically, Intel Skylake is made using 14nm, Intel Kaby Lake is 14+ nm, and Intel Coffee Lake is 14 ++ nm.
In turn, the use of the new chipset is explained by the increased requirements for the power subsystem due to the increased number of cores, support for new overclocking capabilities and faster DDR4-2666 memory.
At the hardware level, the incompatibility of new and old processors is manifested in a different number of VCC pads of the Socket LGA1151: Intel Coffee Lake has 146, while Intel Kaby Lake and Intel Skylake have 128. An additional 18 were obtained by activating reserve sites, without introducing any or physical changes. That is, you can install a new processor on old motherboards or old processors on new motherboards, but such bundles will not work. Therefore, for Intel Coffee Lake, it is imperative to buy a motherboard based on Intel 300 series chipsets.
Intel did not forget to remind about a companion product - Intel Optane Memory, which can significantly improve system responsiveness and accelerate application launch. Although at the current volume (16/32 GB) and price level, it is difficult for it to compete in the market with the same M.2 or regular 2.5-inch SSDs.
We got acquainted with the presentation, now it's time to move on to a more detailed study of the capabilities of the hero of this review - IntelCorei7-8700 K, which is also the flagship of the 8th generation of the Intel Core line.
Specification
|
CPU socket |
|
|
Base / dynamic clock frequency, GHz |
|
|
Base multiplier |
|
|
The base frequency of the system bus, MHz |
|
|
Number of cores / threads |
|
|
L1 cache size, KB |
6 x 32 (data memory) |
|
L2 cache, KB |
|
|
L3 cache size, MB |
|
|
Microarchitecture |
Intel Coffee Lake |
|
Codename |
Intel Coffee Lake-S |
|
Maximum design power (TDP), W |
|
|
Process technology, nm |
|
|
Critical temperature (T junction), ° C |
|
|
Support for instructions and technologies |
Intel Turbo Boost 2.0, Intel Optane Memory, Intel Hyper-Threading, Intel vPro, Intel VT-x, Intel VT-d, Intel VT-x EPT, Intel TSX-NI, Intel 64, Execute Disable Bit, Intel AEX-NI, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, EM64T, AES, AVX, AVX 2.0, FMA3, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep, Thermal Monitoring, Intel Identity Protection, Intel Stable Image Platform Program (SIPP) |
|
Built-in memory controller |
|
|
Memory type |
|
|
Supported frequency, MHz |
|
|
Number of channels |
|
|
Maximum memory size, GB |
|
|
Integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 |
|
|
Number of executive units (EU) |
|
|
Base / dynamic frequency, MHz |
|
|
Maximum video memory (allocated from RAM), GB |
|
|
Maximum screen resolution at 60 Hz |
|
|
Maximum number of displays supported |
|
|
Supported technologies and APIs |
DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.5, Intel Quick Sync Video, Intel InTru 3D, Intel Clear Video HD, Intel Clear Video |
|
Products webpage |
|
|
Processor page |
|
Packaging, delivery set and appearance
Intel has kindly provided us with an engineering sample of Intel Core i7-8700K for testing without the appropriate packaging and delivery set. Therefore, we will use the official press materials to assess the appearance of the box. Its front side unmistakably indicates that the processor belongs to the 8th generation of the Intel Core line and the corresponding series, and one of the sidewalls lists the key advantages. The need to use new products exclusively with motherboards based on Intel 300 series chipsets is also indicated. The packages themselves also differ in thickness, that is, there will be options for sale with and without a complete cooler.
andIntel Core i7-7700K
Externally, the Intel Core i7-8700K does not differ from its predecessor, of course, if you do not take into account the markings and other markings on the heatsink cover. The designation itself for the retail sample of the novelty will be different. Firstly, the model name (Intel Core i7-8700K) will be indicated instead of the inscription "Intel Confidential". Second, there will be a different Spec code instead of "QNMK". And, of course, the FPO code will change. In this case, he tells us that the processor was manufactured in Malaysia on the 19th week of 2017 (from 08.05 to 14.05).
andIntel Core i7-7700K
On the reverse side, there are contact pads for the Socket LGA1151 connector. As we already know, their physical location has not changed, but the functional purpose of some of the legs has changed, which requires the use of new motherboards with Intel Coffee Lake processors.
Analysis of technical characteristics
To test Intel Core i7-8700K, we used the ROG STRIX Z370-F Gaming motherboard and our standard Scythe Mugen 3 cooling system. First, we deactivated Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 technology and got the processor frequency at 3.7 GHz at 1.12 V ...
The maximum load frequency (AIDA64) with Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 enabled reaches the stated 4.7 GHz. The temperature rose to 96 ° С, but there was no clock skipping (throttling).
When the system was idle, the processor frequency remained at 4.7 GHz, although the temperature dropped below 50 ° C.
If you put the system in power saving mode, then the speed of the Intel Core i7-8700K is reduced to 800 MHz.
Cache structure of Intel Core i7-8700 processorsKand Intel Core i7-77 00K
The structure of the cache memory of the novelty is as follows:
- 32 KB of L1 cache per core with 8 associativity channels for instructions and the same for data;
- 256 KB L2 cache with 4 associativity channels per core;
- 12 MB shared L3 cache with 16 associativity channels.
Compared to its predecessor, the cache memory of each level has increased in proportion to the increased number of cores: L1 - by 64 KB for data and instructions, L2 - by 512 KB, and L3 - by 4 MB.
The built-in RAM controller is guaranteed to support the operation of DDR4-2666 MHz modules in 2-channel mode. Of course, you can, at your own peril and risk, try to overclock the RAM to higher frequencies, but there are no guarantees here and it all depends on the quality of the strips themselves, the capabilities of the motherboard and the user's skills. The maximum available RAM is 64 GB.
The maximum temperature on the official website is stated at 100 ° C. AIDA64 reports a similar indicator.
The Intel Core i7-8700K processor has an integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 graphics core, which at the time of writing the review was poorly detected by the GPU-Z and AIDA64 utilities. According to official information, it includes 24 executive units and can use all the available 64 GB of RAM for its needs. Its base frequency is 350 MHz, and the dynamic frequency can be increased to 1200 MHz.
With the simultaneous loading of the CPU and iGPU cores using the AIDA64 and MSI Kombustor benchmarks, the frequency of the processor cores remained at 4.7 GHz. But at the same time, the temperature rose to 99 ° C and throttling was observed.
Testing
During testing we used Processor Test Bench # 2
| Motherboards (AMD) | ASUS F1A75-V PRO (AMD A75, Socket FM1, DDR3, ATX), GIGABYTE GA-F2A75-D3H (AMD A75, Socket FM2, DDR3, ATX), ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX (AMD 990FX, Socket AM3 +, DDR3, ATX) |
| Motherboards (AMD) | ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 (AMD 990FX, Socket AM3 +, DDR3, ATX), ASRock Fatal1ty FM2A88X + Killer (AMD A88X, Socket FM2 +, DDR3, ATX) |
| Motherboards (Intel) | ASUS P8Z77-V PRO / THUNDERBOLT (Intel Z77, Socket LGA1155, DDR3, ATX), ASUS P9X79 PRO (Intel X79, Socket LGA2011, DDR3, ATX), ASRock Z87M OC Formula (Intel Z87, Socket LGA1150, DDR3, mATX) |
| Motherboards (Intel) | ASUS MAXIMUS VIII RANGER (Intel Z170, Socket LGA1151, DDR4, ATX) / ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer (Intel Z97, Socket LGA1150, DDR3, mATX), ASUS RAMPAGE V EXTREME (Intel X99, Socket LGA2011-v3, DDR4, E-ATX ) |
| Coolers | Scythe Mugen 3 (Socket LGA1150 / 1155/1366, AMD Socket AM3 + / FM1 / FM2 / FM2 +), ZALMAN CNPS12X (Socket LGA2011), Noctua NH-U14S (LGA2011-3) |
| RAM | 2 x 4 GB DDR3-2400 TwinMOS TwiSTER 9DHCGN4B-HAWP, 4 x 4 GB DDR4-3000 Kingston HyperX Predator HX430C15PBK4 / 16 (Socket LGA2011-v3) |
| Video card | AMD Radeon HD 7970 3 GB GDDR5, ASUS GeForce GTX 980 STRIX OC 4 GB GDDR5 (GPU-1178 MHz / RAM-1279 MHz) |
| HDD | Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX (1 TB, SATA 6 Gb / s, NCQ), Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD v4 (ST6000NM0024, 6 TB, SATA 6 Gb / s) |
| Power Supply | Seasonic X-660, 660 W, Active PFC, 80 PLUS Gold, 120 mm fan |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit |
Select what you want to compare Intel Core i7-8700K Turbo Boost ON Enhanced Performance
We were in a hurry to prepare material for the release of new products, so we did not have time to test Intel Core i7-8700K with disabled Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 technology. Usually, dynamic overclocking allows you to raise the level of performance by a few percent, so it is better not to disable it yourself.
First, let's analyze the situation in the internal model range. In synthetic tests, the Intel Core i7-8700K outperformed the previous flagship by an average of 39%. In games, the performance bonus was only 2%, since many game benchmarks have been replaced since testing the 4-core model. In turn, the integrated graphics core Intel UHD Graphics 630 turned out to be on average 11% better than its counterpart, nevertheless, its gaming capabilities are still limited to undemanding projects with low quality settings in Full HD.
Comparison with the recently tested 8-core (16-thread) processor of the Intel Core X line turned out to be more interesting and rich. In synthetic tests it came out ahead by an average of 1%, and in gaming tests it was even recorded a parity. The difference between them in the recommended price tags is $ 240 ($ 359 versus $ 599). That is, the Intel Core i7-8700K strikes not only the positions of AMD's opponents, but also Intel's own HEDT lineup.
And now, in fact, about the competitors. These include the 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 1700 ($ 349) and the 6-core AMD Ryzen 5 1600X ($ 249). But so far they have not visited our test, so we compared the results of the new product with (nominally $ 440, but now the average cost has dropped to $ 389) and (nominally $ 219, but now $ 240). In "synthetics" Intel Core i7-8700K is ahead of Ryzen 7 1700X by 17%, and Ryzen 5 1600 - by 43%. But in games, the situation turned out to be interesting. The advantage of the novelty over the 8-core opponent was almost 5%, but the Ryzen 5 1600 is already pulling ahead by the same 5%. And all thanks to the low minimum indicator of Intel Core i7-8700K in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege test. If you do not take it into account, the new flagship in games is 3% ahead of Ryzen 5 1600 and Intel Core i7-7820X. Comparison results with Ryzen 7 1700X are unchanged because this processor has not been tested with it.
The situation with power consumption is also very curious. The test system with Intel Core i7-8700K and discrete graphics required a maximum of 276 watts. This is even more than a bundle with the 8-core Intel Core i7-7820X (242 W) and AMD Ryzen 7 1700X (182 W). Perhaps this only concerns our engineering sample and the versions on sale have a more balanced power consumption and heat dissipation.
Overclocking
Even when analyzing the technical characteristics of the Intel Core i7-8700K processor, we recorded CPU throttling under significant load in the nominal mode. That is, our test cooling system could not cope with cooling it. Again, this may be solely due to the engineering test sample, and in regular retail versions the temperature range will be much better.
