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Intel Core i9-7900X review: The fastest chip in the world

139 points by hvo 9y ago

sengork 9y ago
What I really wonder is when this chip would have been released if AMD didn't come out with Ryzen line up in 2017.
- JonRB 9y ago
  It's amazing what a little healthy competition can do!
- arcanus 9y ago
  I'll answer your subtle comment quite explicitly: never. Intel clearly rushed this out to prevent AMD from having the perception of leading the space, at least in terms of the largest core count. The article even references this. I just hope that it stays competitive, as this is clearly a win for consumers.
  - brigade 9y ago
    Well, no. A 10-core HEDT Skylake follow up to the 10-core Broadwell was basically a given, and would have shipped right about now regardless. Maybe Ryzen caused them to push the default clocks up, but probably not since it's unlocked anyway. Most likely only thing that Ryzen changed about this chip is knocking $800 off the price (and maybe the i9 marketing name.) The rest of the i9 lineup, thus far unreleased with only the core count actually known, is Intel's rushed response to Ryzen. Not this chip.
  - paulmd 9y ago
    Skylake-X certainly would have existed regardless of Ryzen, Intel wants to sell these chips to Google/Amazon/Facebook as Xeons. The idea that this uarch is a reaction to AMD is absurd, this uarch has been on the roadmap for years and at most was pulled forward a few months. People will attribute anything one of AMD's competitors does to fear of AMD - 780 Ti, 980 Ti, 1080 Ti, Skylake-X, you name it. It's frankly a little comical given the actual amount of competition AMD put up with Bulldozer and Fiji/Polaris/Vega against Haswell/Skylake and Maxwell/Pascal - which is to say, hardly any. NVIDIA and Intel both have their own yield strategies and release schedules that are largely independent of what AMD does. Intel and NVIDIA are tweaking prices and specific launch dates - that's about the extent of AMD's impact on their competitors so far. (although Intel is definitely paying attention to Threadripper/Epyc now, and will be pushing core count up on consumer chipsets starting with Coffee Lake and presumably Cannonlake as well) The real problems with Skylake-X are chipset cost, power consumption, shitty partner boards with insulators on the VRMs, and TIM. None of those have anything to do with a "rushed launch", all of those are issues that have been slow-boiling for years now.
    - Sephr 9y ago
      > Intel wants to sell these chips to Google/Amazon/Facebook as Xeons They have already been selling vastly superior Skylake-SP (and -EP) Xeons to Google/Amazon/Facebook since 2015.
    - redtuesday 9y ago
      Reading the text I think they talked about the chips with a core count larger than 10, which were never on any roadmap until AMD released Ryzen (12 core Skylake appeared on the Roadmap) and then announced Threadripper (14, 16 and 18 core Skylake X paper launched).
- mc32 9y ago
  I'm ignorantly guessing Intel always keep something in their back pocket ever since AMD's Athlons bested Intel's P4, just in case AMD ever tried to wrest the frown back. Or, I would, anyway.
  - paulmd 9y ago
    > just in case AMD ever tried to wrest the frown back. Intel: "why so serious!?"
    - mc32 9y ago
      Lol. Autocomplete. "performance, performance /watt" _crown_.
- RachelF 9y ago
  Yes, it's amazing what Intel can pull out of the hat when they finally get a little competition again.
sliken 9y ago
I'm all for double the memory bandwidth (and more importantly double the memory channels) as long as it's not too expensive. But I'm holding off on buying a new desktop till the AMD Threadripper hits in a few weeks. I suspect that benchmarks do a really poor job of measuring worst case performance... which is what users notice. Things like UI lag and audio skipping. I suspect double the memory bandwidth (assuming a nice fast M.2 SSD) is the limiting factor for heavy workloads made up of independent tasks.
- dom0 9y ago
  UI lag and stuttering audio is still mostly caused by bad IO scheduling.
tracker1 9y ago
Another issue beyond the fact that the X299 boards are problematic in terms of how many, and/or what slots you can and can't use seems to be excessive heat and stability in some of the reviews I've seen. I'm still running a i7-4790K at home, and though I'd like something with more cores... nothing is compelling enough to bring me to switch given the costs involved. If I were building new, would most likely go with an AMD solution.
- sliken 9y ago
  Indeed, especially with Intel still trying to upsell users to the highest level X chips to get more PCI-e channels. Fortunately AMD has more than intel available from their cheapest chip to their most expensive.
- NamTaf 9y ago
  CPU gains for the last few gens have mainly been in perf/watt and, now, core count in lower-class chips thanks to AMD. The biggest benefit of a system upgrade for the last few gens, from a user perspective, has been for the chipset's gains - NVMe, USB3, USB-C, etc. more than raw performance. That's slowly trickled up but the real-world gains in many tasks haven't been enough to really justify it. I know many people still sitting on anywhere from a 2xxx gen to a 5xxx gen and just don't feel compelled to upgrade from a CPU perspective. Those that eventually do, do so for the motherboard features more than the CPU - that's just a necessary cost for a small benefit. This is marginally different for laptops where perf/watt becomes more important, of course. However for desktops, I certainly wouldn't be troubled by a 4xxx gen. I upgraded last year and it was from a 920 to a 6600K. Even the 920 did much of what I wanted, honestly, it was more a luxury upgrade.
  - Nition 9y ago
