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Hardware-Based Security Fixes, Architecture & Test Setup

Much like the Cascade and Whiskey Lake processors we recently covered, Intel's Coffee Lake refresh comes with hardware-based mitigations for the Meltdown and L1TF (Foreshadow) vulnerabilities. Current Spectre and Meltdown mitigations, which Intel delivers via software and microcode patches, can reduce performance by up to 10% on newer CPUs, with older hardware suffering even larger losses. The new mitigations, baked directly into the silicon, should reduce or even eliminate the performance impact for a few vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability	Coffee Lake Refresh/Whiskey Lake Mitigation	Cascade Lake Mitigation
Variant 1 (Spectre)	Operating System	Operating System/VMM
Variant 2 (Spectre)	Microcode + Operating System	In-Silicon + Operating System/VMM
Variant 3 (Meltdown)	In-Silicon	In-Silicon
Variant 3a	Microcode + Operating System	Firmware
Variant 4	Microcode + Operating System	Microcode + Operating System/VMM
L1TF (Foreshadow)	In-Silicon	In-Silicon

As we're learning, it may take several processor generations before the fixes for all vulnerabilities are applied at a silicon level. Intel's ninth-gen CPUs do still need a combination of microcode and operating system patches. But at least Meltdown and L1TF Foreshadow are patched fully in hardware.

Architecture

Although we don't have much new information about Coffee Lake refresh architectural changes, David Schoor at WikiChip says the new chips use a familiar ring bus, an internal high-speed pathway connecting the cores and cache.

This stands in contrast to the mesh architecture (deep dive here) that Intel uses on its high-end desktop models, including the eight-core Core i7-7820X. We've found that the mesh architecture has a negative impact on some desktop applications, including games, which Intel acknowledges. The mesh architecture was designed to increase scalability as it expands to higher core counts in the Xeon family.

Overclocking, Rounds One and Two

We tapped Corsair's H115i v2 to test our Core i9-9900K sample in the U.S. lab. This liquid cooler afforded enough headroom to sustain a 5.0 GHz overclock with a 1.33V Vcore and a Load Line Calibration 4 setting. It kept the chip at a steady 85°C during extended non-AVX stress tests. Folding in AVX instructions did, unfortunately, overwhelm the all-in-one. To reign in the thermal output, we set the AVX offset to -2, meaning the chip ran at 4.8 GHz during AVX-optimized workloads and 5.0 GHz in the absence of AVX instructions. We maintained a temperature of 95°C during three hours of Prime95 using those settings.

To model real-world settings attainable by enthusiasts with closed-loop liquid coolers, we applied the -2 AVX offset for our 5.0 GHz overclock in the gaming, office and productivity, and rendering tests.

We did not use an offset for the workstation graphics, compute, power consumption, and temperatures sections.

MEG Z390 Godlike

We're using MSI's MEG Z390 Godlike as our test platform for all Intel processors. This pricey board retails for $600, but has the power delivery subsystem to support aggressive overclocking.

The MSI MEG Z390 Godlike sits at the top of MSI's motherboard hierarchy. It has a decked-out 18-phase power delivery subsystem that's designed to squeeze every drop of performance out of Intel's new processors. It also comes with a few nifty accessories like an M.2 PCIe riser card and an HDMI streaming card.

Comparison Products

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

Intel Core i7-8700K

Intel Core i7-7820X

Test System & Configuration
Hardware	Germany Intel LGA 1151 (Z390)Intel Core i9-9900K, i7-9700K, i5-9600K, i7-8700K, i5-8600K, i5-8400MSI MEG Z390 Godlike2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2667 & DDR4-3466AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC 2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2667, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 2066 Intel Core i7 MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC 4x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2666All SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition (Gaming) Nvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System SSD) 4x 1TB Crucial MX300 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Windows 10 Pro (All Updates)U.S. Intel LGA 1151 (Z390)Intel Core i9-9900K, i7-9700K, i5-9600K, i7-8700K, i5-8600K, i5-8400MSI MEG Z390 Godlike2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2667 & DDR4-3466Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7820XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2666, DDR4-3200AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, Ryzen 5 2600XMSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933All SystemsEVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863SilverStone ST1500-TI, 1500WWindows 10 Pro (All Updates)
Cooling	GermanyAMD Wraith RipperAlphacool Ice Block XPXEnermax LiqTech 240 TR4Thermal Grizzly KryonautU.S.Wraith RipperCorsair H115iEnermax Liqtech 240 TR4 II
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500 MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100 kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500 MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80 Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

VRMark, 3DMark

We aren't big fans of using synthetic benchmarks to measure performance, but 3DMark's DX11 and DX12 CPU tests provide useful insight into the amount of horsepower available to game engines.

The Core i9-9900K's eight cores easily beat Ryzen 7 2700X during the DX12 and DX11 CPU benchmarks. For perspective, the Core i9-9900K has the same 4.7 GHz all-core boost frequency as the Core i7-8700K's single-core boost, which is quite impressive. As expected, tuning Core i9-9900K propels it into a league of its own.

In the DX12 test, we see a nice step forward from Core i7-9700K compared to its predecessor, the Core i7-8700K. That improvement is despite a loss of Hyper-Threading technology on the new Core i7 model.

Architecturally, the Core i5-9600K is very similar to Core i5-8600K. They offer the same number of cores. But the newer chip's higher clock rates deliver tangible gains.

UL's VRMark test lets you gauge your system's suitability for use with the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, even if you don't currently own an HMD. UL defines a passing score as anything above 109 FPS. The Core i7-9700K posts a surprisingly strong frame rate, beating the overclocked -9900K. That implies this benchmark runs best on eight physical cores.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation is a computationally intense title that scales well with thread count. A stock Core i9-9900K beats the rest of the processors, except for an overclocked Core i7-8700K.

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Civilization VI Graphics & AI, Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

Civilization VI's AI test measures CPU performance in a turn-based strategy game and tends to favor per-core performance.

The Ryzen processors trail due to their lower per-core performance, defined by instructions per clock (IPC) throughput and frequency. Intel's Coffee Lake microarchitecture already dominates in comparisons of IPC, but bolstering it with higher clock rates extends the design's lead. Notice that the Core i5 and Core i7-9700K also perform exceedingly well, indicating this test runs best on physical cores.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Core i7-9700K takes the lead once again. The Coffee Lake-based Core i7 models remain impressive, though. As you'll see throughout our gaming suite, Intel's Skylake-X-based Core i7-7820X is no match for the mainstream processors' much higher frequencies.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

Ryzen 7 2700X is more competitive in the Warhammer 40,000 benchmark, largely because this game responds well to threading. Core i9 is a powerful chip, but the Core i7-8700K challenges it after some overclocking. Intel's Core i7-9700K essentially ties the Core i7-8700K, reminding us that its product stack remains carefully segmented.

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Far Cry 5, GTA: V & Hitman

Far Cry 5

Although the overclocked Core i9 leads, a tuned Core i7-8700K offers similar performance. More than likely, the extra $118 you pay for a Core i9 probably isn't worth it for gamers.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V favors Intel architectures and, more generally, multi-core designs with high clock rates.

The -9900K leads in convincing fashion. The Core i7 and i5 models also enjoy a healthy speed-up.

Hitman

Our Hitman benchmark was rendered almost useless by a patch that imposed a 90 FPS performance cap. A subsequent update restored our test to its prior glory.

Given its price point, the Core i5-9600K appears to be a phenomenal chip for gaming, even without taking overclocking into consideration. Notice that the new i5 often outperforms Intel's previous-gen Core i7-8700K. Really, that isn't surprising given both chips' multi-core Turbo Boost ratios. A lack of Hyper-Threading also helps in some games.

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Shadow Of War & Project CARS 2

Middle-earth: Shadow Of War

Shadow of War leans heavier on graphics resources than host processing, so we don't see large deltas between the fastest and slowest CPUs. This is another reminder that most games are limited by your GPU, so plan accordingly if you're running into a bottleneck.

Project CARS 2

Although Project CARS 2 is purportedly optimized for threading, clock rates obviously affect this title's frame rates. Intel's per-core performance advantage pays big dividends in this title, but Core i5-9600K inexplicably trails the previous-gen -8600K. Repeated testing confirmed the results.

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Office & Productivity

Adobe Creative Cloud

Even though this suite has a few parallelized workloads, its final score is heavily influenced by the lightly-threaded tasks common in most desktop applications.

Core i9-9900K takes a commanding lead throughout these tests. However, the Core i7-9700K proves to be an adept competitor. It should come close to matching the Core i9-9900K after overclocking in these types of lightly-threaded tasks.

Web Browser

The Krakken suite evaluates JavaScript performance using several workloads, including audio, imaging, and cryptography. Like most browser-based benchmarks, single-threaded performance reigns supreme. These tests expose the trade-offs you make for an all-core overclock, particularly with the second-gen Ryzen processors.

Intel's single-threaded advantage is clear. Once again the -9700K offers a nice step up from the -8700K, while Intel's Core i5-9600K proves its mettle. Our overclocked Ryzen 7 2700X trails the stock configuration in many of these tests because it offers a higher boost clock rate in stock form.

Productivity

The application start-up metric measures load time snappiness in word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers under warm- and cold-start conditions. Other platform-level considerations affect this test as well, including the storage subsystem. Core i7-7820X lags the rest of the test pool, possibly as a byproduct of its mesh architecture. Meanwhile, the Core i7-8700K and -9900K are closely matched.

The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries using the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized. This application responds well to the Ryzen 7 2700X, which scores a rare win against the stock Core i9-9900K.

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Rendering, Encoding & Compression

Rendering

Intel’s processors extend their lead in the single-threaded POV-Ray and Cinebench tests. However, it's easy to see that AMD’s extra cores help offset their lower IPC in threaded benchmarks.

The Core i9-9900K sets a new high water mark for mainstream desktop performance at stock and overclocked settings in the threaded POV-Ray and Cinebench benchmarks.

Encoding & Compression

Our threaded compression and decompression metrics work directly from system memory, removing storage throughput from the equation. Ryzen 7 2700X is competitive in these workloads, especially after overclocking. But Intel's Core i9-9900K carves out a commanding lead.

y-cruncher, a single- and multi-threaded program that computes pi, is a great test to use for measuring the affect of AVX instructions. Core i7-7820X sports two 256-bit AVX FMA units per core that operate in parallel, so it isn't surprising to see that CPU leading through the multi-threaded test. Core i9-9900K is still highly competitive, but we dialed back its all-core AVX frequency to 4.8 GHz for our overclocked configuration. Consequently, the tuned -9900K is outperformed by the stock configuration, which benefits from the dual-core 5.0 GHz AVX frequency.

Core i9-9900K leverages high clock frequencies to dominate the HandBrake x265 test, which relies heavily on AVX instructions, and the H.264 test. Notice that the tuned -9900K outpaces the stock configuration in these tests despite our 4.8 GHz AVX offset. That's because the stock setup drops to an all-core 4.7 GHz under full utilization.

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Workstation Graphics

While workstation graphics are a niche for most readers, some might consider using the -9900K's eight cores and 16 threads for professional tasks. Really, though, there aren't many threaded applications for real-time graphics output. These benchmarks mostly benefit from high IPC and frequency.

Cinebench profits equally from more cores and higher clock rates. That makes it one of the very few benchmarks able to show off what Core i9-9900K can do compared to Core i7-8700K.