Nevertheless, we failed to manually overclock the test sample: raising even to 4.8 GHz led to active throttling and dropping frequencies. And only thanks to the automatic overclocking on the motherboard ROG STRIX Z370-F Gaming in the "TPU II" mode, it was possible to raise the core frequency to 5.0 GHz with a multiplier of "x50" and decrease the frequency by 300 MHz when executing AVX instructions. At the same time, the RAM speed was increased to 3200 MHz, and the maximum temperature during testing did not exceed 94 ° C, which allowed the system to work stably.
You can estimate the performance impact of overclocking using the following table:
|
Nominal |
Overclocked |
|||
|
Fritz Chess Benchmark 4.3 |
||||
|
Heavy Multitasking |
||||
|
1920x1080, DX12, Very High |
||||
|
Tom clancy "s the division |
1920x1080, DX11, High |
|||
|
1920x1080, DX11, High |
||||
|
Mean |
||||
On average, the increase was 4.49%. Synthetic tests responded best to raising the frequency, which provided a bonus of 4% to 7%. But in games, the maximum recorded increase was 3%.
Outcomes
What did we get in the end? First, Intel should be commended for adding additional cores and threads to Intel's Coffee Lake desktop processors, regardless of the reasons that prompted it to do so. Secondly, the extra cores came with their own caches of all three levels, which also contributes to an increase in the overall level of performance. This is especially noticeable in synthetic tests, where the 6-core is on average 39% ahead of the 4-core flagship of the previous generation and practically does not lag behind the more expensive 8-core of the Intel Core X series. In turn, overclockers will certainly like the additional overclocking options.
Now to the weaknesses of the tested engineering sample... The first is high heat dissipation: even under load in nominal mode, using a sufficiently powerful tower cooler Scythe Mugen 3, the temperature rose to 96 ° C. For this reason, we were not able to carry out manual overclocking, and the automatic one allowed us to increase the speed to 5 GHz with a decrease in it to 4.7 GHz under load in the benchmark. Secondly, the power consumption of the test bench was higher than that of the compared 8-core Intel and AMD processors. Thirdly, in games there is no noticeable superiority of the novelty over its competitors.
, Kingston , Noctua , Sea sonic , Seagate , Scythe andTwinMOS Technologies for the equipment provided for the test stand.Article read 37,079 times
| Subscribe to our channels | |||||
In the process of assembling or buying a new computer, a question always arises before users. In this article, we will look at Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors, and also tell you what is the difference between these chips and what is better to choose for your computer.
Difference # 1. The number of cores and support for Hyper-threading.
Perhaps, the main difference between Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors is the number of physical cores and support for Hyper-threading technology, which creates two threads of calculations for each actually existing physical core. Creation of two computation threads for each core allows more efficient use of the processing power of the processor core. Therefore, processors with Hyper-threading support have a certain performance advantage.
Core count and Hyper-threading support for most Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors can be summarized in the following table.
| Number of physical cores | Hyper-threading technology support | Number of threads | |
| Intel Core i3 | 2 | Yes | 4 |
| Intel Core i5 | 4 | Not | 4 |
| Intel Core i7 | 4 | Yes | 8 |
But, there are exceptions from this table.... First, there are Intel Core i7 processors from their Extreme line. These processors can have 6 or 8 physical processing cores. At the same time, they, like all Core i7 processors, have support for Hyper-threading technology, which means the number of threads is twice the number of cores. Second, certain mobile processors (laptop processors) are exempt. So some mobile Intel Core i5 processors have only 2 physical cores, but at the same time they have support for Hyper-threading.
It should also be noted that Intel has already planned to increase the number of cores in its processors... According to the latest news, the Intel Core i5 and i7 processors with Coffee Lake architecture, which are scheduled for release in 2018, will have 6 physical cores and 12 threads.
Therefore, you should not completely trust the table below. If you are interested in the number of cores in a particular Intel processor, then it is better to check the official information on the website.
Difference # 2. The amount of cache memory.
Also, Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors differ in the amount of cache memory. The higher the processor class, the more cache memory it receives. Intel Core i7 processors get the most cache memory, Intel Core i5 processors get slightly less, and Intel Core i3 processors even less. Specific values should be found in the characteristics of the processors. But for example, you can compare several processors from the 6th generation.
| Level 1 cache | Level 2 cache | Level 3 cache | |
| Intel Core i7-6700 | 4 x 32 KB | 4 x 256 KB | 8 MB |
| Intel Core i5-6500 | 4 x 32 KB | 4 x 256 KB | 6 MB |
| Intel Core i3-6100 | 2 x 32 KB | 2 x 256 KB | 3 MB |
It should be understood that a decrease in the size of the cache memory is associated with a decrease in the number of cores and threads. But, nevertheless, there is such a difference.
Difference # 3. Clock frequencies.
Typically, higher-end processors come with higher clock speeds. But, everything is not so simple here. It is not uncommon for Intel Core i3 to be clocked higher than Intel Core i7. For example, let's take 3 processors from the 6th generation line.
| Clock frequency | |
| Intel Core i7-6700 | 3.4 GHz |
| Intel Core i5-6500 | 3.2 GHz |
| Intel Core i3-6100 | 3.7 GHz |
In this way, Intel tries to keep the performance of Intel Core i3 processors at the desired level.
Difference No. 4. Heat dissipation.
Another important difference between Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors is the level of heat dissipation. A characteristic known as TDP or thermal design power is responsible for this. This characteristic tells how much heat should be removed by the processor cooling system. Let's take the TDP of three 6th generation Intel processors as an example. As you can see from the table, the higher the processor class, the more heat it produces and the more powerful cooling system is needed.
| TDP | |
| Intel Core i7-6700 | 65 watts |
| Intel Core i5-6500 | 65 watts |
| Intel Core i3-6100 | 51 watts |
It should be noted that TDP has a downward trend. With each generation of processors, the TDP is getting lower. For example, the TDP of the 2nd generation Intel Core i5 processor was 95 W. Now, as we can see, only 65 watts.
Which is better than Intel Core i3, i5 or i7?
The answer to this question depends on what kind of performance you want. The difference in cores, threads, cache memory, and clock speeds creates a noticeable difference in performance between the Core i3, i5, and i7.
- The Intel Core i3 processor is a great option for an office or budget home computer. If you have a video card of the appropriate level, you can play computer games on a computer with an Intel Core i3 processor.
- Intel Core i5 processor - Suitable for a powerful work or gaming computer. A modern Intel Core i5 can handle any video card without any problems, so you can play any games on a computer with such a processor, even at maximum settings.
- The Intel Core i7 processor is an option for those who know exactly why they need such performance. A computer with such a processor is suitable, for example, for editing video or conducting game streams.
An advanced gamer knows that buying a powerful video card without a modern and efficient processor is a waste of money. That is why it is worth buying a modern multi-core CPU for the GeForce 20 series video adapters. Looking for a complete computer with intel i7? Then be sure to check out the presented models in our catalog.
Key strengths of the intel core i7 processor line
- from six physical cores;
- multithreading;
- high operating frequency;
- large amount of cache memory of the third level.
Intel 7 series computers are able to offer gamers with Turbo Boost technology, which increases the operating clock speed. The performance of the Core i7 is enough to unleash the potential of any graphics card. It is worth noting that there are games that put a significant load on the processor. To have a stable 60 FPS in such projects, you need to choose an i7 gaming computer.
Don't forget that Intel Core i7 "K" models are overclocked. Thanks to this, you can significantly improve the performance of your system. Especially important for clients working in graphic applications. Individual programs use the computing power of the CPU, floating point operations, complex engineering calculations, and object modeling.
The first processors under the Intel Core i7 brand appeared nine years ago, but the LGA1366 platform did not pretend to be massively distributed outside the server segment. Actually, all the "consumer" processors for it fell into the price range from ≈ $ 300 to full-weight "stukibucks", so there is nothing surprising in this. However, modern i7s also live in it, so they are devices of limited demand: for the most demanding buyers (the appearance of the Core i9 this year slightly changed the disposition, but just that very little). And already the first models of the family received the formula “four cores - eight threads - 8 MiB of the third level cache”.
It was later inherited by models for the mass-market LGA1156. Later it migrated unchanged to LGA1155. Even later, it was "marked" in LGA1150 and even LGA1151, although from the latter many users initially expected the appearance of six-core processor models. But this did not happen in the first version of the platform - the corresponding Core i7 and i5 appeared only this year within the framework of the "eighth" generation, with the "sixth" and "seventh" incompatible. In the opinion of some of our readers (which we partly share) - a bit late: we could have done it earlier. However, the claim “good, but not enough” applies not only to processor performance, but in general to any evolutionary changes in any market. The reason for this lies not in the technical, but in the psychological plane, which goes far beyond the sphere of interests of our site. Here we can arrange testing of computer systems of different generations to determine their performance and power consumption (even if, at least, on a limited sample of tasks). What we'll do today.
Testbed configuration
| CPU | Intel Core i7-880 | Intel Core i7-2700K | Intel Core i7-3770K |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kernel name | Lynnfield | Sandy bridge | Ivy bridge |
| Production technology | 45 nm | 32 nm | 22 nm |
| Core frequency, GHz | 3,06/3,73 | 3,5/3,9 | 3,5/3,9 |
| # Of cores / threads | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 |
| L1 cache (sum), I / D, KB | 128/128 | 128/128 | 128/128 |
| L2 cache, KB | 4 × 256 | 4 × 256 | 4 × 256 |
| L3 cache, MiB | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| RAM | 2 × DDR3-1333 | 2 × DDR3-1333 | 2 × DDR3-1600 |
| TDP, W | 95 | 95 | 77 |
Our parade is opened by the three oldest processors - one for LGA1156 and two for LGA1155. Note that the first two models are unique in their own way. For example, the Core i7-880 (appeared in 2010 - in the second wave of devices for this platform) was the most expensive processor among all the participants in today's test: its recommended price was $ 562. In the future, not a single desktop quad-core Core i7 cost so much. And the quad-core processors of the Sandy Bridge family (as in the previous case, we have a representative of the second wave here, not the "starting" i7-2600K) are the only models for LGA115x that use solder as a thermal interface. In principle, no one noticed its implementation then, as well as the earlier transitions from solder to paste and vice versa: later, in narrow, but noisy circles, they began to endow this thermal interface with truly magical properties. Somewhere starting with the Core i7-3770K just (mid-2012), after which the noise did not subside.
| CPU | Intel Core i7-4790K | Intel Core i7-5775C |
|---|---|---|
| Kernel name | Haswell | Broadwell |
| Production technology | 22 nm | 14 nm |
| Core frequency std / max, GHz | 4,0/4,4 | 3,3/3,7 |
| # Of cores / threads | 4/8 | 4/8 |
| L1 cache (sum), I / D, KB | 128/128 | 128/128 |
| L2 cache, KB | 4 × 256 | 4 × 256 |
| L3 (L4) cache, MiB | 8 | 6 (128) |
| RAM | 2 × DDR3-1600 | 2 × DDR3-1600 |
| TDP, W | 88 | 65 |
Who we will miss a little today is the original Haswell in the form of the i7-4770K. As a result, we skip 2013 and go straight to 2014: formally 4790K is already Haswell Refresh. Some were already waiting for Broadwell, but the company released processors of this family exclusively to the tablet and laptop market: where they were most in demand. And with the desktop, the plans changed several times, but in 2015 a couple of processors (plus three Xeons) appeared on the market. Very specific: like Haswell and Haswell Refresh, they were installed in the LGA1150 socket, but they were compatible only with a couple of chipsets of 2014, and most importantly, they turned out to be the only "socket" models with a four-level cache memory. Formally - for the needs of the graphics core, although in practice all programs can use L4. There were similar processors both earlier and later - but only in BGA-execution (that is, they were soldered directly to the motherboard). These are also unique in their own way. Enthusiasts, of course, were not inspired because of the low clock speeds and limited "overclocking", but we will check how this "side escape" relates to the main line in modern software.
