Intel Core i9-7900X CPU Reviews

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FrgMstr

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The Intel Core i9-7900X 10-core Skylake-X Processor Review @ PCPer

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Intel Core i9-7900X And Core i7-7740X CPU Review: Skylake X and Kaby Lake X Debut @ Hot Hardware

Intel's Core i9-7900X CPU reviewed, part one @ Tech Report

Intel Core i9 7900X processor review @ Guru 3D
 
Sikkyu said:
Guru3d also noted some odd ram and bios behavior but that it should be fixed soon.
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From PCPer. - "It is worth noting here that our early testing with the X299 motherboards has including troubling amounts of performance instability and questionable compatibility. Though the impact of this for Intel has been much less dramatic, it is reminiscent of the issues that were a bane to AMD at the outset of the Ryzen release. "
 
If I were doing tasks that took advantage of that many cores I'd look at the price/performance/power comparison, and I don't think it would be favorable toward Intel. Since the most performance intensive thing I regularly do is game, I don't think the X299 platform is going to be noticeably better than my 6700K at 4.6GHz.

This platform will mature, but with the artificial limitations and high prices it's still a mess.
 
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Really surprised by those power results that high (Guru3D recorded 380w system when OC'ed...). I suppose that goes hand and hand with the high temps.
 
All of the more reason GPU upgrades > CPU Upgrades. I have no idea what Intel did with this one. Those Thermals... Yikes..
 
yyv_146 said:
One could argue that you can buy the 7740k now and upgrade to a better CPU in the future, which may be attractive to some.

But the prices don't work in Intel's favor, and Ryzen is the more mature of the two platforms as well.
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I tend to base my opinions on TODAY, not what might happen in the future.
 
yyv_146 said:
One could argue that you can buy the 7740k now and upgrade to a better CPU in the future, which may be attractive to some.

But the prices don't work in Intel's favor, and Ryzen is the more mature of the two platforms as well.
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The thing might not even work in the same mb that the 10c will. I don't see a lot of the mb makers spending a lot of time setting up $300+ mb to be run with a gimped chip.
 
for $1,000 i would f'ing hope so, but there's still LOTS to learn about threadripper

the bigger issue is that intel has dictated that motherboards need to be FULLY featured, from top to bottom of the sku range, but that the CPU you buy will dictate what performance and feature sets will be enabled on that board. it's a very different strategy, and one that really hinders the motherboard manufactures in differentiating their lineup across multiple lines at varying price points.

there's lots of content out there on this. LinusTechTips, BitWit, and Jayz2Cents all had interesting, satirical videos out on it from the get go based on what was learned at computex. they've all got parts in hand now and it seems the only worthy point mentioning is L2 mem
 
imafrk said:
for $1,000 i would f'ing hope so, but there's still LOTS to learn about threadripper

the bigger issue is that intel has dictated that motherboards need to be FULLY featured, from top to bottom of the sku range, but that the CPU you buy will dictate what performance and feature sets will be enabled on that board. it's a very different strategy, and one that really hinders the motherboard manufactures in differentiating their lineup across multiple lines at varying price points.

there's lots of content out there on this. LinusTechTips, BitWit, and Jayz2Cents all had interesting, satirical videos out on it from the get go based on what was learned at computex. they've all got parts in hand now and it seems the only worthy point mentioning is L2 mem
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What is "wayot.org"? I'm hesitant to register for an account just to see past the completely white space front page.
 
Singularity_Survivor said:
Yikes, those temperatures. And Intel really screwed the pooch by handicapping the 7740K. I can't think of a single reason for anyone to buy an X299/7740K combo, totally pointless. Am I wrong?
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Everyone everywhere has had a collective WTF? reaction to the 4 core KabyX on this platform. It makes no sense at all. Hard to imagine how this got past review.
 
Snowdog said:
Everyone everywhere has had a collective WTF? reaction to the 4 core KabyX on this platform. It makes no sense at all. Hard to imagine how this got past review.
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Negatives only matter when its the underdog?

Just finished watching the Linus video. I don't think I've ever seen him so exasperated before?
 
yyv_146 said:
Some people don't have the budget for a full editing/rendering workstation at the moment - and for them, a $300 chip might tide things over until they can spring for the 7900k or something.

One other reason might be pure single threaded performance - such as if I were to build a workstation for legacy coding applications where no more than a single core ever matters.
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Then I would suggest saving your money and waiting for the entire platform cost to come down.
 
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11550...-core-i9-7900x-i7-7820x-and-i7-7800x-tested/7

Some of the issue they mention sound an awful lot like what Ryzen had - including inexplicably low gaming benches. I guess there are some pitfalls to cramming a server oriented CPU into a desktop.

The real gem is that switching between KabyX and SkyX will fry the chip if you don't clear the bios. :D Enjoy!
When we started testing for this review, the main instructions we were given was that when changing between Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors, be sure to remove AC power and hold the reset BIOS button for 30 seconds. This comes down to an issue with supporting both sets of CPUs at once: Skylake-X features some form of integrated voltage regulator (somewhat like the FIVR on Broadwell), whereas Kaby Lake-X is more motherboard controlled. As a result, some of the voltages going in to the CPU, if configured incorrectly, can cause damage. This is where I say I broke a CPU: our Kaby Lake-X Core i7 died on the test bed. We are told that in the future there should be a way to switch between the two without having this issue, but there are some other issues as well.