The older versions of Maya and Catia appear to be bottlenecked, despite the potent Nvidia Quadro P6000 being pushed to its limit. In the end, it makes no difference whether the CPU is overclocked or not. The differences are marginal from the Core i7-8700K upward.

The Blender loop relies on OpenGL and real-time graphics, but host processing power still helps. However, these applications use hardly more than four cores, so high per-core performance pays off.

The same could be said for the GPU composite score of 3ds Max because, in the end, the highest clock rate wins. Multi-threading is not really in demand.

To summarize, we could say there is little added value in upgrading from a fast quad-core to a slightly faster eight-core CPU in these types of applications.

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Workstation Compute

The CPU composite score of SolidWorks combines render and compute performance. Multi-core scaling isn't the emphasis. Rather, per-core performance moves the needle furthest.

If the workload consists of strictly rendering, then Core i9-9900K is hard to beat.

Interestingly enough, AMD's CPUs dominate the 3ds Max composite score (this program seems better-optimized for AMD's architecture in general). For the first time, Core i7-8700K doesn't stand a chance against the Core i9.

Intel's CPUs bounce back in the rendering test, whereas AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X drops a few spots.

Creo reminds us that maximizing work done per clock cycle is critical. It'll probably take a very long time for developers to optimize for threading.

Almost everything in this application is perfectly parallelized, so a combination of threads and per-core performance form a brutal alliance.

Aside from the render workloads, there's no reason to buy a Core i9 over the older Core i7-8700K. But then the entire platform is out of place and you might want to consider a real workstation instead.

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Power Consumption

Power consumption measurements are always a bit tricky, but as long as the 12V supply (EPS) readings and the sensor values of the power supply of the mainboard plus voltage transformer losses plausibly coincide, everything is fine. Therefore, we again rely on the pure package power to avoid possible influences from the motherboard. The values of the PWM controller are really very reliable if taken as averages over a period of a few minutes.

At idle, everything is perfectly fine. Both the stock and overclocked Core i9-9900K sip power. The fact that the Ryzen 5 2600X lands at the top of our chart is confirmed by our bad sample. This is definitely not a general AMD problem though, as the Ryzen 7 2700X shows. In general, however, all the CPUs are quite economical.

Both -9900K configurations are still in good shape during the CAD workload: the chip's power consumption is only slightly higher than the Core i7-8700K. So far, the very high voltage needed for stable operation does not make a disturbing impression. Everything is still in the green.

Power consumption is also within the expected values during the gaming loop, especially since the game does not fully utilize all cores. Although a comparison test with Assassin's Creed Origins did yield much higher values (up to 20W more), that game is so poorly optimized that we measure completely different values each time.

Five measurements with five strongly diverging results are not something that would be apt for a fair comparison. However, at 5 GHz, the Core i9-9900K never really crossed the 100W limit, so it was still cool enough to make ends meet. At least for games.

But power becomes more of an issue in some productivity applications because a constant load on all cores at high clock rates is almost too much. And to be clear, the Core i9-9900K gets super hot faced with Prime95 and AVX instructions (205W stock, 250W overclocked), exceeding the specified TDP.

We measured 137W (232W) during the Cinebench test, and we topped 145W (241W overclocked) under the larger Blender workload. We even pushed past 120W (198W overclocked) with various CAD plug-ins for Creo and SolidWorks. The limits of normal all-in-one compact water cooling solutions are in sight during standard operation at 4.7 GHz on all cores, but you can easily overwhelm cheaper AIOs during overclocking.

Finally, and because we like the additional detail, here are the line charts corresponding to our long-term measurements.

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Temperatures

As we did in the past with Intel's Core i7-8700K, we again created absolutely identical test and measurement conditions. We use the same type of CPU cooler (Alphacool XPX), the same Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut TIM, and the Alphacool Ice Age 2000 chiller that, as always, provides exactly 20°C water temperature. We weigh the thermal paste (0.15 grams) on a laboratory balance to further ensure accuracy. Thus, our older test results are usable for comparisons to the Intel Core i9-9900K.

Thermal Grease Vs. Solder

We have an important preliminary about the change from the thermal paste TIM on the Core i7-8700K to the solder of the Core i9-9900K. Since the height of the CPU has remained absolutely the same with the new chips, one can also assume that Intel uses the same heatspreader as the older CPUs. The distance between the die and heat spreader was previously relatively high due to the design, as the chips have a relatively thick layer of thermal paste.

Therefore, we can assume the solder layer also turns out to be a bit thicker than it would actually have needed. This fact, and the significantly smaller heat spreader (surface area) compared to the LGA 2066 CPUs, will certainly explain why the results that follow are the same as they were. Good, but not perfect.

The Intel Core i7-8700K achieves just under 160 watts in the stress test with Prime95, so we ran the Intel Core i9-9900K with a similar load. The Core i9-9900K did not always use all its cores fully, so slight fluctuations occur despite the same average waste heat over the entire time. But these remain negligible. Logically, the Intel Core i9-9900K runs much cooler than with Solder TIM:

With nearly identical power dissipation and identical cooling conditions, we calculate a mean package temperature of 57°C for the Intel Core i9-9900K and 75°C for the Intel Core i7-8700K. This results in a delta of 18°. Tests of the delidded Intel Core i7-8700K show that this is not necessarily optimal – the delta was at least 20° (better by 2°). In either case, even the industrial solder solution is always worth more than the thermal paste of the previous CPU generation.

Leakage at different temperatures but same load

CPUs are thermistors, where the internal resistance decreases with rising temperature instead of rising. That makes it interesting to see how the temperatures, and thus the leakage currents (and consequently the power loss), develop with the same applied load. To measure this, we have the Core i9-9900K overclocked under Prime95 run once with chiller and with a normal AiO compact water cooling (Corsair H110i).

The result turns out as expected. While the chiller the CPU is at an average of 63° C, but the 90° C with the AiO is already near the absolute limit. Mind you, this result is at stock settings with an AVX load. Interestingly, when using SSE, the delta of 27°C remains nearly the same, as it is still 25°C on average.

But back to the AVX load, because what does the almost 30° C temperature difference ultimately mean for power consumption? Here, too, we are amazed to a certain extent, because between the 205W with chiller and the 229W with the AiO compact water cooling, there is a difference of 24W. We can only attribute that to the now stronger leakage currents.

You can see the remaining power consumption figures on the previous page, but under almost ideal conditions. The better the cooling, the better the power consumption. However, we were only able to record these large differences at package temperatures above 80°C, which then almost rise like an avalanche. This would dissuade us from air cooling, even if the Intel Core i9-9900K should not be overclocked any further. The 4.7 GHz all-core and a constant load are quite sufficient to make air cooling absurd.

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Conclusion

Intel's Core i9-9900K answers several requests from the enthusiast community. It sports more cores, higher clock rates, and effective Solder TIM. The delayed 10nm process could be a liability as AMD works feverishly to respond with new 7nm processors. But for now, these 14nm++ CPUs are winners.

In the chart below, we plot gaming performance with both average frame rates and a geometric mean of the 99^th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness), which we then convert into a frame-per-second measurement. Bear in mind that we tested with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 at 1920x1080 to alleviate graphics-imposed bottlenecks. Differences between our test subjects would shrink with higher resolutions.

Core i9-9900K takes the crown as the fastest gaming processor on the market, and it proves to be highly capable in the threaded workloads that AMD's Ryzen processors used to dominate. Pricing is still a problem for Intel, though. You pay dearly for the extra cores, while a majority of games don't fully utilize them. The Core i7-9700K, even at stock settings, is competitive with the -9900K in most titles, especially considering the $115 you save by stepping down a notch. We haven't overclocked our -9700K yet, though, so the small deltas observed between the two chips may shrink further.

Although AMD's second-gen Ryzen processors narrowed the gap with Intel's Coffee Lake-based line-up, these ninth-generation Core chips redefine the playing field. The $263 Core i5-9600K at stock settings regularly beat an overclocked $329 Ryzen 7 2700X in games, and we expect even more performance from the Core i5 once we overclock it. Ryzen 7 2700X does come with a capable cooler, but the Core i5’s lower price diminishes AMD’s value proposition for gaming.

In the end, Core i9-9900K serves up impressive performance across our benchmark suite. If you regularly run heavily-threaded applications, it's probably worth paying a premium for. But if you need real workstation-class features, you should step up to an appropriate platform.

And make no mistake, the Core i9-9900K requires expensive accommodations. You need a premium motherboard with robust power delivery, particularly if you plan on overclocking. The -9900K can drop into existing Z370 motherboards, but we’re sure that many of them will struggle with the chip’s voracious appetite for current. Also plan on investing in a high-end PSU.

The -9900K proved to be an impressive overclocker, largely due to its Solder TIM. Don't think that means you can skimp on cooling, though. High temperatures hampered our overclocking efforts, and a more capable cooler could have facilitated additional headroom. Intel even threw in new packaging to help win back the hearts and minds of enthusiasts.

Now the question is whether Intel can satisfy enthusiast demand. After all, we've already heard reports of delayed pre-order shipments. Even though the company assures us that it can accommodate demand for eight-core CPUs, this doesn't bode well for availability as the company grapples with an ongoing shortage of 14nm manufacturing capacity.

The Core i9-9900K has no direct rival on a mainstream platform, but its high price point encroaches into the realm of AMD’s upcoming $649 12-core Threadripper 2920X (which has hefty platform requirements of its own). That chip isn't available yet, so its performance remains shrouded in mystery. For something more readily available, look to the previous-gen Threadripper 1920X.

Unless you regularly use heavily-threaded applications, it’s hard to justify stepping up to Core i9-9900K from any modern four- or six-core CPU. With that said, Core i9-9900K is the fastest mainstream processor on the market. Plenty of enthusiasts opt for the best possible performance in both single- and multi-threaded workloads at any price. There, the Core i9-9900K doesn’t disappoint.

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Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition Review: Replacing GeForce GTX 1080

Chris Angelini — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 15:05:00 +0000

Meet TU106: The Engine Powering GeForce RTX 2070

GeForce RTX 2070 is Nvidia’s third card based on its Turing architecture. And one month after introducing GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti, the company is also juggling a third Turing-based graphics processor: TU106.

To nobody’s surprise, GeForce RTX 2070 slots in just above where GeForce GTX 1080 left off. Specifically, Nvidia says its new TU106-powered board is faster than GTX 1080 in every game at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. And across our benchmark suite, Nvidia’s claim does hold up.

The real question is whether GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition can justify its $600 price tag versus the $550 GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition, any of the sub-$500 partner cards, or AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64, which also starts at $500. If not, third-party GeForce RTX 2070s should start in the $500 range, making RTX 2070 a natural replacement for GeForce GTX 1080.

Update on Third-Party RTX 2070 Pricing

New that RTX 2070 cards are showing up on virtual store shelves, we’re seeing a few third-party cards selling for as low as $499, which is Nvidia’s suggested starting price. Those looking for “value-priced” 2070 cards can look to cards like the Gigabyte RTX 2070 Windforce 8G or the Asus Turbo RTX 2070 8GB. Just keep in mind that cards may go in and out of stock, and if that is consistently low, prices of course could climb, even for these lower-end RTX 2070 models.