| CPU | Intel Core i7-6700K | Intel Core i7-7700K | Intel Core i7-8700K |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kernel name | Skylake | Kaby lake | Coffee lake |
| Production technology | 14 nm | 14 nm | 14 nm |
| Core frequency, GHz | 4,0/4,2 | 4,2/4,5 | 3,7/4,7 |
| # Of cores / threads | 4/8 | 4/8 | 6/12 |
| L1 cache (sum), I / D, KB | 128/128 | 128/128 | 192/192 |
| L2 cache, KB | 4 × 256 | 4 × 256 | 6 × 256 |
| L3 cache, MiB | 8 | 8 | 12 |
| RAM | 2 × DDR3-1600 / 2 × DDR4-2133 | 2 × DDR3-1600 / 2 × DDR4-2400 | 2 × DDR4-2666 |
| TDP, W | 91 | 91 | 95 |
And the most recent triple of processors, formally using the same LGA1151 socket, but in two versions incompatible with each other. However, we wrote about the difficult path of mass-line six-core processors to the market quite recently: when they were tested for the first time. So we will not repeat ourselves. We only note that we tested the i7-8700K again: using not a preliminary, but a "release" copy, and even installing it on an already "normal" motherboard with debugged firmware. The results did not change significantly, but in several programs they became somewhat more adequate.
| CPU | Intel Core i3-7350K | Intel Core i5-7600K | Intel Core i5-8400 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kernel name | Kaby lake | Kaby lake | Coffee lake |
| Production technology | 14 nm | 14 nm | 14 nm |
| Core frequency, GHz | 4,2 | 3,8/4,2 | 2,8/4,0 |
| # Of cores / threads | 2/4 | 4/4 | 6/6 |
| L1 cache (sum), I / D, KB | 64/64 | 128/128 | 192/192 |
| L2 cache, KB | 2 × 256 | 4 × 256 | 6 × 256 |
| L3 cache, MiB | 4 | 6 | 9 |
| RAM | 2 × DDR4-2400 | 2 × DDR4-2400 | 2 × DDR4-2666 |
| TDP, W | 60 | 91 | 65 |
With whom to compare the results? It seems to us that it is imperative to take a couple of the fastest modern dual- and quad-core processors of the Core i3 and Core i5 lines, since they have already been tested, and it is interesting to see which of the oldies they will catch up with and where (and whether they will catch up). In addition, we managed to get hold of a completely new six-core Core i5-8400, so we took the opportunity to test that too.
| CPU | AMD FX-8350 | AMD Ryzen 5 1400 | AMD Ryzen 5 1600 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kernel name | Vishera | Ryzen | Ryzen |
| Production technology | 32 nm | 14 nm | 14 nm |
| Core frequency, GHz | 4,0/4,2 | 3,2/3,4 | 3,2/3,6 |
| # Of cores / threads | 4/8 | 4/8 | 6/12 |
| L1 cache (sum), I / D, KB | 256/128 | 256/128 | 384/192 |
| L2 cache, KB | 4 × 2048 | 4 × 512 | 6 × 512 |
| L3 cache, MiB | 8 | 8 | 16 |
| RAM | 2 × DDR3-1866 | 2 × DDR4-2666 | 2 × DDR4-2666 |
| TDP, W | 125 | 65 | 65 |
You can't do without AMD processors, and there is no need to. Including the "historical" FX-8350, which is the same age as the Core i7-3770K. Fans of this line have always argued that it is not only cheaper, but generally better - just very few people know how to cook it... But if you use the "right programs", then immediately overtake everyone. We are from this year just at the request of workers We have reworked the testing methodology towards "severe multithreading", so there is a reason to test this hypothesis - all the same, testing is historical. And modern models will require at least two. The Ryzen 5 1500X would be very suitable for us, which is very similar to the old Core i7, but it has not been tested. The Ryzen 5 1400 is formally also suitable ... but in fact, this model (and modern Ryzen 3), along with the halving of the cache memory, also "suffered" the connections between the CCX. Therefore, I also had to take the Ryzen 5 1600, where this problem does not exist - as a result of which it often overtakes 1400 more than one and a half times. And a couple of Intel six-core processors are also present in today's testing. Others are clearly too slow to compare with this inexpensive processor, well, okay - let it dominate.
Testing technique
Methodology. Here, we briefly recall that it is based on the following four whales:
- Methodology for measuring power consumption when testing processors
- Methodology for monitoring power, temperature and CPU load during testing
- Methodology for measuring performance in games sample of 2017
Detailed results of all tests are available as a complete table with results (in Microsoft Excel 97-2003 format). Directly in the articles, we use already processed data. This is especially true for application tests, where everything is normalized relative to the reference system (AMD FX-8350 with 16 GB of memory, a GeForce GTX 1070 video card and a Corsair Force LE 960 GB SSD) and is grouped according to the scope of the computer.
iXBT Application Benchmark 2017
Basically, the claims of AMD fans that the FX were not so bad in "severe multithreading", if we consider only performance, are justified: as you can see, the 8350, in principle, could compete on equal terms with the Core i7 of the same release year. However, here it looks good against the background of the younger Ryzen, but between these two families practically nothing was produced by the company for this market segment. Intel, on the other hand, has such a uniform lineup, which made it possible to double the performance within the framework of the “quad-core” concept. Although the cores are of great importance here - the best dual-core in 2017 still did not catch up with the quad-core of the "previous" generation (recall that this is how it is officially called so far in the materials of the company, clearly separating from the numbered ones starting from the second). And six-core models are good - and that's all. So Intel's accusations that the company delayed their entry to the market too long can be considered to some extent fair.
All the difference from the previous group is that the code is not so primitive here, so, apart from cores, threads and gigahertz, the architectural features of the processors running it are also important. Although the overall result for Intel products is quite comparable: the difference between 880 and 7700K is still twofold, the i5-8400 is still inferior only to the latter, the i3-7350K still hasn't caught up with anyone. And this happened in the same seven years. We can assume that there are eight - after all, LGA1156 entered the market in the fall of 2009, and the Core i7-880 differed from the 860 and 870 that appeared in the first wave only in frequencies, and even then a little.
One has only to "weaken" the utilization of multithreading a little, so the position of newer processors immediately improves - albeit weaker in quantity. However, the traditional "two ends", all other (relatively) equal, comparison of the "previous" and "seventh" generations of Core gives us. Although it is easy to notice that the "second" and ... "eighth" are drawn to the maximum extent for the "revolutionary" ones. But this is more than understandable: the latter has increased the number of cores, and in the "second" the microarchitecture and technical process have radically changed, and at the same time.
As we already know, Adobe Photoshop is a little "odd" (bad news - the problem has not been fixed in the latest version of the package; very bad news - now it will be relevant for the new Core i3 as well), so we don't consider processors without HT. But our main characters have support for this technology, so no one bothers them all to work normally. As a result, in general, the state of affairs is similar to other groups, but there is a caveat: the fastest processor for the LGA1150 turned out to be the i7-4790K, which does not have a high frequency, but the i7-5775C. Well - in some places intensive methods of increasing productivity are very effective. It is a pity that not always: it is easier to “work” with frequency. And cheaper: you don't need an additional eDRAM crystal, which also needs to be somehow placed on the same substrate with the "main" one.
The number of cores as a "driver" for increasing performance is also suitable - even more than the frequency. Although in our first testing, the Core i7-8700K looked worse, but this was due to the results of the same Adobe Photoshop: they turned out to be almost the same as for the i7-7700K. Switching to a "release" processor and motherboard solved the problem in this case: the performance turned out to be similar to other six-core Intel processors. With a corresponding improvement in the overall result in the group. The behavior of other programs has not changed - they previously had a positive attitude towards increasing the number of supported computation threads while maintaining a similar level of such frequency.
Moreover, sometimes it is only she who "decides", and the number of computation threads. Basically, of course, there are certain nuances here, but “ there is no reception against scrap". The entire revolutionary Ryzen architecture, for example, allowed the 1400 to only deliver performance on par with the FX-8350 or Core i7-3770K that hit the market in 2012. Considering that it has a frequency lower than both, and in general this is a special budget model, in fact, using only half of a semiconductor crystal, it is not so bad. But it does not cause reverence. Especially against the background of another (and also inexpensive) representative of the Ryzen 5 line, which easily and noticeably overtook any quad-core Core i7 of any production year :)
Although we abandoned the single-threaded decompression test, this program still cannot be considered too "greedy" for cores and their frequencies. It is clear why - the performance of the memory system is very important here, so the Core i7-5775C was able to overtake only the i7-8700K, and even then by less than 10%. It is a pity that there are no products yet, where L4 is combined with six cores and memory with a high memory bandwidth: such a processor "without bottlenecks" in such tasks could show a miracle... In theory, at least - it is obvious that we will not see anything like this in desktop computers in the near future for sure.
It is characteristic that this branch of the "backbone" of desktop processors demonstrates (until now!) High results in this group of programs as well. However, what unites them is mainly the purpose, and not the optimization methods chosen by the programmers. But the latter are not ignored either - in contrast to some more "primitive" tasks, such as video encoding.
What do we end up with? The effect of "evolutionary development" has somewhat diminished: Core i7-7700K outperforms i7-880 by less than two times, and its superiority over i7-2700K is only one and a half times. On the whole - not bad: it was achieved with intensive means in comparable "quantitative" conditions, that is, it can be applied to almost any software. However, in relation to the interests of the most demanding users, it is not enough. Especially if we compare the gains at each annual step, adding another Core i7-4770K (which is why we regretted above that this processor was not found).
At the same time, the company has had the opportunity to dramatically increase performance at least in multi-threaded software (and there have been many such programs among resource-intensive programs for a long time). Yes, and it was also implemented - but within the framework of completely different platforms with their own characteristics. No wonder many have been waiting for six-core models for LGA115x since 2014 ... But many did not expect any breakthroughs from AMD in those years - all the more impressive were the first Ryzen tests. Not surprisingly - as you can see, even the inexpensive Ryzen 5 1600 can compete in performance with the Core i7-7700K, which was the fastest processor for the LGA1151 just a couple of months ago. Now a similar level of performance is quite affordable for Core i5, but it would be better if it happened earlier :) In any case, there would be fewer reasons for complaints.