    Similarly, I only just upgraded from an i7 860 (2009) to a 6700K at the end of last year. In performance benchmarks, it's only twice as fast as my old one, and that's over seven years. Big difference to how things felt in the past. Imagine if your 66Mhz Pentium still ran well enough that you weren't sure it was worth upgrading to a 500Mhz Pentium III. Same time span.
pella 9y ago
Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11550/the-intel-skylakex-review-core-i9-7900x-i7-7820x-and-i7-7800x-tested http://www.anandtech.com/show/11550/the-intel-skylakex-revie...
rkv 9y ago
Out of the loop when it comes to the latest processor technology. How does this chip maintain the same TDP as a 6850K but with 4 more core? Same size (lithography), roughly the same freq, memory size/types.
- reubenmorais 9y ago
  No integrated GPU.
  - sliken 9y ago
    Er, neither has a GPU. The i9-7900X has the benefit of generation of tuning and runs at a slower base clock (3.3 vs 3.6 GHz for the 6850K). Slightly smaller l3, and a much larger but also higher latency L2 helps as well. I suspect moving from a ring bus to a mesh helps as well.
- piinbinary 9y ago
  TDP numbers from Intel don't tend to mean much. They group a wide range of CPUs under the same TDP. The CPUs will generally use far less power than the TDP might suggest.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- brigade 9y ago
  Power/frequency scaling is quadratic since voltage can decrease with frequency, so even the 10% difference in base clocks could explain it, depending on where in the voltage/frequency curve they are. Plus, this is Intel's 3rd iteration on the same process; even if the feature size doesn't change you can extract a bit more power efficiency with 2 years of feedback.
paulmd 9y ago
The real problems with Skylake-X are chipset cost, power consumption, shitty partner boards, and TIM. All of these are forgivable given the performance - except the TIM. Chipset cost will come down in 6-12 months after launch like it always does. This is part for the course, at launch X370 boards for Ryzen were going for well over $250 as well. Power consumption is a consequence of AVX512 and the mesh interconnect along with raw core count. Everyone wants higher clocks, more cores, and more functional units. There are no easy efficiency gains anymore, and this is the price - power consumption. This is the "everything and the kitchen sink" processor and it runs hot as a result - but it absolutely crushes everything else on the market. This is no Bulldozer. Board partners with insulators on top of their VRMs was going to come to a head sooner or later. This is the natural outgrowth of form over function, RGB LEDs on everything and stylized heatsink designs that insulate the board instead of actual cooling. The terrible reviews on those boards will sort this problem right out, they will be unusable in their current form. Intel has been cruising for issues with their TIM for years (since Ivy Bridge), this time they finally have a chip that puts out enough heat they can't ignore it. Intel can get away with making you delid a $200 i5 or a $300 i7, it's not acceptable on a $1000 processor. There is still a market for a 6-12C HEDT chip that can hit 5 GHz overclocked. This thing absolutely smokes Ryzen in gaming at stock clocks let alone OC'd - single-thread performance is still a dominant factor in good gaming performance and this chip delivers in spades. Combining its leads in IPC and clocks, it's fully 33% faster than Ryzen in single-thread performance. This is just a brutal amount of performance for gaming. Unfortunately without delidding you're not going to hit good OC clocks given the current TIM. And delidding is a dealbreaker on a $1000 CPU. TIM is the actual core problem with Skylake-X - everything else will sort itself out. Skylake-X with solder would be a winner and Intel would be wise to turn the ship as fast as possible. The 6C and 8C version are priced much more reasonably and will sell great as long as they fix the TIM problem. Intel claims they have problems with dies cracking, but AMD manages to solder much smaller dies, so IMO Intel just doesn't have a leg to stand on here. This is not something that should be pushed onto the customer with a $1000 processor - you're Chipzilla, figure something out.
- FiReaNG3L 9y ago
  I had to google it so I don't think im alone here: TIM = Thermal Interface Material
jitl 9y ago
The HN title feels like an editorial by admission. The full title is > Intel Core i9-7900X review: The fastest chip in the world, but too darn expensive > When eight-core Ryzen costs £300, do any of these new Intel chips make sense?
- kough 9y ago
  s/admission/omission ?
cyphar 9y ago
... until ThreadRipper. I'm not a fan of either megacorp (though I prefer Intel because their stuff works much better historically on GNU/Linux), but it should be painfully obvious that "i9" is just a reaction to the threat of ThreadRipper from AMD (which is still going to be more powerful and far more affordable than i9 when it launches). EDIT: To be fair, they do mention this in TFA: > That these chips are currently little more than a product name and a price [...] is a strong indication that Intel was taken aback by AMD's Threadripper, a 16-core chip due for release this summer.
- throwaway209402 9y ago