Meet TU106: The Engine Powering GeForce RTX 2070

GeForce RTX 2070 is built around a complete TU106 GPU. Architecturally, TU106 is very similar to GeForce RTX 2080’s TU104 and GeForce RTX 2080 Ti’s TU102 processors. Nvidia simply builds the chip using fewer of the modular blocks that go into its higher-end graphics cards. For instance, TU106 is composed of three Graphics Processing Clusters, each with six Texture Processing Clusters. GeForce RTX 2080’s TU104 comprises six GPCs, each with four TPCs. GeForce RTX 2080 Ti also employs six GPCs, except that its GPCs contain six TPCs apiece, just like TU106.

Across the Turing family, TPCs include two Streaming Multiprocessors, adding up to 36 SMs across TU106. Those blocks remain unchanged from the Turing GPUs we’ve already reviewed, so RTX 2070 ends up with 2304 CUDA cores, 288 Tensor cores, 36 RT cores, and 144 texture units. Those Tensor and RT cores are this generation’s signature features. So, if you missed our deep-dive into their purpose, be sure to check out Nvidia’s Turing Architecture Explored: Inside the GeForce RTX 2080.

	GeForce RTX 2070 FE	GeForce GTX 1080 FE	GeForce GTX 1070 FE
Architecture (GPU)	Turing (TU106)	Pascal (GP104)	Pascal (GP104)
CUDA Cores	2304	2560	1920
Peak FP32 Compute	7.9 TFLOPS	8.9 TFLOPS	6.5 TFLOPS
Tensor Cores	288	N/A	N/A
RT Cores	36	N/A	N/A
Texture Units	144	160	120
Base Clock Rate	1410 MHz	1607 MHz	1506 MHz
GPU Boost Rate	1710 MHz	1733 MHz	1683 MHz
Memory Capacity	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR5X	8GB GDDR5
Memory Bus	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit
Memory Bandwidth	448 GB/s	320 GB/s	256 GB/s
ROPs	64	64	64
L2 Cache	4MB	2MB	2MB
TDP	185W	180W	150W
Transistor Count	10.8 billion	7.2 billion	7.2 billion
Die Size	445 mm²	314 mm²	314 mm²
SLI Support	No	Yes (MIO)	Yes (MIO)

Nvidia’s base clock rate for GeForce RTX 2070 is 1410 MHz with a GPU Boost rating of 1620 MHz. The Founders Edition model benefits from a higher power limit and capable cooling, allowing the company to push its typical GPU Boost frequency to 1710 MHz (and increase this card’s price by $100). Less expensive models won’t be as fast, though the difference shouldn’t be substantial.

TU106 maintains the same 256-bit memory bus as TU104, and it’s likewise populated with 8GB of 14 Gb/s GDDR6 modules capable of moving up to 448 GB/s. A 4MB L2 cache and 64 ROPs carry over as well. The only capability blatantly missing is NVLink, which isn't supported on RTX 2070.

Although TU106 is the least-complex Turing-based GPU at launch, its 445 mm² die contains no fewer than 10.8 billion transistors. That’s still enormous for what Nvidia might have once considered the middle of its portfolio. In comparison, GP106—“mid-range Pascal”—was a 200 mm² chip with 4.4 billion transistors inside. GP104 measured 314 mm² and included 7.2 billion transistors. Targeting greater-than GTX 1080 performance levels, RTX 2070 really does seem like an effort to drive Tensor and RT cores as deep as possible down the chip stack, while keeping those features useful. It’ll be interesting to see how practical they remain in almost-halved quantities versus RTX 2080 Ti once optimized software becomes available. Unfortunately, a month after Turing’s debut, we still have nothing more than tech demos, breathtaking though they may be, to show what the architecture can do.

Pumped-up die size aside, reference GeForce RTX 2070 cards based on TU106 have a 175W TDP. The Founders Edition board we have in our lab is rated for 185W. GeForce GTX 1080 lands right between those two specifications at 180W.

Meet GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition: Making Mid-Range Turing Look Good

From the outside, GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition looks a lot like Nvidia’s own 2080 and 2080 Ti designs, except shorter. It’s just as tall (11.5cm) and wide (3.9cm) as the higher-end RTX board, but 23cm long instead of 27cm. More compact dimensions and a less massive cooler also cut down on heft. GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition weighs in at 970g to the 2080 Founders Edition’s 1250g.

Up front, it’s clear that Nvidia utilizes the same pair of 8.5cm, 13-blade axial fans, which blow through a vertically-oriented fin stack underneath. While we still miss the centrifugal fan and acrylic window of Nvidia’s previous reference cards, there’s no doubt that GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition is sturdily-built using high-quality materials.

Flipped over, a plate covers the back of the PCB and wraps around, touching the front shroud at both ends to create clean, unbroken lines. The backplate makes direct contact with several board components with thermal pads in between to facilitate better heat transfer.

The top of this card is far less interesting than GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition or 2080 Ti Founders Edition. Because the GeForce RTX 2070 does not support SLI over NVLink, there is no interface up there. Further, auxiliary power input moves to the back, presenting a cleaner aesthetic in windowed cases.

A single eight-pin power connector on the back should pose no fitment issues. Because RTX 2070 Founders Edition is on the short side, a cable coming out of its back won’t bump up against low-hanging hard drive cages. And it sure looks better than a connector jutting forward.

Gamers buying the highest-end graphics cards are more likely to own monitors with modern display inputs. At least, that’s what we get from Nvidia’s decision to arm GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti with three DisplayPort connectors and one HDMI output, while GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition sports two DP 1.4 interfaces, HDMI 2.0b, and a rare DVI-DL port. VirtualLink is still supported over the card’s single USB Type-C connector and, like the other GeForce RTX 2000-series cards, all four display outputs can be used at the same time for multi-monitor arrays.

With its fan shroud disconnected, GeForce RTX 2070’s heat sink stretches from one end of the card, past the 19cm-long PCB, and to the stabilizing frame’s other side. The cable for both fans and lighting runs through that channel in the middle, where the circuit board is visible, to a connector underneath. Whereas GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti shared a common thermal solution, GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition employs a copper sink topped by pipes that dissipate heat through all of those fins.

Remove all of its screws and the heat sink lifts up off of the frame. That frame is held tight to the PCB by hex-head screws. Once you get them off, the frame can be carefully lifted off. Just be careful to not damage the thermal pads.

GeForce RTX 2070’s power requirements aren’t as exacting as 2080’s or 2080 Ti’s, so the smaller PCB is understandably less complicated. Around back, we noticed that this board is manufactured by TTM Technologies in Hong Kong, rather than the usual Chinese-made PCBs. Nvidia did something similar with its GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition card, which turned out to be a very limited product. We suspect the 2070 Founders Edition is destined for a similar fate, satisfying some demand as partners ramp up everything from lower-cost 2070s to fancier overclocked versions. For now, this card covers Nvidia’s bases since board partners seemingly weren’t ready for today’s launch.

The reference design employs six power phases for TU106 and two for the GDDR6. While uPI’s uP9512 can technically control eight phases, it’s easily adapted to GeForce RTX 2070’s less sophisticated power supply. A simpler uP1666Q two-phase buck controller is ample for the memory.

Gone are the ON Semiconductor FDMF3170 Smart Power Stage modules with integrated PowerTrench MOSFETs and driver ICs, found on GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti. They’re replaced with cheaper NCP302155s featuring high- and low-side MOSFETs, plus a driver. Current to the GPU is smoothed by the usual 220mH coils, while the memory similarly employs 470mH inductors.

Getting the power connector rotated 90 degrees and extended out the back of this card’s frame required an extension of sorts. Again, that’s similar to GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition. Except this time, rather than a six-pin connector delivering ~5.2A of current, the eight-pin connector serves up ~11.1A through those three red +12V lines. It seems unavoidable that this area would heat up quite a bit more than previous designs employing the same remote connector.

How We Tested GeForce RTX 2070

Nvidia’s latest and greatest will no doubt be found in one of the many high-end platforms now available from AMD and Intel. Our graphics station still employs an MSI Z170 Gaming M7 motherboard with an Intel Core i7-7700K CPU at 4.2 GHz, though. The processor is complemented by G.Skill’s F4-3000C15Q-16GRR memory kit. Crucial’s MX200 SSD remains, joined by a 1.4TB Intel DC P3700 loaded down with games.

As far as competition goes, the GeForce RTX 2070 goes up against the GeForce GTX 1080 and Radeon RX Vega 64. Both are, of course, included in our benchmark results, along with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, GeForce RTX 2080, Titan V, GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, Titan X, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, and GeForce GTX 1070 from Nvidia. AMD is also represented by the Radeon RX Vega 56. All cards are either Founders Edition or reference models. We do have some partner boards in-house from both Nvidia and AMD, and plan to use those for third-party reviews.

Our benchmark selection now includes Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, Battlefield 1, Civilization VI, Destiny 2, Doom, Far Cry 5, Forza Motorsport 7, Grand Theft Auto V, Metro: Last Light Redux, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, The Witcher 3 and World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth.

The testing methodology we're using comes from PresentMon: Performance In DirectX, OpenGL, And Vulkan. In short, these games are evaluated using a combination of OCAT and our own in-house GUI for PresentMon, with logging via GPU-Z.

All of the numbers you see in today’s piece are fresh, using updated drivers. For Nvidia, we’re using build 416.33 for GeForce RTX 2070, and 411.51 for GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and 2080. The other cards are tested with build 398.82. Titan V’s results were spot-checked with 411.51 to ensure performance didn’t change. AMD’s cards utilize Crimson Adrenalin Edition 18.8.1, which was the latest at test time.

Asus Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB

AMD Radeon RX Vega 56

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

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Deep Learning Super-Sampling: Faster Than GeForce GTX 1080 Ti?

Before we get into the performance of GeForce RTX 2070 across our benchmark suite, let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room: a month in, there still aren't any games with real-time ray tracing or DLSS to test. We do, however, have access to a demo of Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition with DLSS support. Details of the implementation are somewhat light, aside from a note that DLSS allows Turing-based GPUs to use half the number of input samples for rendering. The architecture’s Tensor cores fill in the rest to create a final image.

Nvidia says the demo runs at 4K and maximum graphics fidelity no matter what but doesn’t provide any way to see what the quality settings include. The HUD simply shows Resolution: 3840x2160, Graphics: Custom, and a score that increases as the demo runs. Unfortunately, there's no way for us to specify 2560x1440 (a more practical target for GeForce RTX 2070).

Despite the over-ambitious resolution, GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition picks up a 38% speed-up with DLSS active compared to applying TAA at 4K. That makes it faster than GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and RTX 2080 using TAA. Prognosticating one year into the future, TU106's Tensor cores may surprise enthusiasts and become this architecture's most useful feature, particularly if real-world optimizations for DLSS prove as compelling as Nvidia's demos.

But until DLSS really proves itself, we anticipate gamers distrusting the idea that input samples can be removed to save on rendering budget and then filled in using AI. We pored over the demo, running both versions over and over to identify any differences that stood out.

In the clip below, we make two observations. First, Noct’s textured shirt is affected by banding/shimmering due to DLSS. In the TAA version, his chest does not exhibit the same effect. Second, as Noct casts his fishing rod, there’s a pronounced ghosting artifact that remains on-screen with TAA active. DLSS does away with this entirely. Neither solution is perfect.