Energy consumption and energy efficiency
However, this diagram once again demonstrates why the performance of mass central processors in the second decade of the 21st century grew at a much slower pace than in the first one: in this case, all development took place against the background of “non-increase” in energy consumption. Even reductions, if possible. It was possible to reduce it by architectural or some other methods - users of mobile and compact systems (which have long been sold much more than "typical desktop") will be satisfied. Yes, and on the desktop market, a small step forward, since you can tweak the frequencies a little more, which was done in the Core i7-4790K, and then was fixed in the "regular" Core i7, and even in the Core i5.
This is especially clearly seen in the assessment of the power consumption of the processors themselves (unfortunately, for LGA1155 it is impossible to measure it separately from the platform by simple means). At the same time, it becomes clear why the company does not need to somehow change the requirements for cooling processors within the LGA115x line. Also, why more and more products in the (formally) desktop range are starting to fit into traditional laptop processors thermal packs: this happens without any effort. In principle, it would be possible to install all quad-core processors under LGA1151 TDP = 65 W and not suffer :) Just for the so-called. For overclocking processors, the company considers it necessary to tighten the requirements for the cooling system, since there is a small (but also non-zero) probability that the buyer of a computer with such will overclock it and use all sorts of "stability tests". And mass products do not cause such concerns, and are initially more economical. Even six-core ones, although the power consumption of the older i7-8700K has grown - but only to the level of processors for LGA1150. In normal mode, of course - during overclocking, you can inadvertently return to 2010 :)
But, at the same time, modern economical processors are not necessarily slow - three to five years ago, the performance of "energy efficient" models against the background of the top-end in the line often left much to be desired, since they had to reduce the frequency too much, or even reduce the number of cores. Therefore, in general, "energy efficiency" has increased much faster than pure performance: here, when comparing the Core i7-7700K and i7-880, not twice, but all two and a half. However ... the first "big leap" and immediately one and a half times fell on the introduction of LGA1155, so it is not surprising that complaints about the further evolution of the platform were heard from this direction as well.
iXBT Game Benchmark 2017
The most interesting are, of course, the results of the oldest processors, such as the Core i7-880 and i7-2700K. Unfortunately, nothing good happened with the first of them: apparently, none of the GPU manufacturers seriously dealt with the issues of compatibility of new video cards with the platform of the end of the last decade. And it's understandable why: many LGA1156 skipped altogether, or have already managed to migrate from it to other solutions for so many years. And with the Core i7-2700K, there is another problem: its performance (recall - in normal mode) is still often enough to work at the level of the new Core i7. In general, there is such an unkillable legend: which (together with the older Core i5 for LGA1155), at first, a good game processor was made by high single-threaded performance (in those years, Intel strongly "pinched" Core i3 and Pentium in frequency), and then they started more or less effectively utilize all eight supported computation threads. Although the same level of performance in games is often achieved by more "simple" solutions for new platforms, but sometimes there is a feeling that this is connected not only and not so much with performance "in its pure form". Therefore, for those who are to some extent interested in the results in games, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with them using the full table, and here we will give only a couple of the most interesting and illustrative diagrams.
Take Far Cry Primal, for example. We immediately discard the results of Core i7-880: the incorrect operation of a video card on a GTX 1070 with this platform is obvious. Perhaps, by the way, the same can be applied to the LGA1155, although in general the frame rate cannot be called low here: in practice it is enough. But clearly lower than it could have been. And LGA1151 also somehow does not shine and LGA1150 looks like the best platform. Now we recall that a modified version of the Dunia Engine 2 (it is used here) was developed between 2013 and 2014, so they could just reoptimize... An indirect confirmation of this is the low (relatively expected) frame rate on Ryzen 5: there is a feeling that there should be more and that's it.
But games on the EGO 4.0 engine began to appear in 2015 - and here we no longer see such artifacts. Except for the Core i7-880, which once again amused us with "brakes", but this correlates well with other games. And the best looks are not just multi-core processors, but also those released since 2015, that is, the LGA1151 and AM4 platforms. The exact opposite of the previous case, although in general both games were released in 2016. And both within the same processor family always "vote" for the model in which there are more computing cores. But within one- different (especially, significantly different architecturally) with their help must be compared very carefully. If you want to compare, of course: in general, in both (and not only in them) on a system with a five-year-old processor and a "good" video card, you can play with much more comfort than with any processor, but on a budget video card for 200 dollars In general, the requirements for the processors of games are growing or not, and the gaming computer needs to be assembled “from a video card”. However, it would be strange if something would change in this industry - especially considering that the performance of video cards over the past eight years has not doubled or even three times;)
Total
Actually, all we wanted to do was compare several processors from different years at once when working with modern software. Moreover, some characteristics of older Core i7 models have practically not changed during this time, especially if we take the interval from the winter of 2011 to the same period in 2017. But productivity grew at the same time - slowly, but slightly more than the often discussed "5% per year". And taking into account the fact that every year a normal user does not buy computers, but usually focuses on 3-5 years - over such a period, "accumulated" in performance, and in efficiency, and in the functionality of the platform. But could have been better... At the same time, some "weak points" are clearly visible: for example, an increase in the clock frequency in 2014 did not allow achieving significantly higher performance either in 2015 or even at the beginning of 2017. We managed to break away from LGA1155 noticeably (as the software was optimized for processors starting with Haswell, the results were more modest at the start), that's all. And then (all of a sudden) + 30% productivity, which hasn't happened for a long time. In general, from a historical point of view, a smoother implementation of this process would look better. But what happened was already there.
Almost always, under any publication that in one way or another touches on the performance of modern Intel processors, sooner or later there are several angry readers' comments that the progress in the development of Intel chips has long stalled and there is no point in switching from the "good old Core i7-2600K "For something new. In such remarks, it will most likely be annoying to mention productivity gains at the intangible level of "no more than five percent per year"; about the low-quality internal thermal interface, which irreparably spoiled modern Intel processors; or about the fact that in modern conditions to buy processors with the same number of cores as several years ago is the lot of short-sighted amateurs, since they do not have the necessary groundwork for the future.
There is no doubt that all such remarks are not groundless. However, it is very likely that they exaggerate the existing problems many times over. The 3DNews laboratory has been testing Intel processors in detail since 2000, and we cannot agree with the thesis that any development of them has come to an end, and what is happening to the microprocessor giant in recent years cannot be called anything other than stagnation. Yes, some fundamental changes rarely occur with Intel processors, but nevertheless they continue to be systematically improved. Therefore, the chips of the Core i7 series that you can buy today are certainly better than the models offered a few years ago.
| Generation Core | Codename | Technical process | Development stage | Exit time |
| 2 | Sandy bridge | 32 nm | So (Architecture) | I quarter. 2011 |
| 3 | IvyBridge | 22 nm | Tick (Process) | II quarter. 2012 |
| 4 | Haswell | 22 nm | So (Architecture) | II quarter. 2013 |
| 5 | Broadwell | 14 nm | Tick (Process) | II quarter. 2015 |
| 6 | Skylake | 14 nm | So (Architecture) |
III quarter. 2015 |
| 7 | KabyLake | 14+ nm | Optimization | I quarter. 2017 |
| 8 | CoffeeLake | 14 ++ nm | Optimization | IV quarter. 2017 |
Actually, this material is just a counterargument for reasoning about the futility of Intel's chosen strategy of gradual development of consumer CPUs. We decided to collect in one test senior Intel processors for mainstream platforms over the past seven years and see in practice how the representatives of the Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake series have gone ahead with respect to the "reference" Sandy Bridge, which over the years of hypothetical comparisons and mental contrasts in the minds of ordinary people have become a real icon of processor design.
⇡ What has changed in Intel processors from 2011 to the present
Microarchitecture is considered to be the starting point in the recent history of Intel processors. SandyBridge... And this is no accident. Despite the fact that the first generation of processors under the Core brand was released in 2008 based on the Nehalem microarchitecture, almost all the main features that are inherent in modern mass CPUs of the microprocessor giant came into use not then, but a couple of years later, when the next generation became widespread. processor design, Sandy Bridge.
Now Intel has taught us to openly unhurried progress in the development of microarchitecture, when there are very few innovations and they almost do not lead to an increase in the specific performance of processor cores. But only seven years ago, the situation was radically different. In particular, the transition from Nehalem to Sandy Bridge was marked by a 15-20% increase in IPC (the number of instructions executed per clock cycle), which was due to a deep redesign of the logical design of the cores with an eye to increasing their efficiency.
Sandy Bridge was based on many principles that have not changed since then and have become standard for most processors today. For example, it was there that a separate zero-level cache appeared for decoded micro-operations, and a physical register file began to be used, which reduces energy consumption when algorithms for out-of-order execution of instructions are running.
But perhaps the most important innovation was that Sandy Bridge was designed as a unified system-on-a-chip, designed simultaneously for all classes of applications: server, desktop and mobile. Most likely, public opinion put it in the great-grandfather of modern Coffee Lake, and not some Nehalem, and certainly not Penryn, precisely because of this feature. However, the total sum of all the alterations in the depths of the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture also turned out to be quite significant. In the end, this design lost all the old ties to the P6 (Pentium Pro) that had appeared here and there in all previous Intel processors.
Speaking about the general structure, one must also remember that a full-fledged graphics core was built into the Sandy Bridge processor crystal for the first time in the history of Intel CPUs. This block went inside the processor after the DDR3 memory controller shared by the L3 cache and the PCI Express bus controller. To connect computational cores and all other "extra-core" parts, Intel engineers implemented a new scalable ring bus in Sandy Bridge, which is used to organize interaction between structural units in subsequent mainstream CPUs to this day.
If we go down to the level of the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture, then one of its key features is support for the family of SIMD instructions, AVX, designed to work with 256-bit vectors. By now, such instructions have become commonplace and do not seem to be something unusual, but their implementation in Sandy Bridge required the expansion of a part of the computing executive devices. Intel engineers strived to make working with 256-bit data as fast as working with smaller vectors. Therefore, along with the implementation of full-fledged 256-bit executive devices, an increase in the speed of the processor with memory was also required. Logic actuators for loading and saving data in Sandy Bridge received double the performance, in addition, the bandwidth of the L1 cache when reading was symmetrically increased.
We cannot fail to mention the dramatic changes in the operation of the branch prediction unit made in Sandy Bridge. Thanks to optimizations in the applied algorithms and an increase in buffer sizes, the Sandy Bridge architecture has allowed to reduce the percentage of mispredictions of branches by almost half, which not only significantly affected performance, but also allowed to further reduce the power consumption of this design.
Ultimately, from today's perspective, Sandy Bridge processors could be called an exemplary embodiment of the "tock" phase in Intel's "tick-tock" principle. Like their predecessors, these processors continued to be based on the 32-nm process technology, but the performance increase they offered turned out to be more than convincing. And it was fueled not only by the updated microarchitecture, but also by the clock frequencies increased by 10-15 percent, as well as the introduction of a more aggressive version of the Turbo Boost 2.0 technology. Considering all this, it is clear why many enthusiasts still remember Sandy Bridge in their warmest words.
The senior offering in the Core i7 family at the time of the release of the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture was the Core i7-2600K. This processor has a clock speed of 3.3 GHz with the ability to auto-overclock at partial load up to 3.8 GHz. However, the 32nm representatives of Sandy Bridge were distinguished not only by their relatively high clock frequencies for that time, but also by their good overclocking potential. Among the Core i7-2600K, one could often find specimens capable of operating at frequencies of 4.8-5.0 GHz, which was largely due to the use of a high-quality internal thermal interface in them - flux-free solder.
