Kaby Lake 7700K vs Sandy Bridge 2600K IPC Review @ [H]

Great, but depressing article!

I've given up on Intel for gaming CPUs. I will stay on my ~3960x until Ryzen comes out.

Like Kyle said, if something even remotely decent comes out, I'm going AMD.

Last AMD rig I had was a Thuban.

Actually, can't wait fort Ryzen, Vega, 1080Ti all to come out, and VR to settle down.

Looking forward to that next build.
 
Interesting article. I would still be using my 2600K if the damn Mobo hadn't conked out. A year later I used the 2600K for a build for my father and guess what? It wasn't easy finding a mobo for it. As a matter of fact, at the time there was only one online store even carrying a P68 and I paid around $200 for it at the time.
 
so in another words i dont have to upgrade my 3770k for a very long time. intel is only shooting themselves on the foot by not advancing or better perfomance on their cpu's to get us to upgrade. this cpu i have will last me another 5+ years more. but if ryzen proves to me much better in perfomance then ya might upgrade next year.
 
Interesting article. I would still be using my 2600K if the damn Mobo hadn't conked out. A year later I used the 2600K for a build for my father and guess what? It wasn't easy finding a mobo for it. As a matter of fact, at the time there was only one online store even carrying a P68 and I paid around $200 for it at the time.

Someone should come out with a mobo for the 2600k with some built in new features.
 
Hell, my 2600k has outlasted its first mainboard, a batch of memory and 2 video cards and is still running strong at 5ghz. I'm curious now as to how well it would fare against a 7700k at this kind of overclock.
 
Still rockin' a 2700K processor and have really found no need to replace anything save the video card. This article has confirmed that my choice not to upgrade the rest was wise. In fact I want to thank Intel for saving me so much money over the past several years! Ryzen MAY change my mind but I'm not going to spend a thousand dollars on the chip.
 
I have a 2700k bought from [H] user that has seen upwards of 5.2 ghz (not going to try that again anytime soon) back in the day, those chips are solid!

Would you be interested in comparing sandy to ryzen once available?
 
Yay, absolutely no reason to "upgrade" from an x79 setup.

And about a week ago I upgraded my wife's computer to an x79 setup (E5-1650 v1) for less than $200 because all I needed was the CPU and RAM.

Rig in sig is not going anywhere soon unless Ryzen is a whole lot better, but with only dual channel RAM I am not expecting it to get anywhere near the RAM throughput I already have.
 
Like most people reading here, i'm still waiting for the 'next big thing', my Xeon X5650 @ 4Ghz is still running fine, but i have found myself building other systems for people using AMD due to cost concerns. I've never had a PC setup for so long, my P6T Deluxe V2 is still running strong, no SATA3 or any fancy new SSD tech but still works fine for what i need, coupled with a 980Ti and my games run fine at 1600P

I would love to build a new PC, it's well overdue, hoping Ryzen fits the bill and i may finally retire my X58 rig.
 
Great Job Kyle! These are the kind of comparisons i'm looking for. Can't wait to read your review on Ryzen. Than and only then will i make my mind up to buy AMD again.
 
Now this article has some really useful data. Thanks Kyle! My 4770K is still solid and not seeing much reason to upgrade other than moving to a RYZEN to support the competition (if it ends up being competitive). This would give my son an upgrade from his old i7 930 processor (1st generation), which still holds its own for an 8 year-old CPU.
 
I'm thinking that the real need for upgrading- or utility, if not need- is for 2500k and possibly 3750k users.

When my 2500k stopped holding its overclock (4.5GHz) and started bluescreening at stock under any load last summer, I didn't bat an eye- it was time.

2500k -> 6700k- not just IPC and other hardware acceleration block upgrades, but as we've found lately, Hyperthreading actually makes a difference for games, and PCIe 2.0 -> 3.0 for SLI
4x4GB DDR3-1600 -> 2x16GB DDR4-3000- RAM speed (in terms of absolute latency) has been correlated to minimum/median low framerates
Z77 -> Z170- not actually a big deal IMO for desktop usage or gaming

But overall, it was a pretty big realized performance boost, with more consistent framerates across the board, and definitely helped get the full potential of the 144Hz monitor I bought soon after. The 2500k was struggling at 60Hz!
 
Good man. Indeed thanks for the time you've taken to set this up. Bet you had fun at the same time. Love the pic of my motherboard, well not mine but same. Looks like Intel hit it out of the park with the 2600k. Does a 20 percent farther home run increase your box score by 20 percent? Nope. Still just 1 run.
 