Might the Final Fantasy’s DLSS implementation improve over time? According to Nvidia, the model for DLSS is trained on a set of data that eventually reaches a point where the quality of its inferred results flattens out. So, in a sense, the DLSS model does mature. But the company’s supercomputing cluster is constantly training with new data on new games, so improvements may roll out as time goes on. If there are areas that demonstrate an issue of some sort, the DLSS model can be reviewed and tweaked. This may involve providing additional “correct” data to train with.

Beyond DLSS' implications for performance and image quality, we were also curious whether utilizing TU106's Tensor cores affected clock rates or power consumption.

Comparing 300 seconds of the Final Fantasy XV demo, power consumption looks very similar using DLSS and TAA. Notably, the dips between scenes consistently drop lower with DLSS enabled.

The same goes for clock rate, though we might guess that TU106 is able to run at a slightly higher frequency because it's only rendering a fraction of the input samples and using Tensor cores to fill in the rest.

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Results: Ashes of the Singularity and Battlefield 1

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (DX12)

Pushing Ashes of the Singularity as hard as possible requires the Crazy quality preset, which adds 4x MSAA and several Ultra-level options. Although the game supports multiple graphics APIs, we use DirectX 12 for our benchmarks.

GeForce RTX 2070 makes its first appearance ahead of the Pascal-based GeForce GTX 1080.

Nvidia does try positioning the RTX 2070 against its previous-generation GTX 1070. However, the new card’s $600 tag blows past the 1070’s ~$400 price point, exceeds the ~$500 you’d expect to pay for a GTX 1080, and lands $100 under the cost of a GTX 1080 Ti.

Nvidia is also clear that GeForce RTX 2070 best serves gamers playing at 2560x1440 with detail settings maxed out. However, relaxing the quality preset in Ashes of the Singularity to Extreme yields playable performance at 4K, too. Again, the 2070 offers a similar experience as the GeForce GTX 1080.

Battlefield 1 (DX12)

Averaging more than 100 FPS in Battlefield 1 at 2560x1440 using Ultra settings, the GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition looks like a great match-up for high-refresh QHD monitors.

Moreover, a 14% advantage over GeForce GTX 1080 is quite a bit larger than the slim victory RTX 2070 enjoyed in Ashes of the Singularity at this resolution.

GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition’s lead over GTX 1080 grows to 20% in Battlefield 1 at 3840x2160. In fact, it averages just a couple of percentage points behind GTX 1080 Ti and keeps its nose above 60 FPS in our bar graph. A peek at the frame time chart reveals very few spikes, and as a result, a plot of FPS by percentile indicates exceptionally smooth performance through our 80-second sequence.

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Results: Destiny 2 and Doom

Destiny 2 (DX11)

A 37% lead over GeForce GTX 1070 lines up with Nvidia’s internally-generated results comparing RTX 2070 to its generational predecessor. But the real comparison should be to GeForce GTX 1080. In that face-off, RTX 2070 is 9% faster for a 20%-higher price tag.

To RTX 2070’s credit, we’re glad to see 100+ FPS average performance in Destiny 2 using the game’s Highest quality preset. At the right price, this card could be a real winner (particularly since its nearest competition from AMD, Radeon RX Vega 64, is only 80% as fast).

Turning off SMAA allows the GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition to maintain playable frame rates at 4K in Destiny 2. The lead over GTX 1080 is a mere 8%, but a 28% lead over the $500 Radeon RX Vega 64 does speak to Nvidia’s competitive positioning.

Doom (Vulkan)

Although the five fastest graphics cards in our chart are limited by Doom’s 200 FPS limit, GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition is not. An 8% lead over GTX 1080 and an 18% advantage compared to Radeon RX Vega 64 translate to perfectly smooth frame rates in Doom at 2560x1440.

Upping the resolution to 3840x2160 imposes a more taxing graphics workload, knocking frame rates down across the board. Now, GeForce RTX 2070 is 14% faster than GTX 1080 and 26% quicker than Radeon RX Vega 64.

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Results: Far Cry 5 and Forza Motorsport 7

Far Cry 5 (DX11)

GeForce RTX 2070 is a little faster than GeForce GTX 1080 (about 7%), but not enough to warrant the Founders Edition's price premium.

Efforts to make the comparison between RTX 2070 and GTX 1070 fall apart when we take price into consideration. Across Nvidia’s portfolio, this is a battle between TU106 and GP104. However, AMD turns the comparison around by beating GeForce RTX 2070 with a Radeon RX Vega 64 that’s priced $100 lower.

The Radeon is faster than GeForce GTX 1080 at 3840x2160 but falls behind the RTX 2070. Regardless, using Far Cry 5’s Ultra quality preset affects performance too much at 4K, pushing average frame rates below 50.

While it’s certainly possible to dial the game’s detail settings back a notch or two, this is a good reminder that GeForce RTX 2070 is primarily intended for use with high-refresh QHD displays. At this level in Nvidia’s Turing-based stack, the rigors of 4K require quality compromises for smooth performance in titles like Far Cry 5.

Forza Motorsport 7 (DX12)

GeForce RTX 2070 enjoys a 13% lead over GeForce GTX 1080 at 2560x1440 in Forza Motorsport 7 but is narrowly beaten by Radeon RX Vega 64—a $100-cheaper card. Even GeForce GTX 1080 Ti lags AMD’s flagship and the TU106-based 2070 at this resolution.

Stepping up to 3840x2160 separates the field more, even though we disable 4x MSAA. Now GeForce RTX 2080 lands just behind GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and 12% ahead of GeForce GTX 1080. Radeon RX Vega 64 falls under the new RTX 2070, though the 2% deficit isn’t discernible.

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Results: Grand Theft Auto V and Metro: Last Light Redux

Grand Theft Auto V (DX11)

While the faster cards bunch up due to a platform bottleneck, GeForce RTX 2070 seems well-paired to our Core i7-7700K at 4.2 GHz. It’s only 1% faster than GeForce GTX 1080 at Grand Theft Auto V’s Very High settings with 4x MSAA enabled. However, the Graphics Core Next architecture’s well-documented struggles in this DX11-based game result in the RTX 2070’s 35% advantage over Radeon RX Vega 64.

Playable frame rates are still possible from the GeForce RTX 2070 at 3840x2160 with 4x MSAA turned off. For the money, though, a GeForce GTX 1080 offers far better value.

Metro: Last Light Redux (DX11)

At 2560x1440, we like to hammer our test pool in Metro: Last Light with super-sampling. The outcome is sub-60 FPS averages from Radeon RX Vega 64, GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, Radeon RX Vega 56, and GeForce GTX 1070.

Cards on the other side of that symbolic threshold include GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, GeForce RTX 2080, and the GeForce RTX 2070 we’re reviewing today.

You’ll have to decide for yourself if the 19% advantage over GeForce GTX 1080 and Radeon RX Vega 64 is worth paying an extra $100 for.

Neither GeForce GTX 1080 nor Radeon RX Vega 64 are fast enough to handle Metro: Last Light at 3840x2160. Even with SSAA disabled, we believe GeForce RTX 2070 falls short of that mark, too. Although stepping down from the Very High quality preset would undoubtedly help improve frame rates, gamers serious about smooth performance at 3840x2160 should consider something faster.

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Results: Rise of the Tomb Raider and Tom Clancy’s The Division

Rise of the Tomb Raider (DX12)

GeForce RTX 2070 holds a 5% advantage over GeForce GTX 1080 in Rise of the Tomb Raider at 2560x1440 using Very High settings and SSAA. It’s 11% faster than Radeon RX Vega 64. However, all three cards are in roughly the same class.

We disable SSAA after dialing in a 4K resolution. But the Very High preset is still too much for GeForce RTX 2070, GeForce GTX 1080, or Radeon RX Vega 64 to bear. An average frame rate above 50 looks promising for GeForce RTX 2070. Once frame rates are binned by percentile, though, we see the slowest 5% of frames down under 40 FPS. Chalk this up as another example of RTX 2070 being underpowered for 3840x2160 using the highest-quality settings.

Tom Clancy’s The Division (DX12)

The Turing architecture relinquishes its dominance in Tom Clancy’s The Division: GeForce RTX 2070 is beaten by AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64 at 2560x1440 using the Ultra preset. Nvidia’s new Founders Edition card does end up 4% ahead of GeForce GTX 1080, albeit at a 20% premium compared to the cheapest 1080s on Newegg (or 9% if you use the prices on Nvidia’s online store).

Despite 8GB of HBM2 and memory bandwidth advantage, Radeon RX Vega 64 loses the lead over GeForce RTX 2070 at 4K. But again, neither card is fast enough using the Ultra preset to produce playable performance. Only the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and Titan V average more than 60 FPS in this game’s built-in benchmark.

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Results: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, The Witcher 3, and WoW

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon (DX11)

The only reason we use Ghost Recon’s Very High detail setting is to avoid the Ultra preset’s Turf Effects option, which creates an unfair comparison between GeForce and Radeon cards.

True to Nvidia’s claims, GeForce RTX 2070 looks most at home gaming on a QHD screen with detail settings maxed out. It enjoys an 8% lead over GeForce GTX 1080 and a 14% advantage compared to Radeon RX Vega 64.

Our GeForce RTX 2080 review showed that card falling short of smooth performance in Ghost Recon at 4K, so it’s no surprise that GeForce RTX 2070 ends up even further down the hierarchy. You can splurge on GeForce RTX 2080 Ti for the ultimate experience at 3840x2160, drop to 2560x1440 and maintain the gorgeous-looking visuals, or dial back the quality settings to get a better frame rate at 4K. It’s a tough balancing act, to be sure.

The Witcher 3 (DX11)

AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64 and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 fare similarly in The Witcher 3 at 2560x1440 using Ultra settings. The new GeForce RTX 2070 blows past both with a 16%+ lead. To be fair, though, even a GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is ample in this game.

On the other hand, playing at 4K calls for heavier artillery. A GeForce RTX 2080 is ideal, though a GTX 1080 Ti works well for significantly less money. GeForce RTX 2070 nearly averages 60 FPS. We still think it’s better on a high-refresh QHD display, though.

Bonus: World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth (DX12)

WoW is another game that’d likely benefit more from a CPU upgrade than a $600 graphics card. However, since Battle for Azeroth added DirectX 12 support to its custom engine, we decided it’d be fun to test the game using its most taxing detail settings with 4x MSAA enabled.

If you’re already using a high-end Pascal-based graphics card, Blizzard’s latest expansion doesn’t get much faster from Turing at this resolution.

Switching to 4K and disabling MSAA has little effect on the top five finishers. GeForce RTX 2070 lands just ahead of GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 Ti, both of which offer far better value (and greater than 60 FPS rates at 3840x2160 using the top quality setting in WoW).

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Power Consumption

Slowly but surely, we’re spinning up multiple Tom’s Hardware labs with Cybenetics’ Powenetics hardware/software solution for accurately measuring power consumption.

Powenetics, In Depth

For a closer look at our U.S. lab’s power consumption measurement platform, check out Powenetics: A Better Way To Measure Power Draw for CPUs, GPUs & Storage.

In brief, Powenetics utilizes Tinkerforge Master Bricks, to which Voltage/Current bricklets are attached. The bricklets are installed between the load and power supply, and they monitor consumption through each of the modified PSU’s auxiliary power connectors and through the PCIe slot by way of a PCIe riser. Custom software logs the readings, allowing us to dial in a sampling rate, pull that data into Excel, and very accurately chart everything from average power across a benchmark run to instantaneous spikes.