Nine months after the release of the Core i7-2600K, in October 2011, Intel updated the senior offering in the lineup and offered a slightly accelerated model of the Core i7-2700K, the nominal frequency of which was increased to 3.5 GHz, and the maximum frequency in turbo mode was up to 3.9 GHz.
However, the life cycle of the Core i7-2700K turned out to be short - in April 2012, the Sandy Bridge was replaced by an updated design. IvyBridge... Nothing special: Ivy Bridge belonged to the "tick" phase, that is, it was a transfer of the old microarchitecture to the new semiconductor rails. And in this regard, the progress was really serious - the Ivy Bridge crystals were produced using a 22-nm technological process based on three-dimensional FinFET transistors, which at that time were just coming into use.
At the same time, the old Sandy Bridge microarchitecture at the low level remained practically intact. There were only a few cosmetic tweaks that made Ivy Bridge faster and slightly more efficient with Hyper-Threading. True, along the way, the "extra-nuclear" components were somewhat improved. The PCI Express controller received compatibility with the third version of the protocol, and the memory controller increased its capabilities and began to support high-speed DDR3 overclocking memory. But in the end, the increase in specific productivity during the transition from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge was no more than 3-5 percent.
The new technological process did not give serious reasons for joy either. Unfortunately, the introduction of 22-nm standards did not allow to somehow fundamentally increase the clock frequencies of the Ivy Bridge. The older version of the Core i7-3770K received a nominal frequency of 3.5 GHz with the ability to overclock in turbo mode up to 3.9 GHz, that is, from the point of view of the frequency formula, it turned out to be no faster than the Core i7-2700K. Only energy efficiency has improved, but desktop users traditionally have little concern about this aspect.
All this, of course, can be easily attributed to the fact that no breakthroughs should occur at the “tick” stage, but in some ways Ivy Bridge turned out to be even worse than its predecessors. It's about overclocking. When launching carriers of this design, Intel decided to abandon the use of a heat-spreader cap to a semiconductor crystal in the final assembly of processors with gallium-free soldering. Starting with Ivy Bridge, banal thermal paste was used to organize the internal thermal interface, and this immediately hit the maximum achievable frequencies. The overclocking potential of Ivy Bridge has definitely gotten worse, and as a result, the transition from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge has become one of the most controversial moments in recent history of Intel consumer processors.
Therefore, to the next stage of evolution, Haswell, special hopes were pinned. In this generation, in the "so" phase, major microarchitectural improvements were to appear, from which the ability was expected to at least push forward the stalled progress. And to some extent it happened. Introduced in the summer of 2013, the fourth-generation Core processors have indeed made noticeable improvements in their internal structure.
The main thing: the theoretical power of Haswell execution units, expressed in the number of micro-operations executed per clock cycle, has grown by a third compared to previous CPUs. The new microarchitecture not only rebalanced the existing executive devices, but also added two additional executive ports for integer operations, branching and address generation. In addition, the microarchitecture received compatibility with an extended set of vector 256-bit AVX2 instructions, which, thanks to three-operand FMA instructions, doubled the architecture's peak throughput.
In addition to this, Intel engineers revised the capacity of the internal buffers and, where necessary, increased them. The planner window has grown in size. In addition, the integer and real physical register files were increased, which improved the processor's ability to reorder the order of execution of instructions. In addition to all this, the cache memory subsystem has also changed significantly. L1- and L2-caches in Haswell got twice as wide bus.
It would seem that the listed improvements should be enough to noticeably raise the specific performance of the new microarchitecture. But no matter how it is. The problem with Haswell's design was that it left the input part of the execution pipeline unchanged and the x86 decoder retained the same performance as before. That is, the maximum decoding rate of the x86 code in the microinstruction remained at the level of 4-5 instructions per clock cycle. As a result, when comparing Haswell and Ivy Bridge at the same frequency and under a load that does not use the new AVX2 instructions, the performance gain was only 5-10 percent.
The image of the Haswell microarchitecture was also spoiled by the first wave of processors released on its basis. Relying on the same 22nm process technology as the Ivy Bridge, the new products were unable to offer high frequencies. For example, the older Core i7-4770K again received a base frequency of 3.5 GHz and a maximum frequency in turbo mode at 3.9 GHz, that is, in comparison with previous generations of Core, there has been no progress.
At the same time, with the introduction of the next technological process with 14nm norms, Intel began to face all sorts of difficulties, so a year later, in the summer of 2014, not the next generation of Core processors was brought to the market, but the second phase of Haswell, which was codenamed Haswell Refresh, or, if we talk about flagship modifications, then Devil's Canyon. As part of this update, Intel was able to noticeably increase the clock speeds of the 22nm CPU, which really breathed new life into them. As an example, we can cite the new senior processor Core i7-4790K, which took the 4.0 GHz mark at the nominal frequency and got the maximum frequency, taking into account the turbo mode, at 4.4 GHz. Surprisingly, such a half-gigahertz acceleration was achieved without any technical process reforms, but only due to simple cosmetic changes in the processor power circuit and due to the improvement of the heat-conducting properties of the thermal paste used under the CPU cover.
However, even the representatives of the Devil's Canyon family could not become the proposals especially complained about among the enthusiasts. Against the background of the results of Sandy Bridge, their overclocking was not outstanding, besides, reaching high frequencies required complex "scalping" - dismantling the processor cover and then replacing the standard thermal interface with some material with better thermal conductivity.
Due to the difficulties that followed Intel in transferring mass production to 14nm standards, the performance of the next, fifth generation of Core processors, Broadwell, it turned out to be very crumpled. For a long time, the company could not decide whether it was worth launching desktop processors with this design on the market at all, since when trying to manufacture large semiconductor crystals, the defect rate exceeded acceptable values. Ultimately, Broadwell quad-cores intended for desktop computers did appear, but, firstly, this happened only in the summer of 2015 - with a nine-month delay in relation to the originally planned date, and secondly, already two months after their announcement, Intel presented the design next generation, Skylake.
Nevertheless, from the point of view of the development of the microarchitecture, Broadwell can hardly be called a secondary development. Moreover, this generation of desktop processors used solutions that Intel had never resorted to either before or since. The uniqueness of the desktop Broadwell was determined by the fact that they were penetrated by the productive integrated graphics core Iris Pro of the GT3e level. And this means not only that the processors of this family had the most powerful integrated video core at that time, but also that they were equipped with an additional 22-nm Crystall Well crystal, which is a fourth-level cache memory based on eDRAM.
The reason for adding a separate chip of fast integrated memory to the processor is quite obvious and is due to the needs of a productive integrated graphics core in a frame buffer with low latency and high bandwidth. However, the eDRAM installed in Broadwell was architecturally designed as a victim cache, and the computational cores of the CPU could also use it. As a result, desktop Broadwell became the only mass processors of their kind with 128 MB L4 cache. True, the volume of the L3 cache located in the processor chip suffered a little, which was reduced from 8 to 6 MB.
Some improvements have been incorporated into the basic microarchitecture as well. Although Broadwell was in the tick phase, the rework touched the inlet of the execution pipeline. The out-of-order execution scheduler window was enlarged, the volume of the table of associative translation of second-level addresses increased by one and a half times, and, in addition, the entire translation scheme acquired a second miss handler, which made it possible to process two address translation operations in parallel. In sum, all the innovations have increased the efficiency of out-of-order execution of commands and prediction of complex code branches. Along the way, the mechanisms for performing multiplication operations were improved, which in Broadwell began to be processed at a significantly faster pace. As a result of all this, Intel was even able to argue that improvements in microarchitecture increased the specific performance of Broadwell compared to Haswell by about five percent.
But despite all this, it was impossible to talk about any significant advantage of the first 14-nm desktop processors. Both the L4 cache and microarchitectural changes only tried to compensate for Broadwell's main flaw - low clock frequencies. Due to problems with the technological process, the base frequency of the older member of the family, Core i7-5775C, was set only at 3.3 GHz, and the turbo frequency did not exceed 3.7 GHz, which turned out to be worse than the characteristics of Devil's Canyon by as much as 700 MHz.
A similar story happened with overclocking. The maximum frequencies to which it was possible to heat up the desktop Broadwell without using advanced cooling methods were in the region of 4.1-4.2 GHz. Therefore, it is not surprising that consumers were skeptical about the release of Broadwell, and the processors of this family remained a strange niche solution for those who were interested in a productive integrated graphics core. The very first full-fledged 14-nm chip for desktop computers, which was able to attract the attention of wide layers of users, was only the next project of the microprocessor giant - Skylake.
Skylake, like the previous generation processors, was manufactured using a 14nm process technology. However, here Intel has already been able to achieve normal clock speeds and overclocking: the older desktop version of Skylake, Core i7-6700K, received a nominal frequency of 4.0 GHz and auto-overclocking in turbo mode to 4.2 GHz. These are slightly lower values when compared with the Devil's Canyon, but the newer processors are definitely faster than their predecessors. The fact is that Skylake is "so" in Intel's nomenclature, which means significant changes in the microarchitecture.
And they really are. At first glance, there were not many improvements in the Skylake design, but they were all purposeful and allowed to eliminate the existing weaknesses in the microarchitecture. In short, Skylake got larger internal buffers for deeper out-of-order execution of instructions and higher cache memory bandwidth. Improvements have been made to the branch prediction block and the input portion of the execution pipeline. The rate of execution of division instructions has also been increased, and the mechanisms for executing addition, multiplication and FMA instructions have been rebalanced. To top it off, the developers have worked to improve the efficiency of Hyper-Threading technology. In total, this has resulted in an approximately 10 percent improvement in performance per clock compared to previous generations of processors.
In general, Skylake can be characterized as a deep enough optimization of the original Core architecture, so that no bottlenecks remain in the processor design. On the one hand, by increasing the decoder power (from 4 to 5 micro-ops per clock) and the speed of the micro-ops cache (from 4 to 6 micro-ops per clock), the instruction decoding rate has significantly increased. On the other hand, the efficiency of processing the resulting micro-operations has increased, which was facilitated by the deepening of out-of-order execution algorithms and the redistribution of the capabilities of the execution ports along with a serious revision of the execution rate of a number of ordinary, SSE and AVX commands.
For example, Haswell and Broadwell had two ports each for performing multiplications and FMA operations on real numbers, but only one port was intended for additions, which did not correspond well to the real program code. In Skylake, this imbalance was eliminated and additions began to be performed on two ports. In addition, the number of ports capable of handling integer vector instructions has grown from two to three. Ultimately, all this led to the fact that for almost any type of operation in Skylake there are always several alternative ports. This means that in the microarchitecture, almost all possible reasons for the downtime of the pipeline were finally successfully eliminated.
Noticeable changes have also affected the caching subsystem: the bandwidth of the L2 and L3 cache memory has been increased. In addition, the associativity of the L2 cache was reduced, which ultimately made it possible to improve its efficiency and reduce the penalty when processing misses.
Substantial changes have also taken place at a higher level. So, in Skylake, the bandwidth of the ring bus, which connects all processor units, has doubled. In addition, a new memory controller has settled in this generation of CPUs, which has received compatibility with DDR4 SDRAM. And in addition to this, a new DMI 3.0 bus with doubled bandwidth was used to connect the processor to the chipset, which made it possible to implement high-speed PCI Express 3.0 lines, including through the chipset.