  > it should be painfully obvious that "i9" is just a reaction to the threat of ThreadRipper from AMD This is incorrect. As Ryan Shrout from PcPer notes,[1] > In some circles of the Internet, the Core i9 release and the parts that were announced last month from Intel seem as obvious a reaction to AMD’s Ryzen processor and Threadripper as could be shown. In truth, it’s hard to see the likes of the Core i9-7900X as reactionary in its current state; Intel has clearly been planning the Skylake-X release for many months. What Ryzen did for the consumer market was bring higher 4-count core processors to prevalence, and the HEDT line from Intel has very little overlap in that regard. Threadripper having just been announced in the last 60 days (even when you take into account the rumors that have circulated), seems unable to have been the progenitor of the Core i9 line, isn't its entirety. That being said, it is absolutely true that Intel has reacted to the Ryzen and Threadripper lines with pricing and timing adjustments. [1] : https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Core-i9-7900X-10-core-Skylake-X-Processor-Review/Power-Perf-Dollar-Conclusi https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Core-i9-7900X...
  - cyphar 9y ago
    I was not referring to the R&D, rather the way it was announced and is being marketed. I would be surprised if they didn't rush development and went straight to marketing as a reaction to AMD. Intel have been resting on their lorels due to the lack of serious competition, ARM is struggling from what I've seen. I probably should've been clearer, but I assumed it was obvious you can't do R&D on new silicon in 60 days and already have an announcement for it.
chx 9y ago
Careful with these benchmarks. The 6700K and the 6700T shows the same Cinebench R15 on https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-6700T-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.196670.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-6700T-Processor-... -- click on Show comparison chart below Cinebench R15 - CPU Multi 64Bit. I do not think anyone believes those two CPUs are performing the same -- they are the same Skylake architecture but one is 4-4.2GHz w/ a 91W TDP while the other is 2.8-3.6GHz w/ a 35W TDP. The difference is decidedly not 1%. It's not that notebookcheck is benchmarking something outlandish: it shows 668 while this Ars article claims 637 for the 6700K, Notebookcheck benchmarked the 6950X to 1859 while Ars has 1786, both are very close.
- vith 9y ago
  I think you may have some model numbers and/or benchmark numbers mixed up. I don't see the 6700K or 6700T in the charts in this Ars article. I see a 7600K with the 637 score, but that lacks hyperthreading and has 25% less L3 cache compared to the 6700T, so it makes sense that the 17% frequency advantage is mostly balanced out (there's little IPC difference between Kaby Lake and Skylake). You don't have notebookcheck's numbers matched up with the right CPUs either: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmark-List.2436.0.html?type=&sort=&search=i7-6700K+i7-6700T+i7-7700K+i5-7600K&or=1&showBars=1&cinebench_r15_multi=1&cpu_fullname=1&l2cache=1&l3cache=1&tdp=1&mhz=1&turbo_mhz=1&cores=1&threads=1 https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmark-Li... To be fair, Ars has the i5-7600K listed as an i7, and Notebookcheck has the cache sizes wrong: http://ark.intel.com/compare/88200,97129,97144,88195 http://ark.intel.com/compare/88200,97129,97144,88195 So there is plenty of confusion to go around. Edit: Actually the frequency difference may be a bit off from 17%, that was based off the max single core turbo frequencies. I don't know what the all core turbos are.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
polskibus 9y ago
I'm a bit disappointed - it said "review" in the title, but there are no interesting details or tests inside.
- TwoBit 9y ago
  It has multiple benchmark results.
turblety 9y ago
But once again they have included a second "processor" on each chip with a bunch of restricted backdoors that can not be removed [1]. There have already been bugs [2] and exploits [3] found and therefore no Intel or AMD chip can be used if you care about security and/or privacy. If I think Microsoft isn't free enough for me, then I can remove Windows and install Linux (or BSD). If I think Chrome is sending my data to Google, then I can remove it and install Firefox. But if don't like that Intel can take over my PC at any time, watch my screen, log my keystrokes, prevent me from installing another operating system, manipulate what I see on the screen, and much much more, then there is nothing I can do. I can not remove the second chip or remove the code. I must have a proprietary blob [4] (of who's source code no one can see to audit) running on my Intel PC. But the worst thing has to be Intel and AMT's complete refusal to provide a clean chip to companies that are trying to provide backdoor free computers. Look at http://puri.sm http://puri.sm [5] for example. They are trying to provide a PC that does not restrict what operating system or BIOS you run, and have repeatedly contacted Intel to ask them to provide a batch of chips with no ME or AMT installed. Even Google, which sells millions of chromebooks (coreboot preinstalled) have been unable to persuade them. [6] As Intel and AMT are the biggest players and arguably a monopoly of the microprocessor market, they have a responsibility to provide safe and clean processors that customers can truly own. Please try your best not to buy these products until they resolve these issues. [1] https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme [2] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/01/intel_amt_me_vulnerability/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/01/intel_amt_me_vulner... [3] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/intel-amt-vulnerability-announcement.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-tec... [4] http://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/intel-x86-processors-ship-with.html http://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/intel-x86-processors-ship-w... [5] https://puri.sm/learn/intel-me/ https://puri.sm/learn/intel-me/ [6] https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel-is-uncooperative https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel-is-uncooperative