The software is set up to log the power consumption of graphics cards, storage devices, and CPUs. However, we’re only using the bricklets relevant to graphics card testing. Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition gets all of its power from the PCIe slot and one eight-pin PCIe connector.

Idle

An average idle power measurement of 11.5W is a big improvement over the numbers we saw from GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti.

But Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition still uses quite a bit more power than the GTX 1080 Founders Edition before it. The Turing architecture is vindicated only by Radeon RX Vega 64’s frenetic power curve, which bounces all over the place.

Gaming

Our usual Metro: Last Light run at 1920x1080 isn’t taxing enough to push GeForce RTX 2070 to maximum utilization, so we increase the resolution to 2560x1440 and enable SSAA. Three loops through the benchmark are clearly delineated by power dips between them.

Most of GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition’s power comes from its eight-pin auxiliary connector. Add in the PCIe slot and you get an average of 187.7W through our gaming workload.

AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64 averages 277W through three runs of the Metro: Last Light benchmark, while GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition sees its power consumption pulled back before the first run ends, yielding a 162W average.

Edit, 10/16/18: For anyone wanting to see what a third-party Radeon RX Vega 64 looks like in our power consumption charts, the above graph substitutes out AMD's reference design and replaces it with a Nitro+ Radeon RX Vega 64. The throttling behavior stops thanks to Sapphire's superior thermal solution, but overall consumption rises significantly.

Nvidia has no trouble keeping current draw from the PCIe slot well under the 5.5A limit.

FurMark

Maximum utilization yields a much more even line chart as we track ~10 minutes under FurMark.

Average power use rises slightly to 188.4W. Again, Nvidia does an excellent job balancing between the PCIe slot and its auxiliary power connector.

GeForce RTX 2070 maintains higher power consumption than GeForce GTX 1080, but lands way under AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64.

Current over the PCIe slot is perfectly acceptable.

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Temperatures and Fan Speeds

Gaming

According to GPU-Z and Precision X1, our GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition sample spins at around 1500 RPM, even at idle. That sounds unnecessarily aggressive. However, noise isn’t an issue for Nvidia’s thermal solution.

As the card warms up across three loops of the Metro: Last Light benchmark, its fans gradually speed up in response. By the end of our sequence, they remain well below 2000 RPM.

In comparison, GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition starts at a much lower fan speed but ramps up faster, leveling off around 2200 RPM. Radeon RX Vega 64 idles just under 700 RPM and then responds almost immediately to load, topping out around 2400 RPM.

A generously-sized heat pipe-based cooler and two axial fans work in concert to keep TU106 operating at just over 70°C. Meanwhile, both GeForce GTX 1080 and Radeon RX Vega 64 exceed 80°C.

FurMark

The same fan curves apply to our FurMark test, though all three cards are pushed to their target speeds much faster.

Temperatures look similar, too.

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Conclusion

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2070 targets gamers with QHD displays looking to run their favorite titles at maximum quality. The GeForce GTX 1080 serves a similar market, as does AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64. Both of those boards start at $500 (or a little lower).

According to Nvidia, GeForce RTX 2070 partner boards should be available at $500 as well. How likely is that to happen? Well, GeForce RTX 2080 was supposed to start at $700, and today most third-party cards come closer to $800. We were told GeForce RTX 2080 Ti would debut at $1000. But those are all listed for $1200 or more, and universally out of stock. Further, multiple partners were supposed to send GeForce RTX 2070 samples for today’s launch, and not one was able to deliver. Pardon our skepticism, but we’re drawing from the previous rocky launch, current pricing of month-old Turing-based cards, and the inability of Nvidia’s partners to ship their own designs ahead of claimed retail availability.

It’s true that GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition is faster than GeForce GTX 1080 across the 13 games and two resolutions we tested, sometimes by double-digit percentages. The TU106-based card also beats Radeon RX Vega 64 in most performance benchmarks. Although AMD’s flagship does bag a few wins across our suite, any attempt to compare power consumption or efficiency penalizes the Radeon significantly. At $500, then, the GeForce RTX 2070 does make sense as a replacement for GeForce GTX 1080, even if its value proposition is only slightly better.

We’re not reviewing a $500 card, though. The GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition sells for $600, which is $100+ higher than the cheapest GTX 1080s and $50 more than Nvidia’s own GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition. It’s difficult to get excited about RTX 2070 at $600, unfortunately.

Turing introduces a lot of novel functionality primed to improve the realism of gaming in the weeks and months to come. So, what’s up with the lackluster reception of Turing-based graphics cards? It’s a three-part interplay of hyped-up technology that can’t be used yet, comparisons to plentiful Pascal-based cards, and a resulting (negative) perception of value. In generations past, Nvidia gave us more performance at a comparable, if not better price. This time around, the company is mostly competing against its own cards with MSRPs reflecting a lack of competition. GeForce RTX 2070 is basically a step sideways for anyone who was previously eyeballing GeForce GTX 1080. GeForce RTX 2080 is a step sideways for anyone with a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Only GeForce RTX 2080 Ti sets itself apart as an unrivaled winner among folks who were previously willing to pay $1200 for Titan-class frame rates. Buy Pascal or buy Turing; Nvidia wins either way.

And that’s why, so far, GeForce RTX 2000-series cards aren’t generating the same levels of enthusiasm with gamers as they are with game developers. Nvidia seems to be counting on the first round of ray tracing- and DLSS-enabled games to validate its architectural decisions. Based on our hands-on experiences with various demos, we have no doubt that anyone with a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti will enjoy their purchase. But it’s not clear yet whether RTX 2070 is fast enough to make Turing’s most newsworthy features usable. At this point, we’d hold off on a purchase unless you were already in the market for a GeForce GTX 1080/Radeon RX Vega 64-class card and can find GeForce RTX 2070 priced competitively.

It’s a foregone conclusion that we’ll have to revisit our opinions of all three GeForce RTX 2000-series cards once game developers start rolling out their Turing-optimized titles. Will ray tracing make enough of a difference to compel a graphics upgrade? Does GeForce RTX 2070 have enough RT cores to maintain playable performance in DXR-enabled games? Will broader availability force today’s inflated prices down? We sure hope so. Nvidia isn’t making any more Pascal GPUs, so the good deals on previous-gen cards are bound to run out sooner than later.

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Falcon Northwest Tiki Review: Small, Powerful and Stylish

Derek Forrest — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction and Product Tour

The Falcon Northwest Tiki is back and more powerful than ever. The company didn’t hold back with our review sample’s configuration, cramming an overclocked and liquid-cooled Intel Core i7-8086K processor, 32GB of DDR4-3000 memory and an Nvidia Titan Xp graphics card into a small, custom-designed and painted aluminum chassis. Although this particular configuration is high priced, we enjoyed the craftsmanship, intelligent design and performance that Falcon Northwest put into the Tiki.

Specifications

Processor	Intel Core i7-8086K
Motherboard	Asus ROG Strix Z370-I mini-ITX
Memory	32GB (2 x 16GB) G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3000
Graphics	Nvidia Titan Xp 12GB GDDR5X
Storage Options	1.5TB Intel Optane 905p U.2 PCIe SSD
Optical Drive	DVD-RW
Networking	Intel I219V Gigabit Ethernet; Intel Wireless-AC 3168 802.11ac WiFi + Bluetooth 4.2
Interface	Rear: (1) USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C, (3) USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A, (4) USB 2.0, (1) S/PDIFTop: (2) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A
Video Output	Motherboard: (1) DisplayPort 1.3, (1) HDMI 2.0GPU: (3) DisplayPort 1.4, (1) HDMI 2.0
Power Supply	650W Silverstone SFX
Case	Tiki (Custom Designed)
Cooling	Asetek Liquid Cooling 550LC 120mm AIO CPU Cooler
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit
Dimensions	13.5 x 4.0 x 13.3 inches
Other	Exotix Paintwork (+$375), RGB LED Light Strip (Free), CPU Overclock (Free)
Price As Configured	$6,308.00

Exterior

The small form factor (SFF) Tiki chassis is both sturdy and stylish, with an aluminum body and matching base measuring in at 13.5 x 4.0 x 13.3-inches. The case is adorned with Falcon Northwest’s Exotix paint work (in this case, Cloud Red), which adds a hefty $938 to the total bill.

However, this pricing is for the most sophisticated paintwork the company offers (Cloud is a special application, and it looks quite stunning), and single-color applications are available for $375; that is cheaper than paint jobs from some other custom shops. The aesthetic value of a professionally applied finish is worth it for those looking to make their next gaming PC reflect their personal tastes, and Falcon Northwest’s best available paintwork is impressive, albeit expensive.

The left side panel sports a single 120mm vent and acts as the CPU cooler’s exhaust, dispersing the excessive heat of the overclocked CPU from the compact interior (more on that later). The panel also sports a small window on its upper edge that shows off the graphics card (in this case, a TItan Xp). The acrylic plastic window can be styled with a cutout (ours is the Nvidia logo), and is bathed in RGB LED lighting from a strip inside the case.

The top panel has styled ventilation and the I/O consists of two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports and microphone and headphone jacks, in addition to illuminated power and reset buttons. Don’t be fooled by the reset button’s design - we hit it thinking it was some kind of cool audio feature (it looks like a pair of headphones), but no, it’s just a reset button.

The backside of the chassis sports the motherboard’s I/O, which consists of a USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C, three USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A and four USB 2.0 ports. There’s also an S/PDIF interface and surround audio jacks, in addition to HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.3 ports. However, you’ll want to connect your display(s) to the primary GPU’s outputs, which in this case are three DisplayPort 1.4 ports and an HDMI 2.0 port.

Interior

The inside of the Tiki is compact with little space for the powerful hardware under the hood. However, Falcon Northwest crammed a liquid-cooled Intel Core i7-8086K processor on an Asus ROG Strix Z370-I mini-ITX motherboard. Opening the right side (solid) panel, the 120mm AIO CPU cooler is mounted to the panel’s vent, exhausting the heat from the chassis. The cooler itself is of the Asetek variety (a 550LC), and its rubber tubing fits snugly around the pump mounts when you close the case back up thanks to some expert cable/tube management.

A 32GB (2 x 16GB) kit of G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3000 sits in the motherboard's only two DIMM slots, giving this configuration the maximum available memory capacity for the Tiki’s available mainstream platforms (AMD X470 and Intel Z370). However, you can get up to 64GB of memory from a configuration equipped with an X299 mini-ITX motherboard with four SO-DIMM slots (the AsRock X299E-ITX/AC).

The Nvidia Titan Xp 12GB GDDR5X graphics card is mounted in the opposite chamber by way of a riser card, and only the backplate is exposed in the main chamber. The opposite side panel (left side) exposes the blower-style fan intake with an etched acrylic window, which is illuminated by an RGB LED light strip mounted under the GPU.

The 1.5TB Intel 905p U.2 PCIe SSD is mounted to the crossbar of the interior chassis, and although the pricey storage offers a lot of capacity, some gamers may opt for a smaller, less expensive option in the Tiki configurator. There’s no secondary storage for this particular configuration, but there’s room for one 3.5-inch or two 2.5-inch drives, in addition to two M.2 ports on the back of the motherboard (supports PCIe x4) and above the PCIe x16 slot (supports SATA and PCIe x4).