Yeah, looking at this, it is nice to see that those tiny little single digit percentage bumps generation over generation for four gens have added up to a real performance difference.

That being said, this is the type of real performance difference we used to see from one generation to the next, so it's also easy to be underwhelmed.

The question is, how much of this slowing in pace is due to each of the below factors:


1.) Diminished competition from AMD and other CPU manufacturers.

2.) Shifted focus away from desktop performance to mobile and low power optimizations; and

3.) Approaching the limitations of silicon, where each successive die shrink is much more difficult to accomplish.


I'd argue it's probably ~ 20%, 30% and 50% respectively, but I'd be curious what others think.
 
Thank you gentlemen for doing this, I find these are the most useful types of articles. The performance delta (or lack thereof) not that surprising to me, we've been here before. Back in the late 90's Intel was cruising along with their PII and PIII chips with barely any competition from AMD. They were releasing these CPUs slowly because why would they hurry? Then AMD released the original Athlon that blew everyone's nips off, which forced Intel into an arms race that AMD eventually could not keep up with. That arms race also made chipset manufacturers step up their game, and we got many innovations because of it. The very same conditions exist today. Let's hope AMD takes advantage because honestly the hardware market has been pretty boring for the last few years.
 
This makes me wonder what it'll take to push me to upgrade my main box (see sig) Other than no NVMe support there's really nothing out there that's a major upgrade... I suppose a 6900K would get me more cores or a 6800/6850K would get me more MHZ, but it wouldn't amount to much (and I'm sure I could push my 3930K higher, I just don't have a need)
 
I'm betting we're seeing as much IPC as Intel can deliver, each generation; here they're fighting x86 as much as anything, and much of our boosts have come from extending the instruction set with successive versions of SSE and AVX.

And I'm thankful Intel has thrown everything they have at mobile; I don't think that has compromised their desktop line in the least.

The real leach on total performance has more to do with Intel not wanting to throw more cores at consumers. Over two-thirds of their consumer parts are taken up by video lately (someone check that, but it's a lot), and space could easily be used to provide a hex-core part, even for mobile, if they so desired.
 
Intel is probably pissed at Kyle for this article! In other words, great work!

I'm looking forward to your follow-up reviews with the 2600k in gpu limited gaming, specifically minimum frames at 1440p+ as well as in VR games.

My 4.6ghz 2600k was the best purchase I've ever made.
 
The biggest thing you are missing out on is M.2 / NVMe based SSD's.
NVMe is supported if you have an IveyBridge chip (or newer), even in a z68 board. The only caveat is that older motherboards can't boot from PCIe storage, though you can hack your motherboard's BIOS to circumvent that limitation as well.

You'd need a PCIe-to-M.2 adapter to actually plug the SSD into a z68 or z77 motherboard, but once installed, your OS will pick it up as a secondary disk.
 
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Someone should come out with a mobo for the 2600k with some built in new features.
The Mobo failing is going to be why i eventually move off this chip. it has a laundry list of failures, none mission critical, but how long until that changes? if there was a stock of NIB Z68 Mobos out there, i'd be a buyer at a reasonable price.
 
But I will suggest that when we go back and test real-world gaming, that delta will get a lot more narrow. I am very interested in collecting data on this in the coming weeks.

I'd be shocked if you saw more then a 5% performance gain in real-world. Modern GPUs will botlteneck long before the CPU will.
 
Yeah, looking at this, it is nice to see that those tiny little single digit percentage bumps generation over generation for four gens have added up to a real performance difference.

That being said, this is the type of real performance difference we used to see from one generation to the next, so it's also easy to be underwhelmed.

The question is, how much of this slowing in pace is due to each of the below factors:


1.) Diminished competition from AMD and other CPU manufacturers.

2.) Shifted focus away from desktop performance to mobile and low power optimizations; and

3.) Approaching the limitations of silicon, where each successive die shrink is much more difficult to accomplish.


I'd argue it's probably ~ 20%, 30% and 50% respectively, but I'd be curious what others think.

More of the second, less of the first. Closer to 0%, 50%, 50%.
 
The biggest thing you are missing out on is M.2 / NVMe based SSD's. That's pretty much it. I've got an EVO 850 in my laptop and I've used them on desktops before. They are not bad drives for the price but they don't hold a candle to the good NVMe drives. If gaming performance is your primary focus then the only benefit there are slightly faster level load times in some games. Disk I/O performance is a big deal for some usage scenarios as well but I think people who need that probably already made the jump or would if they could.