- kennydude 9y ago
  Thing is they could have implemented that in a half-open manner. Sign and hash releases, and post the code openly. So you can view the code, verify it's what is installed but for security purposes can't change it. The way this reads it seems deliberately suspicious. Having a HTTP server so low in the hardware stack feels wrong.
rbanffy 9y ago
> fastest chip in the world Impressive for a x86 as this is, some POWER and SPARC users may disagree with this assessment. In fact, some Xeon users will doubtlessly scratch their heads too.
- nl 9y ago
  Only reason they'd scratch their head is to try to find the hair they lost explaining why they are on POWER or (especially) SPARC. Power9 is competitive in performance/Watt, and in some weird benchmarks which no one cares about. I haven't seen anything competitive in any way from SPARC for a long time.
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    The article claims "fastest", not "most efficient" or "best per dollar". It all depends on the workload - I remember SPARC has some interesting tricks integrated into its silicon that make things like HANA and Oracle a good deal faster.
dis-sys 9y ago
> fastest chip in the world what a huge load of biased non-sense! I have a machine pretty similar to the one mentioned in the article below, it is using Intel processors released ages ago, in fact they were from decommissioned servers from some random data centres. I'd willing to bet that machine with "the fastest chip in the world" is significantly slower/more expensive than mine when it comes to my long list of day to day development tasks. Oh, don't forget to mention the fact that the "fastest chip in the world" can reach >100 degrees when fully loaded. Maybe Intel should pay some review sites to claim it to be the processor most suitable for cooking a meal. https://www.techspot.com/review/1218-affordable-40-thread-xeon-monster-pc/ https://www.techspot.com/review/1218-affordable-40-thread-xe... In case you want to argue that my machine has two Xeon - you can actually order one single Xeon from newegg.com which is more recent, put it into a consumer motherboard and beat the xxx out of i9-7900x. There is no way a 10-core Intel processor could possibly be the "fastest chip in the world".
- Sorreah 9y ago
  The 20+ core Xeons run at 2.1 or 2.2 Ghz, while this runs at 4, with a newer architecture. I don't think it's a big stretch to call this the fastest chip, especially since we're referring to consumer chips and not server chips that cost 9000 eurodollars (as is the case for those 20 core Xeons). Also, have both of these setups run a mixed workload that isn't absolutely parallelizable and watch the Xeon struggle.
  - dis-sys 9y ago
    1. the Xeon I am using can Turbo to 3.1Ghz, sure, it is slower than 4G, but the sheer core count makes it much faster in the day to day development tasks many people face. consumer grade or not, it doesn't matter when there is no special requirements. you just buy components from your favourite vendors and put it together, that is all. 2. you can buy a pair of such 10-core Xeon for almost the same price of a single i9-7900x. 3. i9-7900x faces the exact same problem when the workload can not be paralleled - you can buy a much cheaper quad core intel processor that overclock well, you can push it to say 4.5 or 5G and beat the "fastest chip in the world".
Frogolocalypse 9y ago
Am i the only person to read that and think "a couple of reasons to buy and a whole bunch to not"?
gcb0 9y ago
why does the title says exactly the opposite of the article? maybe if it ended with "for very specific cases" it would be more true.
msimpson 9y ago
Between the Intel Core i9-7900X and AMD Ryzen 7 1800X there is a $540 price difference. But for that extra cost you get four more threads at a higher clock rate, twenty extra PCIE lanes, a 500 MHz higher turbo clock speed, and double the memory bandwidth. Even with the lesser Intel Core i7-7820X you will get the same thread count but with a higher clock rate, four extra PCIE lanes, still a 500 MHz higher turbo clock speed, and double the memory bandwidth for only $140 more. Now, of course, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X comes much closer to the i9-7900X price point. However, you will sacrifice single core performance to gain twelve more threads at a lower clock rate. But, you will receive twenty more PCIE lanes, over twice as much L3 cache, and the same memory bandwidth as the i9-7900X. So if your plan is to build a 3D render farm, the Threadripper seems quite appropriate. Although, if you plan to build a workstation on which to model 3D assets and to perform preview renders--the Intel i9 series seems more apt.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  Are there really that many people doing 3d model rendering? My guess would be PC users by count are gamers > programmers > 3d renderers For most gamers, seems like i7 or maybe i9 wins in current benchmarks. For programmers maybe ryzen is a better fit, but I bet it depends on your language.
  - snaily 9y ago
    You're forgetting the CGI industry, as seen in movies.
    - brianwawok 9y ago
      I am not forgetting it. Google right now, tells me there are: 155 million "gamers" in the US 3.6 million programmers in the US I cannot guess that the CGI industry is higher than either of these numbers. Now very much they may pay for bleeding edge, and spend more dollars on hardware than programmers. But I am at least 95% confident there are less people in the US running a 3d program on their desktop compared to running eclipse/visual studio/atom/vim.
  - 9y ago
fasterthanjim 9y ago
"I wanna go fast!" - Ricky Bobby
- fasterthanjim 9y ago
  What do you think this is, Reddit?
  - fasterthanjim 9y ago
    :(

