From what we know of the new quad-core Skylake-S chip, it has a 4GHz base clock and a 4.2GHz Turbo Boost. The K suffix indicates the chip is unlocked and ready to be overclocked, and that Intel won’t be shipping a cooler standard with it, so you’ll have to buy one separately or pick up an aftermarket cooler. The chip has a TDP of 95 watts, up from 88 on the i7-4790K, and also supports DDR4-2133 memory.
For their benchmarks, Techbang put together a system with 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and OCZ Vertex 128GB SSD, and for the 3DMark tests, threw in an Asus Strix GTX 970. That’s not a super competitive system, but it is a good comparison point for Intel’s other chip, the Devil’s Canyon i7-4790K.
PCMark 8 Home
Intel Core i7-4790K
Intel Core i7-6700K
The 6700K is predictably faster than the 4790K, but not by much. The newer chip proved between three and ten percent faster in PCMark 8 tests. Where the 6700K gained a lot of ground over the Devil’s Canyon was in graphical tests, like 3DMark.
3DMark Fire Strike
Intel Core i7-4790K
Intel Core i7-6700K
When paired up with a GTX 970, the system saw not only a reasonable jump in benchmark scores, but also a noticeable bump to the frame rate. Most users who pick up a high-end CPU like the 6700K will be using high-end dedicated graphics, so these results are good news.
Cinebench
Intel Core i7-4790K
Intel Core i7-6700K
It’s interesting to note that in the Cinebench test, both chips have practically the same score in the single-core test. Part of the reason for that is that when only using a single core, the i7-4790K will kick its Turbo Boost all the way up to 4.4GHz. On the 6700K, all of the cores have a maximum rated Turbo Boost of 4.2GHz.
If these benchmarks are to be believed, then it makes less and less sense every day to upgrade to a Broadwell chip. Rumor has it this Skylake-S chip will be available as early as August, but if you want it you’ll have to upgrade to a new motherboard as well, so you’d better start saving your spare change.