The Tiki’s 600W Silverstone SFX power supply sits under the case’s crossbar. The PSU’s intake fan is exposed to the right side panel’s vent, and the heat is exhausted through the case’s ventilated back panel. The 80 Plus Gold certified PSU matches the recommended wattage of the Titan Xp, and it can handle most any other graphics card currently on the market, including the Titan V and the upcoming GeForce RTX cards.

Software and Accessories

The Falcon Northwest Tiki doesn’t come with any bloatware or trial software, but the company set a few helpful shortcuts (including a link to customer service and a disc eject icon for the DVD-RW drive) on the desktop and installed Asus Aura to control the RGB LED strip. Aside from that, the Windows 10 Pro installation is clean.

The Tiki comes with an impressive welcome package - a Falcon Northwest branded coffee mug (that wouldn't be complete without company-branded coffee), mousepad and leather binder (with all the extra cables and component manuals) are neatly packed in a sleek box, and it's one little detail that we feel goes a long way (other custom shops are not as fancy with their "extras" packaging). We also snooped around the Tiki’s BIOS to see how the company overclocked the already speedy Core i7-8086K. To our delight, Falcon Northwest manually tweaked the core multipliers individually, setting the clockrate to 5.3GHz for single-core and 5.0GHz for dual-core operation.

The CPU will operate at 4.8GHz when engaging more than two cores on up to all six cores (and 12 threads). This is a savvy tweak, and it’s refreshing to see a custom shop fine tune its CPUs on a per-core basis. It’s especially exciting to know that Falcon Northwest overclocks the Tiki free of charge, which is almost unheard of in the custom shop space.

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Synthetic, Productivity and Gaming Benchmarks

We tested the Tiki against the recently reviewed Corsair One Elite, which sports a similar form factor (extremely small) and full-sized desktop components. With its overclocked Core i7-8700K and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, it should give you an indication of how much more performance your money would get if you went with a Titan Xp and the faster-clocked anniversary edition Core i7-8080K processor.

Comparison Products

Origin PC Millennium

Acer Predator Orion 9000

Test System Configuration

We also included the data from our Z270 test bench, loaded with an Intel Core i7-7700K processor, 16GB of Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4-2133, and a single EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Black Edition graphics card to see how a single GTX 1080 Ti and older CPU compares against the newer counterparts and the mighty Titan Xp.

Fire Strike & Time Spy

The Tiki starts our test suite with a strong lead against the Corsair One Elite and our reference system in the synthetic 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks. The Tiki’s higher-clocked CPU and full-board Pascal-based Titan Xp easily outperforms the GTX 1080 Ti-equipped competition, albeit by a small margin.

Cinebench R15

The CPU focused synthetic tests of Cinebench R15 gives the Tiki’s overclocked Core i7-8086K another opportunity to shine. With a single-core clockrate of 5.3GHz, the Tiki outperforms the Corsair One’s i7-8700K, which is set to its default clockrates and Turbo binning (4.7GHz on one core). The Tiki continues this trend in the multi-threaded tests, with all six CPU cores (and 12 threads) hitting 4.8GHz and netting 188.84 points more than its competition.

CompuBench

The Tiki is handed its first loss in the Video Processing portion of the synthetic CompuBench tests, falling behind even our test system. However, the Corsair One Elite also falls behind our test rig in that particular portion of the test and only leads the Tiki by less than 1 FPS. The bitcoin mining test favors the Titan Xp inside the Tiki over the GTX 1080 Ti-equipped contenders, but not by a considerable amount.

Storage Test

The 1.5TB Intel Optane 905P U.2 NVMe SSD easily outperformed the other storage devices inside the Corsair One Elite and our test rig (a 512GB Samsung PM961 M.2 NVMe SSD and a 480GB Kingston HyperX Savage SATA 6GB/s SSD, respectively), especially in random read and write performance (Optane’s staple).

Although we tested the drive at queue depth 2 (QD2 - what we consider to be indicative of an average user’s workloads and tasks), these numbers aren’t in line with Intel’s rated performance (the company rates random read and write performance over 500,000 IOPS) However, applications that use all of the available threads (higher queue depths) to perform storage tasks will certainly get their money’s worth from the over $2,200 component,and will likely hit that advertised performance threshold. However, we wouldn’t recommend configuring a system with this drive unless you absolutely need that level of random storage performance, but even then, the ridiculously high price tag is hard to justify.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

The Tiki’s 32GB (2 x 16GB) kit of G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3000 has noticeably higher total memory bandwidth than the One Elite’s kit of Corsair Vengeance LP DDR4-2666, which shouldn’t be a surprise given the higher frequency. Most gamers will find a less expensive 16GB kit of memory to be just as potent for their primary workloads..

PCMark 8

Our review sample’s speedy CPU, memory and storage contribute to higher productivity scores in the PCMark 8 application benchmarks, which run canned workloads using legitimate installations of Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative programs. The expensive configuration (a Core i7-8086K, 32GB DDR4-3000, 1.5TB Optane SSD) is certainly no slouch in these workloads.

Gaming Benchmarks

The Falcon Northwest Tiki review sample in our lab easily bested the other PCs in the field with its overclocked CPU and top-end (the very top) Nvidia graphics card.

Configuration Options

The Falcon Northwest Tiki’s tiny footprint and unique design don't come without a price, with default AMD X470, Intel Z370 and X299 configurations starting at $2,492, $2,580, and $3,351, respectively. The mainstream platforms (AMD X470, Intel Z370) support up to 32GB (2 x 16GB) of memory, but the X299-equipped Tiki can house up to 64GB (4 x 16GB) of DDR4 SO-DIMM memory.

The company’s Exotix paintwork starts at $375 for a single color. Special paint mixes called Rain, Flames and Clouds (included on our review sample) will add $688, $750 and $938 to the total, respectively.

Falcon Northwest doesn’t charge for the RGB LED strip or the overclocking. The company stated that although they are happy to overclock the CPU and GPU for their customers upon request, it can add a few days to the build process due to the additional stability testing required before shipping.

The Bottom Line

The Falcon Northwest Tiki is still as awe-inspiring as before, and its small footprint and powerful components make it desirable even for seasoned PC builders. You’d be hard pressed to find a DIY chassis that small that can accommodate everything inside the Tiki, and you’d be even harder pressed to find one with custom paint options quite like this.

We can’t blame the company for equipping our review sample of the Tiki with the absolute best components possible (at least, for the time being, until RTX cards come out) - it easily bested the comparable competition (in size and performance tier) with its Core i7-8086K, Titan Xp graphics card, and 1.5TB Intel Optane 905P SSD (which in itself, adds over $2,200 to the bill). The Tiki’s total price tag looks a lot better without these particular components in it, and Falcon Northwest’s “all or nothing” approach to this configuration is both an advantage (performance) and a detriment (price), and we wouldn’t recommend this particular setup to a gamer.

The CPU overclocking is also available sans service charge - something we’ve haven’t seen from another custom shop PC builder to date. Most companies will charge anywhere from $50 to $100 per component, but Falcon Northwest will overclock your processor (and GPU, upon request) for free so long as you don’t mind waiting a few more days so it can be properly stress tested for stability.

Although the $6,308 configuration of the Tiki in our lab is an out-of-reach purchase for most gamers, it’s a shining example of Falcon Northwest’s PC building acumen, which ranks as high as the benchmark results in our book. We can’t think of too many PC builders that dive into the custom-designed chassis waters, and the Tiki can swim with the other sharks in that ocean with its intelligent design, small footprint, and impressive paintwork. It may not be in everyone’s budget, but the Falcon Northwest Tiki is an incredible custom gaming PC anyone would be proud to own, if they can afford it.

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Maingear F131 2018 Review: Boutique Elite

Derek Forrest — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

The Maingear F131 is for the discerning PC enthusiast looking for the absolute best performance and aesthetic value from a hand-built custom PC. Our fully decked-out review model takes both of these notions to the absolute limit, with an 18-core (36-thread) Intel Core i9-7980XE processor and dual GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in SLI. It’s liquid cooled by the company’s custom-designed Apex cooling system, complete with hand-crafted hard-line custom metal tubing and the Apex dual-pump reservoir. At $9,231, most can only dream of owning such an elegant and powerful gaming rig, but if you can afford it there’s simply no substitute for Maingear’s impeccable craftsmanship and the bleeding-edge overclocked performance crammed inside the all-new F131.

Specifications

Processor	Intel Core i9-7980XE
Motherboard	MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC mATX
Memory	32GB (4 x 8GB) G.Skill TridentZ RGB DDR4-3600
Graphics	Dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GDDR5X (SLI)
Storage Options	1TB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD, 6TB 7,200RPM Seagate Barracuda HDD
Optical Drive	None
Networking	Intel I219V Gigabit Ethernet; Intel Wireless-AC 3168 802.11ac WiFi + Bluetooth 4.2 (Included)
Interface	Rear: (1) USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C; (1) USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A; (4) USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A; (2) USB 2.0; (1) PS/2; (1) S/PDIFFront: (4) USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A
Video Output	(6) DisplayPort 1.4, (2) HDMI 2.0
Power Supply	1200W EVGA Supernova P2 Full-Modular 80+ Platinum Certified
Case	Maingear F131 (Custom Designed)
Cooling	Maingear Epic Superstock 420 w/ Apex ICS, Hand Crafted Metal Hardline Tubing, Premium Copper Core Radiators, Dual Pump & Reservoir combo(CPU + GPUs)
Operating System	Windows 10 64-Bit
Dimensions	19 x 6.4 x 21.3 inches
Other	White Sleeved PSU Cables (Free)RGB LED Light Strip (Free)MARK II Exterior Paint (+$650)Custom Interior Paint (+$400)Metal Hardline Tubing (+$200)

Exterior

Maingear gave our review sample the complete custom paint treatment, adorning the F131 tower chassis with a blue Mark II Modern Camo finish. The inside is painted the same Grabber Blue (used within the Modern Camo) used in the Mark II finish, and the paint job alone will add a hefty $1,050 ($650 for the exterior Mark II finish, $400 for the interior paint) to the bill. However, you would be hard-pressed to find this level of automotive paint expertise (Maingear’s painter has worked for BMW and Rolls Royce), and the paint could be worth the price for those looking for their forever PC. It’s simply stunning.

The chassis itself measures in at a slim 19 x 6.4 x 21.3 inches, and the height of the case could fool some into believing that it can accommodate large ATX motherboards. However, the F131 is a micro-ATX chassis, and there’s hardly room to cram much more inside (not that you’d have to with this build). The top panel can be removed to access the radiator mounts (simply lift the panel). The front and right side panel showcases more of the Mark II finish.

The front I/O is seamlessly integrated to the front panel’s left-side edge, where four USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, two audio jacks (one headphone-out, one mic-in) and the power button reside. The rear I/O is recessed from the edge of the case, giving you some room to plug in the cables without having them protrude from the PC. The motherboard sports two USB 3.1 Gen 2 (one Type-A, one Type-C), four USB 3.1 Gen 1 (Type-A) and two USB 2.0 ports, in addition to a PS/2 combo port, audio jacks and an S/PDIF interface.

The motherboard is an X299 chipset, so the only display outputs are those on the graphics cards. This will vary by configuration, but the two liquid-cooled Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in our review sample sport a total of six DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI 2.0 ports.