However, like all previous versions of the Core architecture, Skylake was another variation on the original design. This means that in the sixth generation of the Core microarchitecture, Intel developers continued to adhere to the tactics of phased implementation of improvements at each development cycle. In general, this is not a very impressive approach, which does not allow you to see any significant changes in performance right away - when comparing CPUs from neighboring generations. But on the other hand, when modernizing old systems, it is not difficult to notice a tangible increase in performance. For example, Intel itself willingly compared Skylake to Ivy Bridge, while demonstrating that in three years the speed of processors has increased by more than 30 percent.
And in fact, it was quite a serious progress, because then everything became much worse. After Skylake, any improvement in the specific performance of processor cores stopped altogether. The processors currently on the market still continue to use the Skylake microarchitectural design, despite the fact that almost three years have passed since its introduction in desktop processors. The unexpected downtime was due to the fact that Intel was unable to cope with the implementation of the next version of the semiconductor process with 10nm norms. As a result, the whole "tick-tock" principle collapsed, forcing the microprocessor giant to somehow get out and engage in multiple re-release of old products under new names.
Generation processors KabyLake, which appeared on the market at the very beginning of 2017, became the first and very striking example of Intel's attempts to sell the same Skylake to customers for the second time. The close family ties between the two generations of processors were not particularly hidden. Intel honestly said that Kaby Lake is no longer a "tick" or "so", but a simple optimization of the previous design. At the same time, the word "optimization" meant some improvements in the structure of 14-nm transistors, which opened up the possibility of increasing clock frequencies without changing the frame of the thermal package. For the modified technical process, a special term "14+ nm" was even coined. Thanks to this manufacturing technology, Kaby Lake's senior mainstream desktop processor, dubbed the Core i7-7700K, was able to offer users a nominal 4.2 GHz frequency and a 4.5 GHz turbo frequency.
Thus, the increase in frequencies of Kaby Lake compared to the original Skylake was about 5 percent, and that was all, which, frankly, cast doubt on the legality of attributing Kaby Lake to the next generation of Core. Up to this point, each subsequent generation of processors, no matter whether it belonged to the "tick" or "tock" phase, provided at least some increase in the IPC indicator. Meanwhile, in Kaby Lake there were no microarchitectural improvements at all, so it would be more logical to consider these processors just the second stepping of Skylake.
However, the new version of the 14-nm technical process was still able to prove itself in some ways: the overclocking potential of Kaby Lake compared to Skylake grew by about 200-300 MHz, due to which the processors of this series were warmly received by enthusiasts. True, Intel continued to use thermal paste under the processor cover instead of solder, so scalping was necessary to fully overclock Kaby Lake.
Intel did not cope with the commissioning of 10-nm technology by the beginning of this year. Therefore, at the end of last year, another type of processors based on the same Skylake microarchitecture was introduced to the market - CoffeeLake... But talking about Coffee Lake as the third guise of Skylake is not entirely correct. Last year was a period of a radical paradigm shift in the processor market. AMD returned to the "big game", which was able to break the established traditions and create demand for mass processors with more than four cores. Suddenly, Intel found itself in a catch-up role, and the release of Coffee Lake was not so much an attempt to fill the gap before the long-awaited appearance of 10nm Core processors, but rather a reaction to the release of six- and eight-core AMD Ryzen processors.
As a result, Coffee Lake processors received an important structural difference from their predecessors: the number of cores in them was increased to six, which was the first time with the mainstream Intel platform. However, at the same time, no changes were introduced at the microarchitecture level: Coffee Lake is essentially a six-core Skylake, assembled on the basis of exactly the same computational cores in terms of internal structure, which are equipped with an L3 cache increased to 12 MB (according to the standard principle of 2 MB per core ) and are united by the usual ring bus.
However, despite the fact that we so easily allow ourselves to talk about Coffee Lake "nothing new", it is not entirely fair to say that there have been no changes. Although nothing has changed in the microarchitecture again, Intel specialists had to spend a lot of effort in order for the six-core processors to fit into the standard desktop platform. And the result was quite convincing: the six-core processors remained faithful to the usual thermal package and, moreover, did not slow down at all in clock frequencies.
In particular, the senior representative of the Coffee Lake generation, the Core i7-8700K, received a base frequency of 3.7 GHz, and in turbo mode it can accelerate to 4.7 GHz. At the same time, the overclocking potential of Coffee Lake, despite its more massive semiconductor crystal, turned out to be even better than that of all its predecessors. Core i7-8700K are often brought by their ordinary owners to the 5 GHz line, and such overclocking can be real even without scalping and replacing the internal thermal interface. And this means that Coffee Lake, although extensive, is a significant step forward.
All this became possible exclusively due to the next improvement of the 14nm technological process. In the fourth year of its use for mass production of desktop chips, Intel managed to achieve really impressive results. The implemented third version of the 14-nm standards ("14 ++ nm" in the manufacturer's designations) and the rearrangement of the semiconductor crystal made it possible to significantly improve performance in terms of each watt spent and increase the total computing power. With the introduction of the six-core Intel, perhaps, was able to take an even more significant step forward than any of the previous microarchitecture improvements. And today Coffee Lake looks like a very tempting option for modernizing old systems based on previous carriers of the Core microarchitecture.
| Codename | Technical process | Number of cores | GPU | L3 cache, MB | Number of transistors, billion | Crystal area, mm 2 |
| Sandy bridge | 32 nm | 4 | GT2 | 8 | 1,16 | 216 |
| Ivy bridge | 22 nm | 4 | GT2 | 8 | 1,2 | 160 |
| Haswell | 22 nm | 4 | GT2 | 8 | 1,4 | 177 |
| Broadwell | 14 nm | 4 | GT3e | 6 | N / a | ~ 145 + 77 (eDRAM) |
| Skylake | 14 nm | 4 | GT2 | 8 | N / a | 122 |
| Kaby lake | 14+ nm | 4 | GT2 | 8 | N / a | 126 |
| Coffee lake | 14 ++ nm | 6 | GT2 | 12 | N / a | 150 |
⇡ Processors and Platforms: Specifications
To compare the last seven generations of Core i7, we took the senior representatives in the respective series - one from each design. The main characteristics of these processors are shown in the following table.
| Core i7-2700K | Core i7-3770K | Core i7-4790K | Core i7-5775C | Core i7-6700K | Core i7-7700K | Core i7-8700K | |
| Codename | Sandy bridge | Ivy bridge | Haswell (Devil's Canyon) | Broadwell | Skylake | Kaby lake | Coffee lake |
| Production technology, nm | 32 | 22 | 22 | 14 | 14 | 14+ | 14++ |
| release date | 23.10.2011 | 29.04.2012 | 2.06.2014 | 2.06.2015 | 5.08.2015 | 3.01.2017 | 5.10.2017 |
| Kernels / threads | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 6/12 |
| Base frequency, GHz | 3,5 | 3,5 | 4,0 | 3,3 | 4,0 | 4,2 | 3,7 |
| Turbo Boost frequency, GHz | 3,9 | 3,9 | 4,4 | 3,7 | 4,2 | 4,5 | 4,7 |
| L3 cache, MB | 8 | 8 | 8 | 6 (+128 MB eDRAM) | 8 | 8 | 12 |
| Memory support | DDR3-1333 | DDR3-1600 | DDR3-1600 | DDR3L-1600 | DDR4-2133 | DDR4-2400 | DDR4-2666 |
| Instruction set extensions | AVX | AVX | AVX2 | AVX2 | AVX2 | AVX2 | AVX2 |
| Integrated graphics | HD 3000 (12 EU) | HD 4000 (16 EU) | HD 4600 (20 EU) | Iris Pro 6200 (48 EU) | HD 530 (24 EU) | HD 630 (24 EU) | UHD 630 (24 EU) |
| Max. graphics core frequency, GHz | 1,35 | 1,15 | 1,25 | 1,15 | 1,15 | 1,15 | 1,2 |
| PCI Express version | 2.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| PCI Express Lines | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| TDP, W | 95 | 77 | 88 | 65 | 91 | 91 | 95 |
| Socket | LGA1155 | LGA1155 | LGA1150 | LGA1150 | LGA1151 | LGA1151 | LGA1151v2 |
| Official price | $332 | $332 | $339 | $366 | $339 | $339 | $359 |
Interestingly, in the seven years since the release of Sandy Bridge, Intel has not been able to noticeably increase the clock speeds. Despite the fact that the technological production process has changed twice and the microarchitecture has been seriously optimized twice, today's Core i7 has hardly advanced in terms of its operating frequency. The newest Core i7-8700K has a nominal frequency of 3.7 GHz, which is only 6 percent higher than the frequency of the 2011 Core i7-2700K.
However, such a comparison is not entirely correct, because Coffee Lake has one and a half times more processing cores. If we focus on the quad-core Core i7-7700K, then the increase in frequency looks still more convincing: this processor accelerated relative to the 32-nm Core i7-2700K by a fairly significant 20 percent in megahertz terms. Although it can hardly be called an impressive gain anyway: in absolute terms, this translates into an increase of 100 MHz per year.
There are no breakthroughs in other formal characteristics either. Intel continues to supply all of its processors with an individual L2 cache of 256 KB per core, as well as a shared L3 cache for all cores, the size of which is determined at the rate of 2 MB per core. In other words, the main factor that has made the greatest progress is the number of cores. Core development started with quad-core CPUs, and came to six-core ones. Moreover, it is obvious that this is not the end, and in the near future we will see eight-core versions of Coffee Lake (or Whiskey Lake).
However, as it is easy to see, Intel's pricing policy has remained almost unchanged for seven years. Even the six-core Coffee Lake has risen in price by only six percent compared to the previous four-core flagships. All the rest of the older Core i7 class processors for the mass platform have always cost consumers about $ 330-340.
It is curious that the biggest changes took place not even with the processors themselves, but with their support for RAM. The throughput of dual-channel SDRAM has doubled since the release of Sandy Bridge until today: from 21.3 GB / s to 41.6 GB / s. And this is another important circumstance that determines the advantage of modern systems compatible with high-speed DDR4 memory.
Anyway, all these years, the rest of the platform has evolved along with the processors. If we are talking about the main milestones in the development of the platform, then, in addition to the increase in the speed of compatible memory, I would also like to note the emergence of support for the PCI Express 3.0 graphics interface. It seems that fast memory and fast graphics bus, along with advances in frequencies and processor architectures, are powerful reasons why modern systems are better and faster than the past. DDR4 SDRAM support appeared in Skylake, and the transfer of the PCI Express processor bus to the third version of the protocol took place in Ivy Bridge.