139 points by hvo 9y ago

sengork 9y ago

What I really wonder is when this chip would have been released if AMD didn't come out with Ryzen line up in 2017.

JonRB 9y ago
It's amazing what a little healthy competition can do!
arcanus 9y ago
I'll answer your subtle comment quite explicitly: never. Intel clearly rushed this out to prevent AMD from having the perception of leading the space, at least in terms of the largest core count. The article even references this. I just hope that it stays competitive, as this is clearly a win for consumers.
- brigade 9y ago
  Well, no. A 10-core HEDT Skylake follow up to the 10-core Broadwell was basically a given, and would have shipped right about now regardless. Maybe Ryzen caused them to push the default clocks up, but probably not since it's unlocked anyway. Most likely only thing that Ryzen changed about this chip is knocking $800 off the price (and maybe the i9 marketing name.) The rest of the i9 lineup, thus far unreleased with only the core count actually known, is Intel's rushed response to Ryzen. Not this chip.
- paulmd 9y ago
  Skylake-X certainly would have existed regardless of Ryzen, Intel wants to sell these chips to Google/Amazon/Facebook as Xeons. The idea that this uarch is a reaction to AMD is absurd, this uarch has been on the roadmap for years and at most was pulled forward a few months. People will attribute anything one of AMD's competitors does to fear of AMD - 780 Ti, 980 Ti, 1080 Ti, Skylake-X, you name it. It's frankly a little comical given the actual amount of competition AMD put up with Bulldozer and Fiji/Polaris/Vega against Haswell/Skylake and Maxwell/Pascal - which is to say, hardly any. NVIDIA and Intel both have their own yield strategies and release schedules that are largely independent of what AMD does. Intel and NVIDIA are tweaking prices and specific launch dates - that's about the extent of AMD's impact on their competitors so far. (although Intel is definitely paying attention to Threadripper/Epyc now, and will be pushing core count up on consumer chipsets starting with Coffee Lake and presumably Cannonlake as well) The real problems with Skylake-X are chipset cost, power consumption, shitty partner boards with insulators on the VRMs, and TIM. None of those have anything to do with a "rushed launch", all of those are issues that have been slow-boiling for years now.
  - Sephr 9y ago
    > Intel wants to sell these chips to Google/Amazon/Facebook as Xeons They have already been selling vastly superior Skylake-SP (and -EP) Xeons to Google/Amazon/Facebook since 2015.
  - redtuesday 9y ago
    Reading the text I think they talked about the chips with a core count larger than 10, which were never on any roadmap until AMD released Ryzen (12 core Skylake appeared on the Roadmap) and then announced Threadripper (14, 16 and 18 core Skylake X paper launched).
mc32 9y ago
I'm ignorantly guessing Intel always keep something in their back pocket ever since AMD's Athlons bested Intel's P4, just in case AMD ever tried to wrest the frown back. Or, I would, anyway.
- paulmd 9y ago
  > just in case AMD ever tried to wrest the frown back. Intel: "why so serious!?"
  - mc32 9y ago
    Lol. Autocomplete. "performance, performance /watt" _crown_.
RachelF 9y ago
Yes, it's amazing what Intel can pull out of the hat when they finally get a little competition again.

sliken 9y ago

I'm all for double the memory bandwidth (and more importantly double the memory channels) as long as it's not too expensive. But I'm holding off on buying a new desktop till the AMD Threadripper hits in a few weeks. I suspect that benchmarks do a really poor job of measuring worst case performance... which is what users notice. Things like UI lag and audio skipping. I suspect double the memory bandwidth (assuming a nice fast M.2 SSD) is the limiting factor for heavy workloads made up of independent tasks.

dom0 9y ago
UI lag and stuttering audio is still mostly caused by bad IO scheduling.

tracker1 9y ago

Another issue beyond the fact that the X299 boards are problematic in terms of how many, and/or what slots you can and can't use seems to be excessive heat and stability in some of the reviews I've seen. I'm still running a i7-4790K at home, and though I'd like something with more cores... nothing is compelling enough to bring me to switch given the costs involved. If I were building new, would most likely go with an AMD solution.

sliken 9y ago
Indeed, especially with Intel still trying to upsell users to the highest level X chips to get more PCI-e channels. Fortunately AMD has more than intel available from their cheapest chip to their most expensive.
NamTaf 9y ago
CPU gains for the last few gens have mainly been in perf/watt and, now, core count in lower-class chips thanks to AMD. The biggest benefit of a system upgrade for the last few gens, from a user perspective, has been for the chipset's gains - NVMe, USB3, USB-C, etc. more than raw performance. That's slowly trickled up but the real-world gains in many tasks haven't been enough to really justify it. I know many people still sitting on anywhere from a 2xxx gen to a 5xxx gen and just don't feel compelled to upgrade from a CPU perspective. Those that eventually do, do so for the motherboard features more than the CPU - that's just a necessary cost for a small benefit. This is marginally different for laptops where perf/watt becomes more important, of course. However for desktops, I certainly wouldn't be troubled by a 4xxx gen. I upgraded last year and it was from a 920 to a 6600K. Even the 920 did much of what I wanted, honestly, it was more a luxury upgrade.
- Nition 9y ago
  Similarly, I only just upgraded from an i7 860 (2009) to a 6700K at the end of last year. In performance benchmarks, it's only twice as fast as my old one, and that's over seven years. Big difference to how things felt in the past. Imagine if your 66Mhz Pentium still ran well enough that you weren't sure it was worth upgrading to a 500Mhz Pentium III. Same time span.