Interior

Inside the Maingear F131 looks like it could be under the hood of powerful sports car with its hand-crafted metal tubing and massive Apex clear acrylic plastic reservoir. The custom-designed cooling solution was created specifically for the new F131 chassis, and the result is a unique and awe-inspiring look for a gaming PC anyone would be proud to own. Apex is the epitome of the company’s liquid cooling services, and it comes included in all F131 Superstock (custom liquid cooling) models. The base Superstock configuration starts with clear acrylic tubing, but the metal tubes will add another $200 to the bill. You also get to choose the color of your coolant (in this case, white) at no additional cost.

The 420mm Alphacool radiator is mounted at the top of the chassis and is flush to the edge of the case, resulting in a sleek look. The three Fractal H-14 140mm PWM fans exhaust heat out of the top, and even at full load the F131 hums about as much as a typical store-bought PC at idle.

The Intel Core i9-7980XE processor is covered by a custom-designed cooling plate that also cools the MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard’s voltage regulator modules (VRMs), allowing the company to push the processor to its absolute highest possible clock frequency. For this model, Maingear’s factory overclocking service, Redline, got the CPU to an all-core 4.4GHz, which is insane for the amount of processing cores (18) under the hood. The overclocking service will add $50 to the price tag, but it’s worth it for those who don’t want to tinker with CPU clocks on their own.

The dual GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards are also liquid cooled by a custom-designed waterblock that resembles the main Apex reservoir with a clear-acrylic chamber. The cards under the cooling hardware are of the Nvidia Founder’s Edition variety, and Maingear was able to push an additional 135MHz on the core clocks and 300MHz on the memory frequency with its cooling. Similar to the CPU Redline Overclocking service, the GPU overclock cost an extra $50.

A 32GB (4 x 8GB) kit of G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4-3200 resides on either side of the massive CPU/VRM cooling plate. The colorful RAM doesn’t quite match the rest of the build unless you set it to a static color (in this case, blue or white), but the company also overclocked the memory to 3,600MHz. Although there is no specific service fee in the F131 configurator for memory overclocking, Maingear stated they would do it upon customer request with the purchase of at least the CPU Redline Overclocking service. To date, we’ve not seen a manually overclocked kit of memory in any of the custom shop PCs we’ve reviewed, and the extra speed should set it apart in memory-intensive workloads.

A 1TB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD is hidden beneath M.2 shielding on the motherboard. It’s a slightly older model than the new 970 series Samsung SSDs, but the company has upgraded their offerings to include the recently released drives. The 6TB Seagate 7,200 RPM HDD (mounted behind the right-side panel) also offers a lot of capacity and is attractive to users looking to store sizable files (CAD developers and video editors come to mind). But while the Samsung drive is an excellent performer and a good choice for a performance PC, on a system this pricey we'd like to see more speedy SSD capacity and less HDD. The F131 is all about performance and opulence, and a 1TB SSD--even a really fast one--just isn't the luxury it used to be.

The 1200W EVGA Supernova P2 power supply is not directly accessible from the exterior of the chassis. Instead, an extension cable from the back panel leads to a separate chamber on the right side of the case that houses the powerful PSU. The bottom intake fan faces outward and lines up with a vent in the side panel, and the exhaust is facing up and ventilated through the top of the chassis (and its 420mm radiator).

The braided PSU cables (you get to pick your favorite color for free; ours was white) and other wiring are expertly tied together, but the primary CPU power cable seems a bit tight (an extension could have made it neater). However, you don’t see these cables, and the wiring is managed as best as can be for the custom-designed F131 chassis.

Software and Accessories

Maingear’s system image came devoid of bloatware, which is a welcome exclusion for anyone that’s had to spend any amount of time uninstalling unwanted trial software. The F131 only came loaded with MSI Afterburner to overclock the graphics cards. Overclocking services from typical custom shops are fairly basic, but Maingear takes things to another level yet again by unlocking the core voltage (an option in Afterburner that we have not seen any other shop use) and pushing the GPUs another 135MHz on the base core clocks and 300MHz on the memory. The extra voltage ensures that the overclock will be stable, and the Apex liquid cooling system takes care of the excess heat fantastically (the GPUs never exceeded 58C in our testing).

We also snooped around in the motherboard’s BIOS to see how Maingear overclocked this review sample. The company’s engineers opted for manual settings, raising the all-core multiplier to 44 (for 4.4GHz) and setting the voltage to Dynamic mode. The memory’s XMP profile is turned off in favor of a basic overclock to 3,600MHz, with all timings and power settings set to auto.

Maingear also packed a ton of extras into its accessory box, including a t-shirt, mouse pad, tote bag, and lots of decals.

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Synthetic, Productivity & Gaming Benchmarks

We put the Maingear F131 up against the recently reviewed Acer Predator Orion 9000, and the comparison is a duel between a custom shop and a big-brand PC. Both sport a Core i9-7980XE processor and dual GTX 1080 Ti graphics in SLI, so it should be a close match in gaming and CPU-bound tests and workloads. The Maingear system has a quarter of the memory capacity of the Orion 9000 (32GB vs 128GB), but it more than makes up for that in storage capacity and aesthetic value. We also included data from our Origin PC Millennium 2018 review to see how its overclocked Core i7-8700K and similar graphics compared against the two expensive Core i9-7980XE-equipped behemoths.

Comparison Products

Origin PC Millennium

Acer Predator Orion 9000

Test System Configuration

Fire Strike & Time Spy

The Maingear F131 started our benchmark suite by asserting its dominance over the Acer Predator Orion 9000 and Origin PC Millennium. Although the F131 falls behind the Millennium in the graphics portion of the Fire Strike and Time Spy tests, this is because the Origin PC’s Core i7-8700K hits higher clock rates than the F131 and can therefore achieve higher framerates at 1920 x 1080 (the CPU is the bottleneck at this resolution). As the pixel count increased in Fire Strike Extreme and Ultra, the F131 regained its graphics score lead. Clearly, this configuration of the F131 is intended for 4K gaming.

Temperatures were also well managed, with the dual GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards never exceeding 58C in any of the benchmark runs. The CPU was much hotter at a 78C peak, but that is well within the Core i9-7980XE’s thermal limit and could be considered cool due to the bleeding edge 4.4GHz all-core overclock.

Cinebench R15

The F131’s Core i9-7980XE processor blew away all the competition in the Cinebench R15 multi-threaded tests, thanks to its impressive all-core overclock of 4.4GHz. It easily surpassed the Predator Orion 9000’s weaker overclock, but it couldn’t catch up to the Millennium’s -8700K clocked at 5.0GHz in the single-threaded tests.

CompuBench

Maingear’s F131 benefits from the graphics cards’ core and memory overclock in the bitcoin mining portion of the CompuBench test. The video processing results are less impressive, with the higher-clocked mainstream CPUs in the test bench and Millennium achieving higher scores than the F131.

Storage Test

The Maingear F131’s 1TB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD performed on par with the Millennium (which sports the same SSD, in a smaller capacity) in sequential read and write performance. However, it falls slightly behind the Origin PC counterpart in random input/output operations per second, likely due the the differences between the X299 and Z370 chipsets. However, the F131’s primary storage is blazing fast and far exceeds the capabilities of our test rig’s SATA-based SSD.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

Similar to the Acer Predator Orion 9000, the Maingear F131 easily outperformed the systems with dual-channel operation with its quad-channel memory controller in the Sandra multi-threaded memory bandwidth tests. The F131 also bested the Orion 9000 due to its higher frequency (3,600MHz), but single-threaded performance is lower than that of the mainstream chipset systems. However, it still outperformed the Acer counterpart and its similar configuration. In this situation, quantity (Acer’s 128GB DDR4-2666) didn’t beat quality (Maingear’s overclocked 32GB DDR4-3200).

PCMark 8

The F131’s productivity chops are also solid, with strong scores in the PCMark 8 application benchmarks. These tests use Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative applications to process canned workloads, and the combination of slower single-threaded memory bandwidth and lower peak CPU clockrates put the Maingear offering in the middle of the pack in this particular benchmark. However, it still performed admirably (with literally milliseconds separating it and the other higher-scoring PCs) and is well-equipped for office and photo editing tasks.

Gaming Benchmarks

The Maingear F131 is impressively fast in games such as Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, Rise of the Tomb Raider,and Middle Earth: Shadows of War. These titles appreciate the increased CPU core count enough to show moderate gains compared against the mainstream CPU counterparts, but games such as Grand Theft Auto V, Bioshock Infinite, and The Division favor systems with faster CPU clocks, like the Origin PC Millennium and its Core i7-8700K. However, the F131 doesn’t trail far behind, especially at 4K, which is likely what gamers are going for with any system with dual GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards.

Configuration Options

The Maingear F131 chassis doesn’t have to be full of the most expensive components and materials, and you can customize it as you wish. Basic configurations (sans the Apex cooling system) start at $1,600 for AMD Ryzen-based systems, $1,800 for Intel Z370 setups, and $2,700 for an X299 platform. Superstock (custom liquid cooling) models for each chipset start at $4,150, $4,250, and $5,050, respectively, and all come equipped with the Apex liquid cooling system by default. Adding Apex to a non-Superstock build will add another $300 to the bill.

The entry-level AMD model (non-Superstock) offers a Ryzen 3 1300 processor with a 120mm all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler, 8GB (2 x 4GB) of HyperX Fury DDR4-2666 memory, a GeForce GTX 1060 3GB graphics card, a 1TB 7,200RPM HDD, and a 750W power supply (an EVGA Supernova B3). The Z370 Stock model starts with a Core i3-8100 and the same CPU cooler, storage, graphics, power supply, and memory setup. X299 stock models feature a Core i7-7800X processor, a 16GB (4 x 4GB) kit of HyperX Fury DDR4-2666 and a GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card, in addition to the aforementioned storage and PSU.

The Bottom Line

The Maingear F131 isn't for a tepid PC gamer looking to dip their toe into boutique shop waters. It’s for a discerning hardware enthusiast who simply wants the best in configuration options and aesthetics, and a gaming rig that truly takes the term “custom” to the next level. The price of entry is steep (at minimum, $1,600 sans-Apex cooling), but the F131 is one of the most intuitively designed, eye catching and highest performing made-to-order PCs we’ve ever reviewed.

Although Apex cooling adds considerable cost to the build (starting at $300 for just the main pump/reservoir), it’s worth it for those looking for a truly unique custom shop PC that you won’t find from any of the other major players in the game.

Speaking of games, the premium configuration we tested dominated many of our benchmarks, and the combination of a Core i9-7980XE and dual GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in SLI is a powerful pairing.

At the end of the day, $9,321 is of course a lot of money for a computer. Although you can certainly find a PC with the same components (or the components themselves) for less money, the value is in Maingear’s craftsmanship. The company hangs its hat on the impeccable paint application, fine tuning, and innovative design of the F131, and it’s one of the best gaming PCs money can buy, if you can afford it.

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Acer Predator Orion 9000 Review: Go Big or Go Home

Derek Forrest — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 19:00:00 +0000

Introduction and Product Tour

Acer’s Predator Orion 9000 is the company’s biggest and most powerful desktop PC offering, with options for up to Intel Core i7-8700K or Core i9-7980XE processors, memory capacities up to 128GB and up to dual GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in SLI. Acer pours all of this performance into a spacious super tower chassis that starts at $2,500 and goes up to a whopping $8,000 at the Acer store for the premium X299 model we tested. It’s not the most value-oriented PC, but it could check off many boxes for those with a sizable budget looking for a flashy, large, powerful gaming PC.