After speaking with a number of journalists in my close circle, it was clear that some of the GPU testing was not reflective of where the processors sat in the product stack. Some results were 25-50% worse than we expected for Skylake-X (Kaby Lake-X seemingly unaffected), scoring disastrously low frame rates. This was worrying.

Speaking with the motherboard manufacturers, it's coming down to a few issues: managing the mesh frequency (and if the mesh frequency has a turbo), controlling turbo modes, and controlling features like Speed Shift. 'Controlling' in this case can mean boosting voltages to support it better, overriding the default behavior for 'performance' which works on some tests but not others, or disabling the feature completely.

We were still getting new BIOSes two days before launch, right when I need to fly half-way across the world to cover other events. Even retesting the latest BIOS we had for the boards we had, there still seems to be an underlying issue with either the games or the power management involved. This isn't necessarily a code optimization issue for the games themselves: the base microarchitecture on the CPU is still the same with a slight cache adjustment, so if a Skylake-X starts performing below an old Sandy Bridge Core i3, it's not on the game.

We're still waiting to hear for BIOS updates, or reasons why this is the case. Some games are affected a lot, others not at all. Any game we are testing which ends up being GPU limited is unaffected, showing that this is a CPU issue.
 
Seems we have to give it a couple months after release to get bios sorted. It is just like Ryzen release. Both were rushed out with motherboard manufacturer not given much time to develope.
 
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vegeta535 said:
Seems we have to give it a couple months after release to get bios shorted. It is just like Ryzen release. Both were rushed out with motherboard manufacturer not given much time to develope.
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Eh...? Ryzen is a completely new ground up product line. The other is hyper mature, yet pushed out w/o time to develop or much pre-thought. Do they both deserve the same patience?
 
Still rocking my Haswell era CPU, still happy with it. But with Intel pulling silliness like this, it's likely when I get to do a new build, it will be AMD.
 
at 4k ... Intel and Ryzen perform the same in all gaming benchmarks due to cpu bottleneck.

At least from everything I've seen.

With that said lets hope that AMD has been able to correct the issues Ryzen had at launch with it's new HEDT platform / 16 core / 32 thread.

I can tell you that this 16 core / 32 thread AMD is going to be a huge thing for content creators.
 
The 7820X looks to be the sweet spot for performance/value freaks like myself.

The 7900X makes the 6950X look like highway robbery. I guess it is the sacrificial lamb.
 
thesmokingman said:
Eh...? Ryzen is a completely new ground up product line. The other is hyper mature, yet pushed out w/o time to develop or much pre-thought. Do they both deserve the same patience?
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Yes and x299 is not even out yet. Most issues could be fixed in the next bios update. Yes it is not a totally new platform but it is a new one. Motherboard maker proabably didn't have enough time to test and fix all the bugs.
 
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Singularity_Survivor said:
Yikes, those temperatures. And Intel really screwed the pooch by handicapping the 7740K. I can't think of a single reason for anyone to buy an X299/7740K combo, totally pointless. Am I wrong?
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There are people here that will buy intel no matter what.
 
those chips are suited for the naked die water block market.
can they actually run at stock without delid?
 
I really hope Threadripper puts the screws to Intel. By the time I'm ready to upgrade my CPU AMD should have had time to mature their process, boost clock speeds and work out any kinks with their mobo partners.
 
Wow, the $390 i7-7800X does not look good compared to the $340 R7 1700X in AnandTech's review. These two chips trade blows, often performing within 10-15% of each other. IPC-dependent tasks favor Intel and thread count-dependent tasks favor AMD.

...And the 7800X uses 146W at load while the 1700X uses 82W.

...And the X299 boards start at $250 while a solid B350 board is $100.

You'd have to be either totally goofy or simply not able to wait two months to buy into the X299 platform right now with Threadripper so close on the horizon.
 
Is it me or does the X299/7740K combo feel like something Intel would have announced/released on April Fools Day? :confused:
 
Nukester said:
All of the more reason GPU upgrades > CPU Upgrades. I have no idea what Intel did with this one. Those Thermals... Yikes..
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Exactly. I had a 4470k and an R9-290. I'm guessing I did better upgrading to dual 1070s (found a cheap deal on one and then another a month later) rather than going ryzen or 7700k with a 290...

Love playing Shadow of Mordor @ 1440p/Ultra and almost never going under 95fps...
 
leathco016 said:
Still rocking my Haswell era CPU, still happy with it. But with Intel pulling silliness like this, it's likely when I get to do a new build, it will be AMD.
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My two main systems are an e3-1240 v3 and a 4770k....Uprading to something newer & replacing all my ram doesn't seem worth it right now.
 
anandtech lost a lot of credibility from me.

seems like theyre defending intel and shitting on AMD pretty hard in their review.

also 60% of their articles have multiple english issues or missing information, in this review they had to update and say "sorry refresh page" in the comments when people point out they left out stuff.
 
yyv_146 said:
One could argue that you can buy the 7740k now and upgrade to a better CPU in the future, which may be attractive to some.

...
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Yes, I've heard this argument before and its mostly bunk. With Intel, its 95% bunk. AMD maybe 85% bunk at best. At least AM3+ stuck around for a long time but that usually doesn't happen. After having enough mobos go bad on me or start acting wonky after 3+ years, I regret not just buying a new mobo for my 8350. I ended up buying a spare one just in case.
 
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