In addition, the system logic sets accompanying the processors received a noticeable development. Indeed, today's Intel chipsets of the three hundredth series can offer much more interesting features in comparison with the Intel Z68 and Z77, which were used in LGA1155 motherboards for the Sandy Bridge generation processors. This is easy to verify from the following table, in which we have brought together the characteristics of the flagship Intel chipsets for the mass platform.
| P67 / Z68 | Z77 | Z87 | Z97 | Z170 | Z270 | Z370 | |
| CPU Compatibility | Sandy bridge Ivy bridge |
Haswell | Haswell Broadwell |
Skylake Kaby lake |
Coffee lake | ||
| Interface | DMI 2.0 (2 GB / s) | DMI 3.0 (3.93 GB / s) | |||||
| PCI Express standard | 2.0 | 3.0 | |||||
| PCI Express Lines | 8 | 20 | 24 | ||||
| PCIe M.2 support | Not | There is |
Yes, up to 3 devices | ||||
| PCI support | There is | Not | |||||
| SATA 6Gb / s | 2 | 6 | |||||
| SATA 3Gb / s | 4 | 0 | |||||
| USB 3.1 Gen2 | 0 | ||||||
| USB 3.0 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 10 | |||
| USB 2.0 | 14 | 10 | 8 | 4 | |||
In modern sets of logic, the possibilities for connecting high-speed storage media have significantly developed. Most importantly, thanks to the transition of chipsets to the PCI Express 3.0 bus, today in high-performance assemblies you can use high-speed NVMe drives, which, even compared to SATA SSDs, can offer noticeably better responsiveness and faster read and write speeds. And this alone can become a strong argument in favor of modernization.
In addition, modern system logic sets provide much richer options for connecting additional devices. And we are not only talking about a significant increase in the number of PCI Express lanes, which ensures the presence of several additional PCIe slots on the boards, replacing conventional PCI. Along the way, today's chipsets also have native support for USB 3.0 ports, and many modern motherboards are equipped with USB 3.1 Gen2 ports.
⇡ Description of test systems and testing methods
In order to test seven fundamentally different Intel Core i7 processors released over the past seven years, we needed to assemble four platforms with processor sockets LGA1155, LGA1150, LGA1151 and LGA1151v2. The set of components that turned out to be necessary for this is described by the following list:
- Processors:
- Intel Core i7-8700K (Coffee Lake, 6 cores + HT, 3.7-4.7 GHz, 12 MB L3);
- Intel Core i7-7700K (Kaby Lake, 4 cores + HT, 4.2-4.5 GHz, 8 MB L3);
- Intel Core i7-6700K (Skylake, 4 cores, 4.0-4.2 GHz, 8 MB L3);
- Intel Core i7-5775C (Broadwell, 4 cores, 3.3-3.7 GHz, 6 MB L3, 128 MB L4);
- Intel Core i7-4790K (Haswell Refresh, 4 cores + HT, 4.0-4.4 GHz, 8 MB L3);
- Intel Core i7-3770K (Ivy Bridge, 4 cores + HT, 3.5-3.9 GHz, 8 MB L3);
- Intel Core i7-2700K (Sandy Bridge, 4 cores + HT, 3.5-3.9 GHz, 8 MB L3).
- CPU cooler: Noctua NH-U14S.
- Motherboards:
- ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero (LGA1151v2, Intel Z370);
- ASUS ROG Maximus IX Hero (LGA1151, Intel Z270);
- ASUS Z97-Pro (LGA1150, Intel Z97);
- ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe (LGA1155, Intel Z77).
- Memory:
- 2 × 8 GB DDR3-2133 SDRAM, 9-11-11-31 (G.Skill TridentX F3-2133C9D-16GTX);
- 2 × 8 GB DDR4-3200 SDRAM, 16-16-16-36 (G.Skill Trident Z RGB F4-3200C16D-16GTZR).
- Video card: NVIDIA Titan X (GP102, 12 GB / 384-bit GDDR5X, 1417-1531 / 10000 MHz).
- Disk subsystem: Samsung 860 PRO 1TB (MZ-76P1T0BW).
- PSU: Corsair RM850i (80 Plus Gold, 850W).
Testing was performed on Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise (v1709) Build 16299 using the following set of drivers:
- Intel Chipset Driver 10.1.1.45;
- Intel Management Engine Interface Driver 11.7.0.1017;
- NVIDIA GeForce 391.35 Driver.
Description of the tools used to measure computational performance:
Complex benchmarks:
- Futuremark PCMark 10 Professional Edition 1.0.1275 - testing in scenarios Essentials (typical work of the average user: launching applications, surfing the Internet, video conferencing), Productivity (office work with a word processor and spreadsheets), Digital Content Creation (digital content creation: editing photos, nonlinear video editing, rendering and visualization of 3D models). OpenCL hardware acceleration has been disabled in testing.
- Futuremark 3DMark Professional Edition 2.4.4264 - testing in the Time Spy Extreme 1.0 scene.
Applications:
- Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 - performance testing for graphics processing. This measures the average execution time of a test script that is a creatively reworked Retouch Artists Photoshop Speed Test that includes typical processing of four 24-megapixel images captured by a digital camera.
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC 7.1 - performance testing for batch processing of a series of images in RAW format. The test scenario includes post-processing and JPEG export at 1920 × 1080 resolution and maximum quality of two hundred 16MP RAW images taken with a Fujifilm X-T1 digital camera.
- Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 - Performance testing for non-linear video editing. This measures the rendering time to H.264 of a Blu-Ray project containing HDV 1080p25 footage with various effects overlay.
- Blender 2.79b - testing the speed of the final rendering in one of the popular free packages for creating three-dimensional graphics. The time taken to build the final model from Blender Cycles Benchmark rev4 is measured.
- Corona 1.3 - testing rendering speed using the renderer of the same name. This measures the build speed of a standard BTR scene used to measure performance.
- Google Chrome 65.0.3325.181 (64-bit) - performance testing of Internet applications built using modern technologies. A specialized test WebXPRT 3 is used, which implements algorithms that are actually used in Internet applications in HTML5 and JavaScript.
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 (15.1) - measuring the compilation time of a large MSVC project - a professional package for creating three-dimensional graphics Blender version 2.79b.
- Stockfish 9 - testing the speed of a popular chess engine. The speed of enumerating options in the position "1q6 / 1r2k1p1 / 4pp1p / 1P1b1P2 / 3Q4 / 7P / 4B1P1 / 2R3K1 w" is measured;
- V-Ray 3.57.01 - testing the performance of the popular rendering system using the standard V-Ray Benchmark application;
- VeraCrypt 1.22.9 - cryptographic performance testing. The benchmark built into the program is used, which uses Kuznyechik-Serpent-Camellia triple encryption.
- WinRAR 5.50 - testing the speed of archiving. The time taken by the archiver to compress a directory with various files with a total volume of 1.7 GB is measured. The maximum compression ratio is used.
- x264 r2851 - testing the speed of video transcoding to H.264 / AVC format. To evaluate performance, the original [email protected] AVC video file with a bit rate of about 30 Mbps.
- x265 2.4 + 14 8bpp - testing the speed of video transcoding into the promising H.265 / HEVC format. To evaluate the performance, the same video file is used as in the x264 transcoding speed test.
Games:
- Ashes of Singularity. 1920 × 1080 resolution: DirectX 11, Quality Profile = High, MSAA = 2x. 3840x2160 resolution: DirectX 11, Quality Profile = Extreme, MSAA = Off.
- Assassin's Creed: Origins. 1920 × 1080 resolution: Graphics Quality = Very High. Resolution 3840 × 2160: Graphics Quality = Very High.
- Battlefield 1. Resolution 1920 × 1080: DirectX 11, Graphics Quality = Ultra. 3840x2160 resolution: DirectX 11, Graphics Quality = Ultra.
- Civilization VI. 1920 x 1080 resolution: DirectX 11, MSAA = 4x, Performance Impact = Ultra, Memory Impact = Ultra. 3840x2160 resolution: DirectX 11, MSAA = 4x, Performance Impact = Ultra, Memory Impact = Ultra.
- Far Cry 5. Resolution 1920 × 1080: Graphics Quality = Ultra, Anti-Aliasing = TAA, Motion Blur = On. 3840x2160 resolution: Graphics Quality = Ultra, Anti-Aliasing = TAA, Motion Blur = On.
- Grand Theft Auto V. Resolution 1920 × 1080: DirectX Version = DirectX 11, FXAA = Off, MSAA = x4, NVIDIA TXAA = Off, Population Density = Maximum, Population Variety = Maximum, Distance Scaling = Maximum, Texture Quality = Very High, Shader Quality = Very High, Shadow Quality = Very High, Reflection Quality = Ultra, Reflection MSAA = x4, Water Quality = Very High, Particles Quality = Very High, Grass Quality = Ultra, Soft Shadow = Softest, Post FX = Ultra, In -Game Depth Of Field Effects = On, Anisotropic Filtering = x16, Ambient Occlusion = High, Tessellation = Very High, Long Shadows = On, High Resolution Shadows = On, High Detail Streaming While Flying = On, Extended Distance Scaling = Maximum, Extended Shadows Distance = Maximum. Resolution 3840x2160: DirectX Version = DirectX 11, FXAA = Off, MSAA = Off, NVIDIA TXAA = Off, Population Density = Maximum, Population Variety = Maximum, Distance Scaling = Maximum, Texture Quality = Very High, Shader Quality = Very High , Shadow Quality = Very High, Reflection Quality = Ultra, Reflection MSAA = x4, Water Quality = Very High, Particles Quality = Very High, Grass Quality = Ultra, Soft Shadow = Softest, Post FX = Ultra, In-Game Depth Of Field Effects = On, Anisotropic Filtering = x16, Ambient Occlusion = High, Tessellation = Very High, Long Shadows = On, High Resolution Shadows = On, High Detail Streaming While Flying = On, Extended Distance Scaling = Maximum, Extended Shadows Distance = Maximum.
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Resolution 1920 × 1080, Graphics Preset = Ultra, Postprocessing Preset = High. Resolution 3840 × 2160, Graphics Preset = Ultra, Postprocessing Preset = High.
- Total War: Warhammer II. 1920 × 1080 resolution: DirectX 12, Quality = Ultra. 3840x2160 resolution: DirectX 12, Quality = Ultra.
- Watch Dogs 2. Resolution 1920 × 1080: Field of View = 70 °, Pixel Density = 1.00, Graphics Quality = Ultra, Extra Details = 100%. Resolution 3840x2160: Field of View = 70 °, Pixel Density = 1.00, Graphics Quality = Ultra, Extra Details = 100%.
In all gaming tests, the results are the average number of frames per second, as well as 0.01-quantile (first percentile) for fps values. The use of 0.01-quantile instead of the minimum fps indicators is due to the desire to clear the results from random performance spikes that were provoked by reasons not directly related to the operation of the main platform components.
⇡ Performance in complex benchmarks
Comprehensive test PCMark 8 shows the weighted average system performance when working in typical common applications of various kinds. And it illustrates well the progress that Intel processors underwent at each stage of the design change. If we talk about the basic Essentials scenario, then the average speed gain for each generation does not exceed the notorious 5 percent. However, it stands out against the general background of the Core i7-4790K, which, thanks to improvements in the microarchitecture and an increase in clock frequencies, was able to provide a good leap in performance beyond the average level. This leap can be seen in the Productivity scenario, according to the results of which the speed of the Core i7-4790K is comparable to the performance of the older processors in the Skylake, Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake families.
