Intel Core i9-7960X Review: Skylake-X At 16 Cores

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By Paul Alcorn
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Battlefield 1 & Dawn of War III

Battlefield 1

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The Core i9-7960X fares better during our trudge across the O La Vittoria landscape and outpaces AMD's Threadripper and Intel's own -7900X at stock settings. Tuning provides a tangible performance boost and smoother gameplay, but overclocking also allows the Core i9-7900X to establish a razor-thin victory.

We do see quite a bit of variance from the Threadripper and Ryzen 7 models, particularly during the test's opening stage, which manifests as hitching on-screen. 

Dawn of War III

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The overclocked Core i9-7960X again captures the top spot after a bit of tuning. It also outperforms the Core i9-7900X at stock settings.

AMD's Ryzen Threadripper models again lag behind, though it's important to note that they're in the recommended Game Mode, halving thread count to minimize Infinity Fabric latency. This means the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is doing battle with just 16 of its available 32 threads.


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Paul Alcorn
Paul Alcorn
Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech

Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.

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35 Comments Comment from the forums
  • lxd170
    Intel is the fastest when $ is no object, BUT AMD 1950 is a win for a average Joe.
    Reply
  • mdd1963
    Please add yet another $500 for exotic liquid cooling....; well done, intel...
    Reply
  • David_693
    I think there is something missing here: 'Similar to the other Skylake-X CPUs, the -7960X supports up to DDR4-2666 memory.'
    Reply
  • David_693
    Also noted that one of the test systems uses an i5-7500k not i7
    Reply
  • David_693
    Well, for now, my i7-7700k is no slouch, can't wait to see what the i7-8700K's will be able to do. No rush to upgrade yet as I've only had the 7700k since March. Thanks to AMD for pushing Intel to produce better options.
    Reply
  • klipschkiller
    Really, Intel, is this a joke? Why release a chip that requires water cooling, have bad thermals and power consumption to previous AMD's bulldozer.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    Well, it is good for competition that AMD have cooler and better behaving product this time compared to Intel. It forces Intel to do better next time!
    Go AMD go! And keep Intel in its toes! Better products, better prices (?) to the customers. I hope that Intel is forced to reduce the pricing...
    Reply
  • zippyzion
    That is a supremely powerful chip... but, man... at what cost? I give a nod to the speed and power, but it is anything but practical. It isn't even that much faster than the competition in most tests, and a good deal of that competition comes from Intel themselves. It is really a case of, "why bother?". I'd suggest just getting the 7900 or the 1950 if you are looking at this segment. Why spend so much more for so little extra?
    Reply
  • berezini.2013
    "Hail to the king baby"
    Reply
  • phobicsq
    Intel needs to stop using paste and do it right. It's beyond comprehension that they charge a lot more and and yet AMD charges less and does it right.
    Reply