pella 9y ago

Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11550/the-intel-skylakex-review-core-i9-7900x-i7-7820x-and-i7-7800x-tested http://www.anandtech.com/show/11550/the-intel-skylakex-revie...

rkv 9y ago

Out of the loop when it comes to the latest processor technology. How does this chip maintain the same TDP as a 6850K but with 4 more core? Same size (lithography), roughly the same freq, memory size/types.

reubenmorais 9y ago
No integrated GPU.
- sliken 9y ago
  Er, neither has a GPU. The i9-7900X has the benefit of generation of tuning and runs at a slower base clock (3.3 vs 3.6 GHz for the 6850K). Slightly smaller l3, and a much larger but also higher latency L2 helps as well. I suspect moving from a ring bus to a mesh helps as well.
piinbinary 9y ago
TDP numbers from Intel don't tend to mean much. They group a wide range of CPUs under the same TDP. The CPUs will generally use far less power than the TDP might suggest.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
brigade 9y ago
Power/frequency scaling is quadratic since voltage can decrease with frequency, so even the 10% difference in base clocks could explain it, depending on where in the voltage/frequency curve they are. Plus, this is Intel's 3rd iteration on the same process; even if the feature size doesn't change you can extract a bit more power efficiency with 2 years of feedback.

paulmd 9y ago

The real problems with Skylake-X are chipset cost, power consumption, shitty partner boards, and TIM. All of these are forgivable given the performance - except the TIM. Chipset cost will come down in 6-12 months after launch like it always does. This is part for the course, at launch X370 boards for Ryzen were going for well over $250 as well. Power consumption is a consequence of AVX512 and the mesh interconnect along with raw core count. Everyone wants higher clocks, more cores, and more functional units. There are no easy efficiency gains anymore, and this is the price - power consumption. This is the "everything and the kitchen sink" processor and it runs hot as a result - but it absolutely crushes everything else on the market. This is no Bulldozer. Board partners with insulators on top of their VRMs was going to come to a head sooner or later. This is the natural outgrowth of form over function, RGB LEDs on everything and stylized heatsink designs that insulate the board instead of actual cooling. The terrible reviews on those boards will sort this problem right out, they will be unusable in their current form. Intel has been cruising for issues with their TIM for years (since Ivy Bridge), this time they finally have a chip that puts out enough heat they can't ignore it. Intel can get away with making you delid a $200 i5 or a $300 i7, it's not acceptable on a $1000 processor. There is still a market for a 6-12C HEDT chip that can hit 5 GHz overclocked. This thing absolutely smokes Ryzen in gaming at stock clocks let alone OC'd - single-thread performance is still a dominant factor in good gaming performance and this chip delivers in spades. Combining its leads in IPC and clocks, it's fully 33% faster than Ryzen in single-thread performance. This is just a brutal amount of performance for gaming. Unfortunately without delidding you're not going to hit good OC clocks given the current TIM. And delidding is a dealbreaker on a $1000 CPU. TIM is the actual core problem with Skylake-X - everything else will sort itself out. Skylake-X with solder would be a winner and Intel would be wise to turn the ship as fast as possible. The 6C and 8C version are priced much more reasonably and will sell great as long as they fix the TIM problem. Intel claims they have problems with dies cracking, but AMD manages to solder much smaller dies, so IMO Intel just doesn't have a leg to stand on here. This is not something that should be pushed onto the customer with a $1000 processor - you're Chipzilla, figure something out.

FiReaNG3L 9y ago
I had to google it so I don't think im alone here: TIM = Thermal Interface Material

jitl 9y ago

The HN title feels like an editorial by admission. The full title is > Intel Core i9-7900X review: The fastest chip in the world, but too darn expensive > When eight-core Ryzen costs £300, do any of these new Intel chips make sense?

kough 9y ago
s/admission/omission ?

cyphar 9y ago

... until ThreadRipper. I'm not a fan of either megacorp (though I prefer Intel because their stuff works much better historically on GNU/Linux), but it should be painfully obvious that "i9" is just a reaction to the threat of ThreadRipper from AMD (which is still going to be more powerful and far more affordable than i9 when it launches). EDIT: To be fair, they do mention this in TFA: > That these chips are currently little more than a product name and a price [...] is a strong indication that Intel was taken aback by AMD's Threadripper, a 16-core chip due for release this summer.