There are a lot of improvements in the newer motherboards. The UEFI BIOS is better, there are more redundancies in some BIOS ROMs, (BIOS Flashback, resume flash on power failure, etc.) additional tools and features such as secure SSD erase software being built in. Onboard fan control is vastly improved over those LGA 1155 based motherboards. You get reduced power consumption as well although this is a minor issue as the cost of powering a motherboard is almost nothing regardless of brand, model or generation. Sure PCIe, USB 3.0, 3.1 etc. are all great things if you are doing something to leverage those technologies. Most people really aren't going to outside of the occasional flash drive transfers. If you like built in WiFi that's significantly improved as well.

None of these upgrades are a big deal outside of storage I/O options and even the benefits of those are situational based on usage scenarios.

Yeah, I still have a i7-3930k in an x79 board. I'm starting to itch for an upgrade, but less because of raw performance, and more because of features like these, as well as lower heat. The ess heat a chip produces, the lower I can spin my fans in my water loop, and I like silent computing :p
 
The Mobo failing is going to be why i eventually move off this chip. it has a laundry list of failures, none mission critical, but how long until that changes? if there was a stock of NIB Z68 Mobos out there, i'd be a buyer at a reasonable price.

THANKS for shipping your system to me for this review. Would you be terribly upset if I shipped you something a bit newer back and kept your terribly shitty CPU and Mobo? :) I am sure I can find a CPU, RAM, and motherboard that might upgrade you a bit. :) You da man!

20170113_095831.jpg
 
NVMe is supported if you have an IveyBridge chip (or newer), even in a z68 board. The only caveat is that older motherboards can't boot from PCIe storage, though you can hack your motherboard's BIOS to circumvent that limitation as well.

You'd need a PCIe-to-M.2 adapter to actually plug the SSD into a z68 or z77 motherboard, but once installed, your OS will pick it up as a secondary disk.

I know those drives can be used on the older motherboards via adapters. I was talking about booting to NVMe drives which isn't supported because the UEFI of the days didn't have the feature. I don't know how well modifying the UEFI on those works. As I understand it, that's hit and miss at best. That's not a solution everyone will want to try I'm sure.
 
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NVMe is supported if you have an IveyBridge chip (or newer), even in a z68 board. The only caveat is that older motherboards can't boot from PCIe storage, though you can hack your motherboard's BIOS to circumvent that limitation as well.

You'd need a PCIe-to-M.2 adapter to actually plug the SSD into a z68 or z77 motherboard, but once installed, your OS will pick it up as a secondary disk.


Interesting. I wonder how my old Sandy Bridge-E x79 system can boot from an Intel 750 PCIe SSD without any modifications or tricks. Is the 750 not NVME? Or did SB-E also get NVME support?
 
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I reckon of the AMD chips were as good as we are all hoping they will be, they would be in the shops by now.
 
Interesting. I wonder how my old Sandy Bridge-E x79 system can boot from an Intel 750 PCIe SSD without any modifications or tricks. Is the 750 not NVME? Or did SB-E also get NVME support?

If I were to guess (I'm lazy), the Intel 750 has its own BIOS, working like an add-in RAID card of yesteryear. Beyond that, it is certainly NVMe, but that's irrelevant in this context.

(M.2 NVMe support would allow the drive to be seen by the UEFI directly, skipping that complication)
 
Interesting article, I always though there was an average of a 40% increase in IPC between Sandy Bridge and Kaby Lake/Sky Lake but apparently not. I didn't really notice much difference when I upgraded from my I7 920 to a 5820K in real word performance but the benchmarks certainly showed there was. I upgraded more for the new features like M.2, SATA3 and USB3.0/3.1. I guess that seems to be the main reason to upgrade now days along with energy savings. It doesn't seem like Intel cares about performance anymore or more likely they have hit a sealing with core architecture. Tuff to say when you have no real competition why would you need to be competitive with yourself? Not to mention most people buy laptops and the Enthusiast market is kind of small though that is were the profits are it is easy to see why we don't see much progress anymore. Seems all the advancements has far as Moore's Law go are in display technology, memory and storage not to mention GPU where at least there is some competition. Oh well, this is good for me, it is expensive to upgrade CPU's and motherboards every couple of years having a 5 to 7 year upgrade path is a lot better for the pocket book. lol
 
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Great review as usual! Looking forward to the VR review with higher quality gaming benchmarks. (y)
 
More of the second, less of the first. Closer to 0%, 50%, 50%.
IMO more like 10%, 45%, 45%. I think competition has something to do with it. Just not much.

Thankyou [H] for the article it was interesting. Waiting for Ryzen and if it is at least as good as Broadwell-E and is priced similarly. I'll be skipping the latter and going with the former around the end of Feb. Need to know what the motherboard picture is going to look like too. Do not want buggy hardware.