The third scenario, Digital Content Creation, which combines resource-intensive creative tasks, gives a completely different picture. Here the fresh Core i7-8700K boasts an 80 percent advantage over the Core i7-2700K, which can be regarded as more than a worthy result of seven years of microarchitecture evolution. Of course, a significant part of this advantage is explained by the increase in the number of computing cores, but even if we compare the performance of the quad-core Core i7-2700K and Core i7-7700K, then in this case the speed gain reaches a solid 53 percent.
The synthetic gaming benchmark 3DMark highlights the advantages of the new processors even more. We use the Time Spy Extreme scenario, which has enhanced optimizations for multi-core architectures, and in it the final rating of the Core i7-8700K is almost three times higher than that of the Core i7-2700K. But a two-fold advantage over Sandy Bridge is also shown by a representative of the Kaby Lake generation, which, like all its predecessors, has four processing cores.
Curiously, the most successful improvement to the original microarchitecture, judging by the results, should be considered the transition from Ivy Bridge to Haswell - at this stage, according to 3D Mark, performance increased by 34 percent. However, Coffee Lake, of course, also has something to brag about, however, Intel processors from 2017-2018 have exactly the same microarchitecture as Skylake, and stand out solely due to extensive amplification - an increase in the number of cores.
⇡ Performance in resource-intensive applications
Overall, application performance has grown significantly over the past seven years of Intel processor evolution. And here we are not talking about the five percent per year, about which it is customary to joke in the ranks of the intellectual-haters. Today's Core i7s are more than double their 2011 predecessors. Of course, the transition to a six-core system played a big role here, but microarchitectural improvements and an increase in the clock frequency made a significant contribution. The most effective design in this regard was Haswell. It significantly increased the frequency, and also appeared support for AVX2 instructions, which gradually became stronger in applications for working with multimedia content and in rendering tasks.
It is worth noting that in a number of cases, upgrading processors in systems on which professional tasks are solved can provide a truly breakthrough improvement in operating speed. In particular, a threefold increase in performance when moving from Sandy Bridge to Coffee Lake can be obtained when transcoding video with modern encoders, as well as in the final rendering using V-Ray. A good increase is also noted with non-linear video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro. However, even if your field of activity is not directly related to solving such problems, in any of the applications we tested, the increase was at least 50 percent.
Rendering:
Photo processing:
Video processing:
Video transcoding:
Compilation:
Archiving:
Encryption:
Chess:
Internet surfing:
In order to more clearly imagine how the power of Intel processors has changed with the change of the last seven generations of microarchitecture, we have compiled a special table. It shows the percentage values of the average performance gain in resource-intensive applications, obtained when changing from one flagship processor of the Core i7 series to another.
As you can see, Coffee Lake has proven to be the most significant design update for Intel's mainstream processors. A 1.5-fold increase in the number of cores gives the speed a significant boost, thanks to which you can get a very noticeable acceleration even with processors of recent generations when switching to the Core i7-8700K. Intel has seen a comparable increase in performance since 2011 only once - with the introduction of the Haswell processor design (improved by Devil's Canyon). Then it was due to serious changes in the microarchitecture, which were carried out simultaneously with a noticeable increase in the clock frequency.
⇡ Gaming performance
The fact that the performance of Intel processors is steadily increasing is well seen by users of resource-intensive applications. However, there is a different opinion among the players. Still, games, even the most modern ones, do not use sets of vector instructions, are poorly optimized for multithreading, and generally scale their performance at a much more restrained pace due to the fact that, in addition to computing resources, they also need graphics. So does it make sense to upgrade processors for those who use computers primarily for games?
Let's try to answer this question as well. To begin with, we present the test results in FullHD resolution, where the processor dependence is manifested more strongly, since the graphics card is not a serious limitation for the fps indicator and allows the processors to demonstrate what they are capable of more clearly.
The situation is similar in different games, so let's take a look at the average relative indicators of gaming performance in FullHD. They are summarized in the following table, which shows the gains obtained when switching from one flagship processor of the Core i7 series to another.
Indeed, gaming performance scales much less when new generations of processors are released than in applications. If it could be said that over the past seven years Intel's processors have approximately doubled, then in terms of gaming applications, the Core i7-8700K is only 36 percent faster than Sandy Bridge. And if you compare the latest Core i7 with some Haswell, then the advantage of the Core i7-8700K will be only 11 percent, despite a 1.5-fold increase in the number of processing cores. It seems that players who do not want to update their LGA1155 systems are somewhat right. They won't even get close to gaining as much content creators as content creators.
The difference in the results is quite weak, the overall situation is as follows.
It turns out that 4K players - owners of Core i7-4790K and later processors - have nothing to worry about now. Until a new generation of graphics accelerators comes to the market, with a gaming load at ultra-high resolutions, such CPUs will not turn out to be a bottleneck, and the performance is completely limited by the video card. A processor upgrade may make sense only for systems equipped with Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge retroprocessors, but even in this case, the increase in frame rate will not exceed 6-9 percent.
⇡ Power Consumption
It would be interesting to supplement performance tests with energy consumption measurements. Over the past seven years, Intel has changed technology standards twice and six times - the declared scope of the thermal package. In addition, the Haswell and Broadwell processors, unlike the others, used a fundamentally different power scheme and were equipped with an integrated voltage converter. All this, naturally, somehow influenced real consumption.
The Corsair RM850i digital power supply we used in the test system allows us to control the consumed and output electrical power, which we use for measurements. The graph below shows the total system consumption (without monitor) measured "after" the power supply, which is the sum of the power consumption of all components involved in the system. The efficiency of the power supply itself is not taken into account in this case.
In the idle state, the situation fundamentally changed with the introduction of the Broadwell design, when Intel switched to a 14nm process technology and introduced deeper energy-saving modes into circulation.
When rendering, it turns out that the increase in the number of processing cores in Coffee Lake has a significant impact on its power consumption. This processor has become significantly more voracious than its predecessors. The most economical representatives of the Core i7 series are the carriers of the Broadwell and Ivy Bridge microarchitectures, which is quite consistent with the TDP characteristics that Intel declares for them.
Interestingly, at the highest loads, the consumption of the Core i7-8700K is similar to that of the Devil's Canyon processor and does not seem so outrageous any more. But in general, the energy appetites of Core i7 processors of different generations differ very noticeably, and more modern CPU models do not always become more economical than their predecessors. A big step in improving the characteristics of consumption and heat dissipation was made in the Ivy Bridge generation, in addition, Kaby Lake is not bad in this regard. Now, however, it seems that improving the energy efficiency of flagship desktop processors is no longer an important task for Intel.
Addition: performance at the same clock frequency
Comparative testing of mass Core i7 processors of different generations can be interesting even if all participants are brought to a single clock frequency. Often, the performance of newer representatives is higher due to the fact that Intel increases the clock frequencies in them. Tests at the same frequency make it possible to isolate the extensive frequency component from the overall result, which depends on the microarchitecture only indirectly, and to focus on the issues of “intensification”.
Performance measured without regard to clock frequencies may also be of interest to enthusiasts who operate CPUs outside the nominal modes, at frequencies that are very different from the nominal values. Guided by these considerations, we decided to add an additional discipline to the practical comparison - tests of all processors at the same frequency of 4.5 GHz. This frequency value was chosen based on the fact that it is not difficult to overclock almost any Intel processor of the last years of release to it. Only a representative of the Broadwell generation had to be excluded from such a comparison, since the overclocking potential of the Core i7-5775C is extremely limited and one could not even dream of taking the 4.5 GHz frequency. The other six processors went through another test cycle.
Even if we disregard the fact that the frequencies of Intel processors are growing at least slowly, the Core i7 with each new generation is getting better only due to structural changes and optimizations in the microarchitecture. Judging by the performance in applications for creating and processing digital content, we can conclude that the average increase in specific productivity at each stage is about 15 percent.
However, in games in which the optimization of the program code for modern microarchitectures occurs with a large lag, the situation with the increase in performance is somewhat different:
The games clearly show how the development of Intel microarchitectures stopped at the Skylake generation, and even an increase in the number of computing cores in Coffee Lake does little to increase gaming performance.
Of course, the lack of growth in specific gaming performance does not mean that newer Core i7s are uninteresting for gamers. In the end, keep in mind that the above results are for frame rates for CPUs running at the same clock speed, and newer processors not only have higher nominal frequencies, but also overclock much better than the old ones. This means that overclockers may be interested in switching to Coffee Lake not because of its microarchitecture, which has remained unchanged since the Skylake days, and not because of six cores, which give a minimum increase in speed in games, but for another reason. - thanks to overclocking capabilities. In particular, taking the 5-gigahertz line for Coffee Lake is quite a feasible task, which cannot be said about its predecessors.
⇡ Conclusion
It so happened that it is customary to criticize Intel for the strategy of a measured and unhurried implementation of improvements to the core architecture, which has been chosen in recent years, which gives a not too noticeable increase in performance when moving to each next generation of CPUs. However, detailed testing shows that, in general, real performance does not grow at such a sluggish pace. You just need to consider two points. First, many of the improvements added to new processors do not reveal themselves immediately, but only after some time, when the software acquires appropriate optimizations. Secondly, albeit small, but a gradual improvement in productivity that occurs every year, in total, gives a very significant effect if we consider the situation in the context of longer time periods.
In confirmation, it is enough to cite one very indicative fact: the newest Core i7-8700K is more than twice as fast as its predecessor from 2011. And even if we compare the new product with the Core i7-4790K processor, which was released in 2014, it turns out that in four years the performance has managed to grow at least one and a half times.
However, you need to understand that the above growth rates relate to resource-intensive applications for creating and processing digital content. And this is where the watershed ends: professional users who use their systems for work reap far greater dividends from improving processors than those who use a computer purely for entertainment. And while for content creators, frequent platform and processor upgrades are more than a meaningful step to increase productivity, the conversation about gamers is completely different.
Gaming is a very conservative industry that reacts very slowly to any changes in processor architecture. In addition, gaming performance is more dependent on the performance of graphics cards, not processors. Therefore, it turns out that users of gaming systems see the development of Intel CPUs that has taken place in recent years in a completely different way. Where the "pros" report a twofold increase in performance, gamers get, at best, only a 35% increase in fps. And this means that there is practically no point for them in pursuit of new generations of Intel CPUs. Even the older Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge series processors have enough power to unleash the potential of a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti-class graphics card.
Thus, while the players in the new processors may be attracted not so much by the increase in performance as by the new opportunities. They can be some additional functions that appear in new platforms, for example, support for high-speed drives. Or the best overclocking potential, the limits of which, despite Intel's problems with mastering new technological processes, are still gradually being pushed to more distant frontiers. However, in order for the players to receive a clear and understandable signal for modernization, first of all, there must be a noticeable increase in the speed of gaming GPUs. Until then, even the owners of Intel CPUs seven years ago will continue to feel themselves completely not deprived of processor performance.
Nevertheless, this situation is quite capable of changing the processors of the Coffee Lake generation. The increase in the number of computing cores that has occurred in them (up to six, and in the future up to eight pieces) carries a powerful emotional charge. Due to this, the Core i7-8700K seems to be a very successful upgrade for almost any PC user, because many people think that six-cores, due to the potential inherent in them, can remain a relevant option for a longer period. Whether this is really so is hard to say now. But, summarizing all of the above, we can confirm that upgrading the system with the transition to Coffee Lake in any case makes much more sense than the upgrade options that the microprocessor giant has offered so far.