throwaway209402 9y ago
> it should be painfully obvious that "i9" is just a reaction to the threat of ThreadRipper from AMD This is incorrect. As Ryan Shrout from PcPer notes,[1] > In some circles of the Internet, the Core i9 release and the parts that were announced last month from Intel seem as obvious a reaction to AMD’s Ryzen processor and Threadripper as could be shown. In truth, it’s hard to see the likes of the Core i9-7900X as reactionary in its current state; Intel has clearly been planning the Skylake-X release for many months. What Ryzen did for the consumer market was bring higher 4-count core processors to prevalence, and the HEDT line from Intel has very little overlap in that regard. Threadripper having just been announced in the last 60 days (even when you take into account the rumors that have circulated), seems unable to have been the progenitor of the Core i9 line, isn't its entirety. That being said, it is absolutely true that Intel has reacted to the Ryzen and Threadripper lines with pricing and timing adjustments. [1] : https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Core-i9-7900X-10-core-Skylake-X-Processor-Review/Power-Perf-Dollar-Conclusi https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Core-i9-7900X...
- cyphar 9y ago
  I was not referring to the R&D, rather the way it was announced and is being marketed. I would be surprised if they didn't rush development and went straight to marketing as a reaction to AMD. Intel have been resting on their lorels due to the lack of serious competition, ARM is struggling from what I've seen. I probably should've been clearer, but I assumed it was obvious you can't do R&D on new silicon in 60 days and already have an announcement for it.

chx 9y ago

Careful with these benchmarks. The 6700K and the 6700T shows the same Cinebench R15 on https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-6700T-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.196670.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-6700T-Processor-... -- click on Show comparison chart below Cinebench R15 - CPU Multi 64Bit. I do not think anyone believes those two CPUs are performing the same -- they are the same Skylake architecture but one is 4-4.2GHz w/ a 91W TDP while the other is 2.8-3.6GHz w/ a 35W TDP. The difference is decidedly not 1%. It's not that notebookcheck is benchmarking something outlandish: it shows 668 while this Ars article claims 637 for the 6700K, Notebookcheck benchmarked the 6950X to 1859 while Ars has 1786, both are very close.

vith 9y ago
I think you may have some model numbers and/or benchmark numbers mixed up. I don't see the 6700K or 6700T in the charts in this Ars article. I see a 7600K with the 637 score, but that lacks hyperthreading and has 25% less L3 cache compared to the 6700T, so it makes sense that the 17% frequency advantage is mostly balanced out (there's little IPC difference between Kaby Lake and Skylake). You don't have notebookcheck's numbers matched up with the right CPUs either: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmark-List.2436.0.html?type=&sort=&search=i7-6700K+i7-6700T+i7-7700K+i5-7600K&or=1&showBars=1&cinebench_r15_multi=1&cpu_fullname=1&l2cache=1&l3cache=1&tdp=1&mhz=1&turbo_mhz=1&cores=1&threads=1 https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmark-Li... To be fair, Ars has the i5-7600K listed as an i7, and Notebookcheck has the cache sizes wrong: http://ark.intel.com/compare/88200,97129,97144,88195 http://ark.intel.com/compare/88200,97129,97144,88195 So there is plenty of confusion to go around. Edit: Actually the frequency difference may be a bit off from 17%, that was based off the max single core turbo frequencies. I don't know what the all core turbos are.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

polskibus 9y ago

I'm a bit disappointed - it said "review" in the title, but there are no interesting details or tests inside.

TwoBit 9y ago
It has multiple benchmark results.

turblety 9y ago

But once again they have included a second "processor" on each chip with a bunch of restricted backdoors that can not be removed [1]. There have already been bugs [2] and exploits [3] found and therefore no Intel or AMD chip can be used if you care about security and/or privacy. If I think Microsoft isn't free enough for me, then I can remove Windows and install Linux (or BSD). If I think Chrome is sending my data to Google, then I can remove it and install Firefox. But if don't like that Intel can take over my PC at any time, watch my screen, log my keystrokes, prevent me from installing another operating system, manipulate what I see on the screen, and much much more, then there is nothing I can do. I can not remove the second chip or remove the code. I must have a proprietary blob [4] (of who's source code no one can see to audit) running on my Intel PC. But the worst thing has to be Intel and AMT's complete refusal to provide a clean chip to companies that are trying to provide backdoor free computers. Look at http://puri.sm http://puri.sm [5] for example. They are trying to provide a PC that does not restrict what operating system or BIOS you run, and have repeatedly contacted Intel to ask them to provide a batch of chips with no ME or AMT installed. Even Google, which sells millions of chromebooks (coreboot preinstalled) have been unable to persuade them. [6] As Intel and AMT are the biggest players and arguably a monopoly of the microprocessor market, they have a responsibility to provide safe and clean processors that customers can truly own. Please try your best not to buy these products until they resolve these issues. [1] https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme [2] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/01/intel_amt_me_vulnerability/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/01/intel_amt_me_vulner... [3] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/intel-amt-vulnerability-announcement.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-tec... [4] http://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/intel-x86-processors-ship-with.html http://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/intel-x86-processors-ship-w... [5] https://puri.sm/learn/intel-me/ https://puri.sm/learn/intel-me/ [6] https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel-is-uncooperative https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel-is-uncooperative

kennydude 9y ago
Thing is they could have implemented that in a half-open manner. Sign and hash releases, and post the code openly. So you can view the code, verify it's what is installed but for security purposes can't change it. The way this reads it seems deliberately suspicious. Having a HTTP server so low in the hardware stack feels wrong.