I suspect this upgrade from my 3570K is going to last at least a good 4-5 years if the current situation is any indicator.
 
Interesting article. I would still be using my 2600K if the damn Mobo hadn't conked out. A year later I used the 2600K for a build for my father and guess what? It wasn't easy finding a mobo for it. As a matter of fact, at the time there was only one online store even carrying a P68 and I paid around $200 for it at the time.

I actually built my system for longevity and tried to pick parts that would last a long time, because I suspected I'd be using this computer for a while. After all, I used to get quite a bit of milage out of hardware that was only half or a quarter as powerful as the average new system, slowly upgrading just about everything but the CPU and the Motherboard over time. So I'll probably end up using this one into the ground. Keeping the same system for 3-5 years rather than just 2 used to be really painful back when I didn't have a lot of money. Now that I actually have money, there's little to spend it on except new graphics cards. This is by far the easiest... what, four, five years I've ever done. Let's just say I'm not going to envy the people with Kaby Lake processors the same way I used to envy people with Pentium 4 or Athlon XP (2001) systems back when I had a K6-2 (1998). Or the way I envied people with Pentium II systems (1997) back when I had a 486 (1993). I can totally live with the performance difference between my system and the guy with a Kaby Lake without worrying about how long there will be support for the last version of Windows my hardware can run, or feeling frustrated at all the software I can't run.

Incidentally... I'm pretty sure you could have also gotten a Z77 board for that 2600. Sandy Bridge chips do work with Ivy Bridge motherboards, IIRC. I distinctly remember that the Z68 occupied a really short frame of time as a stopgap between P67 and Z77.
 
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I'd love to get NVMe support on my DX79SI if possible, that's the only reason I'd consider replacing it currently
 
I know those drives can be used on the older motherboards via adapters. I was talking about booting to NVMe drives which isn't supported because the UEFI of the days didn't have the feature. I don't know how well modifying the UEFI on those works. As I understand it, that's hit and miss at best. That's not a solution everyone will want to try I'm sure.
I actually have a BIOS for my board (Asus P8 Z68-V Gen3) modified and ready to flash, just waiting on the M.2 SSD and adapter :D

I'll let you know how it goes, though I don't expect any trouble (I'm using the same board as the person who developed this hack in the first place, paired with a Core i7 3770k).
 
Looking forward to the real world gaming review, especially the minimum fps as that seems to be the one thing I see mentioned as a good reason to be on a Haswell or newer cpu.

On the topic of lack of improvements its been 3 reasons causing this for years now.

1. Lack of strong competition from AMD
2. Limitations of physics as we march towards the limits of what is possible.
3. The shift towards power optimization. To this day I still believe there has been a huge paradigm shift at Intel that is only publicly hinted at through the obvious focus on lower power initiatives with laptops and tablets, but move covertly through the great Tick shift that began with Ivy Bridge. I don't believe its a coincidence that Broadwell was initially Rockwell and Skymont will now be Cannonlake. Add to that the occasional statements I've seen from Intel people over the years with comments referencing their "transistor library" that they use to tweak CPU's between focuses on clockspeed, power draw, and heat considerations.

All of this leads me to believe Intel could, if needed, deliver a cpu that clocks higher and if properly motivated by competition drive IPC gains.
 
I am so happy to see this article.

Thank you for taking into consideration that many of your readers are still running older hardware. So many reviews only compare the last 2 or 3 generations.

I have been seeing so many peanut gallery comments on other sites' comments pages where people are essentially guessing how Kaby Lake compares to Sandy Bridge, and the numbers are way off.

It is so nice to have actual empirical analysis of this.

I have been trying to understand where my Xeon X5680 (almost equivalent to 980X) stands in today's market. This really helps a lot.
 
Awesome, thanks for the article. Looking forward to the real world game review as well. I'm still rocking a 2600k, and just dropped in a 1070. So curious to see how much improvement a cpu upgrade might get me.

I swear though, when I finally retire this 2600k - I'm framing the fucking thing and hanging it on my wall.
 
Awesome, thanks for the article. Looking forward to the real world game review as well. I'm still rocking a 2600k, and just dropped in a 1070. So curious to see how much improvement a cpu upgrade might get me.

I swear though, when I finally retire this 2600k - I'm framing the fucking thing and hanging it on my wall.

I swear I am doing that same thing with my Gulftown Xeons and original 2013 Nvidia GTX Titan. This build is the longest I have ever used a single computer without modification because it was simply so powerful when put together. I think the 2nd longest I ever went was with my ATI 9700 Pro... which I still have somewhere.
 
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