The Intel Skylake-X Review: Core i9 7900X, i7 7820X and i7 7800X Tested
by Ian Cutress on June 19, 2017 9:01 AM ESTBenchmarking Performance: CPU Web Tests
One of the issues when running web-based tests is the nature of modern browsers to automatically install updates. This means any sustained period of benchmarking will invariably fall foul of the 'it's updated beyond the state of comparison' rule, especially when browsers will update if you give them half a second to think about it. Despite this, we were able to find a series of commands to create an un-updatable version of Chrome 56 for our 2017 test suite. While this means we might not be on the bleeding edge of the latest browser, it makes the scores between CPUs comparable.
SunSpider 1.0.2
The oldest web-based benchmark in this portion of our test is SunSpider. This is a very basic javascript algorithm tool, and ends up being more a measure of IPC and latency than anything else, with most high-performance CPUs scoring around about the same. The basic test is looped 10 times and the average taken. We run the basic test 4 times.
Sunspider goes after peak frequency most of the time, althoguh there is some variation as it moves into basically becoming a legacy test.
Mozilla Kraken 1.1
Kraken is another Javascript based benchmark, using the same test harness as SunSpider, but focusing on more stringent real-world use cases and libraries, such as audio processing and image filters. Again, the basic test is looped ten times, and we run the basic test four times.
Kraken is more of an intense attack on JS, and still regularly sorts by IPC and frequency.
Google Octane 2.0
Along with Mozilla, as Google is a major browser developer, having peak JS performance is typically a critical asset when comparing against the other OS developers. In the same way that SunSpider is a very early JS benchmark, and Kraken is a bit newer, Octane aims to be more relevant to real workloads, especially in power constrained devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Octane seems to be an optimization target, and with the new Skylake-X it shows.
WebXPRT 2015
While the previous three benchmarks do calculations in the background and represent a score, WebXPRT is designed to be a better interpretation of visual workloads that a professional user might have, such as browser based applications, graphing, image editing, sort/analysis, scientific analysis and financial tools.
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jjj - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
The 10 cores die is clearly 320+mm2 not 308mm2. The 308mm figure rounds down the mm based on those GamerNexus pics. From there, you slightly underestimate the size of other 2 die.Sarah Terra - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Fair point but what I take from this review is that you are going to be spending pretty much double the cost or higher of ryzen for a proc that will have a 30% larger power envelope if you want higher performance. Intel is scrambling here, well done AMD.jjj - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
With 8 cores and up, thermal is a big issue when you OC Skylake X.. Power also to some extent.The 6 cores looks interesting vs the 7700k but not so much vs anything else. CPU+mobo gets you north of 600$ and that's a lot. If it had all the PCIe lanes enabled, there would be that but ,while plenty will buy it, it makes no sense to. And ofc there should be a Coffee Lake 6 cores soon , we'll see how it is priced- in consumer 6 cores with 2 mem chans is fine.
More than 6 cores are priced way too high and , if you need many cores, you buy for MT not ST so ST clocks are less relevant.
Intel moving in the same direction as AMD on the cache size front is interesting- larger L2 and smaller L3. Now they have "huge cache and memory latency issues"" just like Ryzen lol.
W/e, Intel's pricing is still far too high and this platform remains of minimal relevance.
ddriver - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Funny thou, when Ryzen under-performed in games that was no reason to not publish gaming benches, in fact being the platform's main weakness there was actually emphasis put on that... but when it comes to intel we gotta have special treatment... Let's hear it for objectivity!Granted the 7800X finally brings something of relatively decent value, but still no good reason to justify the purchase unless one insists on an intel product, for the brand, for thunderbolt or hypetane support.
"To play it safe, invest in the Core i9-7900X today."
Really? With Threadripper incoming in a matter of weeks? For less than 1000$ you will get 16 zen cores. It will definitely beat the 7900X by a decent margin in terms of performance, plus the massive I/O capabilities and also ECC support, which I'd say is vital. That just doesn't sound like a honest recommendation. Not surprising in the least.
ddriver - Monday, June 19, 2017 - link
Also, on top of that we have launch prices for Ryzen rather than current prices. Looks like a rather open attempt to diminish AMD's platform value.Ian Cutress - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
We've always posted manufacturer MSRPs in our CPU charts. There has been no official price drop from AMD; if you're seeing lower, it's being run from the distributor level.On the TR issue, we basically haven't tested it and don't know the price. Lots of variables in the air, which is why the words are /if you want to play it safe/. Safe being the key word there.
ddriver - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
Dunno Ian, in my book this sounds more like hasty than safe. The safe thing would be to wait out. Even without the incipient TR launch, early adoption is rather unsafe on its own. As it is, it sounds more like an attempt to dupe people into spending their money on intel in the eve of the launch of a superior value and performance product from a direct (and sole) competitor.It is true that nothing is still officially known about TR, but based on the ryzen marketing strategy and performance we can make safe and accurate speculations. I expect to see the top TR chip launched at 999$ offering at the very least 30% of performance advantage over the 7900X in a similar or slightly higher thermal budget, of course in workloads that can scale nicely up with the core count.
Comparing the 7900X to the 1800X, we have ~35% performance advantage for 205% the price and 150% the power usage. Based on that, it is a safe bet that TR is going to shine.
fanofanand - Monday, June 26, 2017 - link
Ian is a scientist, the less guessing the better. Give him an opportunity to review TR before giving suggestions. Doesn't that seem fair?t.s - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
Play it safe? Really?? Please. As if everyone in this world's stupid.Ranger1065 - Wednesday, June 21, 2017 - link
There has never been a better time to give Intel the middle finger.