rbanffy 9y ago

> fastest chip in the world Impressive for a x86 as this is, some POWER and SPARC users may disagree with this assessment. In fact, some Xeon users will doubtlessly scratch their heads too.

nl 9y ago
Only reason they'd scratch their head is to try to find the hair they lost explaining why they are on POWER or (especially) SPARC. Power9 is competitive in performance/Watt, and in some weird benchmarks which no one cares about. I haven't seen anything competitive in any way from SPARC for a long time.
- rbanffy 9y ago
  The article claims "fastest", not "most efficient" or "best per dollar". It all depends on the workload - I remember SPARC has some interesting tricks integrated into its silicon that make things like HANA and Oracle a good deal faster.

dis-sys 9y ago

> fastest chip in the world what a huge load of biased non-sense! I have a machine pretty similar to the one mentioned in the article below, it is using Intel processors released ages ago, in fact they were from decommissioned servers from some random data centres. I'd willing to bet that machine with "the fastest chip in the world" is significantly slower/more expensive than mine when it comes to my long list of day to day development tasks. Oh, don't forget to mention the fact that the "fastest chip in the world" can reach >100 degrees when fully loaded. Maybe Intel should pay some review sites to claim it to be the processor most suitable for cooking a meal. https://www.techspot.com/review/1218-affordable-40-thread-xeon-monster-pc/ https://www.techspot.com/review/1218-affordable-40-thread-xe... In case you want to argue that my machine has two Xeon - you can actually order one single Xeon from newegg.com which is more recent, put it into a consumer motherboard and beat the xxx out of i9-7900x. There is no way a 10-core Intel processor could possibly be the "fastest chip in the world".

Sorreah 9y ago
The 20+ core Xeons run at 2.1 or 2.2 Ghz, while this runs at 4, with a newer architecture. I don't think it's a big stretch to call this the fastest chip, especially since we're referring to consumer chips and not server chips that cost 9000 eurodollars (as is the case for those 20 core Xeons). Also, have both of these setups run a mixed workload that isn't absolutely parallelizable and watch the Xeon struggle.
- dis-sys 9y ago
  1. the Xeon I am using can Turbo to 3.1Ghz, sure, it is slower than 4G, but the sheer core count makes it much faster in the day to day development tasks many people face. consumer grade or not, it doesn't matter when there is no special requirements. you just buy components from your favourite vendors and put it together, that is all. 2. you can buy a pair of such 10-core Xeon for almost the same price of a single i9-7900x. 3. i9-7900x faces the exact same problem when the workload can not be paralleled - you can buy a much cheaper quad core intel processor that overclock well, you can push it to say 4.5 or 5G and beat the "fastest chip in the world".

Frogolocalypse 9y ago

Am i the only person to read that and think "a couple of reasons to buy and a whole bunch to not"?

gcb0 9y ago

why does the title says exactly the opposite of the article? maybe if it ended with "for very specific cases" it would be more true.

msimpson 9y ago

Between the Intel Core i9-7900X and AMD Ryzen 7 1800X there is a $540 price difference. But for that extra cost you get four more threads at a higher clock rate, twenty extra PCIE lanes, a 500 MHz higher turbo clock speed, and double the memory bandwidth. Even with the lesser Intel Core i7-7820X you will get the same thread count but with a higher clock rate, four extra PCIE lanes, still a 500 MHz higher turbo clock speed, and double the memory bandwidth for only $140 more. Now, of course, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X comes much closer to the i9-7900X price point. However, you will sacrifice single core performance to gain twelve more threads at a lower clock rate. But, you will receive twenty more PCIE lanes, over twice as much L3 cache, and the same memory bandwidth as the i9-7900X. So if your plan is to build a 3D render farm, the Threadripper seems quite appropriate. Although, if you plan to build a workstation on which to model 3D assets and to perform preview renders--the Intel i9 series seems more apt.

brianwawok 9y ago
Are there really that many people doing 3d model rendering? My guess would be PC users by count are gamers > programmers > 3d renderers For most gamers, seems like i7 or maybe i9 wins in current benchmarks. For programmers maybe ryzen is a better fit, but I bet it depends on your language.
- snaily 9y ago
  You're forgetting the CGI industry, as seen in movies.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    I am not forgetting it. Google right now, tells me there are: 155 million "gamers" in the US 3.6 million programmers in the US I cannot guess that the CGI industry is higher than either of these numbers. Now very much they may pay for bleeding edge, and spend more dollars on hardware than programmers. But I am at least 95% confident there are less people in the US running a 3d program on their desktop compared to running eclipse/visual studio/atom/vim.
- 9y ago

fasterthanjim 9y ago

"I wanna go fast!" - Ricky Bobby

fasterthanjim 9y ago
What do you think this is, Reddit?
- fasterthanjim 9y ago
  :(