Specifications

Processor	Intel Core i9-7980XE
Motherboard	Intel X299 Chipset (Custom)
Memory	128GB (8x 16GB) DDR4-2666
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 11GB GDDR5X x2 in SLI
Storage Options	512GB PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 SSD2TB 7,200-rpm HDD
Optical Drive	DVD-R/RW
Networking	Intel I219V Gigabit EthernetIntel Wireless-AC 8265 802.11ac WiFi + Bluetooth
Interface Rear	(1) USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C(1) USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A(4) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A(2) USB 2.0(1) PS/2 Combo(1) S/PDIF(5) Audio Jacks
Interface Front	(1) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C(3) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A(2) Audio Jacks
Video Output	(8) DisplayPort 1.4(1) HDMI 2.0(1) HDMI 2.0 (Blocked off)
Power Supply	1000W FSP 80+ Gold Certified Modular
Cooling	240mm Cooler Master AIO CPU Liquid Cooler(1) 120mm LED Fan (Rear)(2) 140mm LED Fans (Front)(2) 120mm Fans (Cooler)
Operating System	Windows 10 64-Bit
Dimensions	25.3 x 11.8 x 27.6 inches
Other	(1) Predator Flare Mechanical Gaming(1) Predator Gaming Mouse(1) Predator SLI Bridge

Exterior

The massive Predator Orion 9000 measures 25.3 x 11.8 x 27.6 inches and weighs nearly 50 pounds, making it one of the biggest and heaviest gaming PCs we’ve ever tested. Despite its commanding presence (it will definitely become the centerpiece of any room you place it in), the Orion 9000 is surprisingly easy to move (in short distances, at least) with its two top-side handles (mounted above the push-to-open top-panel exhaust vent) and rear-mounted wheels.

The edgy custom case sports a steel frame with aluminum and hard plastic panels, and the left side panel features a magnetized metal mesh behind the clear acrylic window that Acer claims can reduce electromagnetic interference. We don’t really have a way to test this theory (benchmarking the PC next to a running microwave came to mind), but it’s a unique feature that gives the chassis a different kind of aesthetic that some may find appealing, though I’m not a fan of the look.

The front panel hides a DVD-RW optical drive behind a hinged panel, in addition to a headset cradle (which is perfect for a virtual reality headset) that slides out from between the two front intake 140mm LED fans. There’s another 120mm LED fan at the rear exhaust vent, but the static-colored fans (they’re always white) aren’t integrated with the software-controlled RGB LED lighting of the front face, side panel and motherboard.

The ports on the top panel include four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports (one Type-C and three Type-A), in addition to headphone and microphone jacks and a power button. There’s also a Turbo button, which automatically overclocks the CPU with one touch. The button also interfaces with Acer’s overclocking software, toggling the CPU clock rate between the preconfigured Turbo and Normal settings.

The rear panel sports considerably more USB connectivity, with two USB 3.1 Gen 2 (one Type-A, one Type-C), four USB 3.1 Gen 1 (all Type-A) and two USB 2.0 ports. There’s also a PS/2 combo port for legacy peripherals and five audio jacks. The two graphics cards provide plenty of display connectivity, with eight DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI 2.0 ports. However, one of the HDMI interfaces are blocked off by a cap built into the graphics card, and we’re not quite sure why it would be there to begin with (the primary GPU in the first slot is the one in question). However, you still have nine other ports to connect a monitor, and that should be enough for even power users.

Interior

The side panels are easy to remove. A single lift-action handle on each makes them easy to pull off and gives you full access to the powerful components inside. The interior is compartmentalized, with a dedicated PSU chamber and a fan dock that directs airflow to both sides of the motherboard that Acer calls Iceflow 2.0.

Our review model, the Orion 9000 PO9-900, features Intel’s most expensive and powerful consumer CPU, the Core i9-7980XE. It’s cooled by a 240mm AIO CPU cooler by Cooler Master that sports two 120mm non-LED fans that exhaust hot air through the top-side vent. The 128GB (8x 16GB) kit of Kingston DDR4-2666 memory flanks both sides of the processor (our review unit shipped with a 64GB kit with eight 8GB modules, but the consumer product features eight 16GB modules), but the lack of RAM heatsinks may disappoint those looking for some overclocking headroom.

Two GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards are sandwiched together in the motherboard’s top-most PCIe x16 slots, bound together in an SLI configuration with a custom, Predator-branded, high-bandwidth SLI bridge. The cards themselves have a custom plastic shroud, a black metal backplate and a blower-style fan that directs heat to the rear of the PC. The tight spacing between the cards could hinder their cooling performance, and we’re somewhat disappointed that the custom motherboard’s PCIe slot alignment doesn’t allow for a one-slot gap between the two powerful GPUs, especially given the enormous size of the abundantly cooled chassis.

The right side of the Orion 9000 sports four 2.5-inch and two 3.5-inch drive bays. A 2TB, 7,200-rpm Seagate HDD sits in one of the 3.5-inch trays, but the primary storage (for this model, a 512GB M.2 PCIe-NVMe SSD) is hidden under the graphics cards. To help with thermals, there’s also an M.2 SSD heatsink attached, and there’s another M.2 slot if you want to expand your storage down the line. The right side also hides the various power and data cables, which are well managed for a big-brand gaming PC. The cables lead to the hidden power supply, which for this model is a 1,000W FSP 80+Gold certified PSU with plenty of efficient juice for the job at hand.

Software & Accessories

The Acer Predator Orion 9000 is preloaded with several utilities and trial software, including PredatorSense (for overclocking and integrated RGB LED lighting control) and Acer Care Center, in addition to trials of Norton anti-virus and Microsoft Office. Some may remove the trial software, but PredatorSense is essential for those who want to monitor or finetune their overclocked CPU. Acer Care Center also keeps your system’s drivers up to date, so it it could be useful for those that prefer to let updates handle themselves.

The Orion 9000 also comes with a set of peripherals in the form of a Predator Flare mechanical gaming keyboard and a Predator Cestus gaming mouse. The RGB LED-illuminated keyboard sports Kailh switches, and the optical mouse features dual Omron switches, eight customizable macro keys and up to a 7,200DPI. Both peripherals’ lights and macros can be controlled using the Predator Quartermaster software, which you can install from the included driver disc or download from the company’s website.

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Synthetic, Productivity and Gaming Benchmarks

Comparison Products

Acer Predator Orion 9000

Origin PC Millennium

The Predator Orion 9000 is the first Intel Core i9-equipped gaming PC we’ve tested, and similar to the chassis, Acer goes big with a Core i9-7980XE 18-core processor and dual GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in SLI. We’ve tested few worthy comparisons, but we set the Orion 9000 against a trusty Z270 test rig with an Intel Core i7-7700K processor and a single GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card (all clocked at stock speeds) to see how much of a performance increase you can expect with an SLI setup. We also included data from our Origin PC Millennium (2018) review to see how its overclocked Core i7-8700K and similar graphics and cooling setup (dual GTX 1080 Ti, large AIO CPU liquid cooler) compete against the most-expensive Intel processor and Acer’s Iceflow 2.0 cooling design.

Test System Configuration

The comparison will also give a fair indication of how Origin PC’s $4,900 custom gaming PC stacks up against Acer’s $8,000 rebuttal to custom shops everywhere.

Fire Strike & Time Spy

The Acer Predator Orion 9000’s Core i9-7980XE 18-core processor excelled in the CPU and physics tests in the 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy synthetic gaming benchmarks. However, the Origin PC’s overclocked Core i7-8700K was more adept for gaming workloads, especially at 1,920 x 1,080 (Fire Strike), where the Acer’s lower CPU clock rate (it peaks at 5GHz but settled around 4.4GHz, thanks to PredatorSense’s per-core overclocked Turbo setting) created an even larger performance gap in the Graphics portion of the test against the Millennium’s CPU and its bleeding-edge, all-core overclock of 5GHz.

The Acer’s stock-clocked GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards also trailed the Millennium’s overclocked GPUs at higher resolutions, but the Orion 9000 dominated the competition in all the CPU-bound workloads.

Cinebench R15

The Orion 9000 performed similarly in the Cinebench R15 synthetic CPU tests, where it predictably fell behind the Origin PC Millennium in single-threaded and OpenGL workloads. However, the Acer’s 18-core processor left the other desktops in the dust in the multi-core rendering tests, achieving a score over double that of its Core i7 competition.

CompuBench

CompuBench’s synthetic workloads don’t play nice with SLI configurations, evidenced by our test rig’s victory over the clearly better-equipped PCs in the field. The video processing and Bitcoin benchmarks only test one of the graphics cards, and you’ll obviously get more mining performance from the dual-card setups. In this particular test, the driver overhead of two GPUs gives the better hardware a lower score compared to the single-card test rig.

Storage Test

The storage in our Predator Orion 9000 review unit doesn’t actually reflect a configuration available at retail - the Acer machine came equipped with two 256GB SSDs (not even in a RAID configuration to reflect the total SSD capacity of one of the retail models), but the company stated it should give users a ballpark of what kind of performance to expect from the Orion 9000. The Core i9-equipped model ships with a 512GB M.2 PCIe-NVMe SSD, and the 8700K version is equipped with one of the same 256GB SSDs in our review unit (so the data presented here should reflect what you’d see in the less expensive retail model).

That being said, the 256GB Hynix M.2 PCIe-NVMe SSD performs slightly better than our SATA SSD-equipped test rig with random write and sequential read/write performance. However, it falls behind all the other tested platforms in random 4K read performance at a queue depth of 2 (QD2), thanks to its SLC (slower) buffer.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

Similar to the primary storage, the memory configuration of our Orion 9000 review system doesn’t precisely match the Core i9 model at retail, but the 64GB (8x 8GB) kit we tested should give a fair representation of performance you’d get with the 128GB (8x 16GB) that the retail model comes equipped with (we were told they feature the same frequencies and CAS latency).

The Orion 9000 doesn’t fare well in the single-threaded Sandra Memory Bandwidth tests, primarily because the individual frequencies of the quad-channel RAM modules aren’t as high as dual-channel kits with similar total speed. However, when you switch to multi-threaded bandwidth tests, the quad-channel DDR4-2666 easily dethrones the Millennium’s dual-channel kit of DDR4-3000 in total memory bandwidth. If your workloads depend on this, the X299 platform is definitely the way to go.

PCMark 8

The PCMark 8 application benchmarks test Adobe Creative and Microsoft Office workloads using the actual software, and the Orion 9000 was a mixed bag in these tests. It fell behind the pack in the Adobe Creative benchmarks, likely due to its lower peak clock rate (the Millennium and the test rig both achieve higher single and dual-core clock rates), but it pushes ahead of the test rig in the Microsoft Office application tests. The slower random read performance of the SSD storage may also play a role in the modest productivity performance, but the Orion 9000 is definitely geared for video encoding and super-high-end gaming tasks.

Gaming Benchmarks

The Predator Orion 9000 delivered mixed performance depending on the games we tested. Titles that benefit from multi-core CPU performance, such as Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, pushed the i9-equipped Orion 9000 to the top of the pile, whereas games that push higher frame rates from higher CPU clock speeds on just a few cores, such as Bioshock Infinite, Grand Theft Auto V, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Middle-earth: Shadow of War, placed the Acer beast in the middle or behind the pack, unable to catch up to the Millennium’s overclocked 8700K and GPUs. Games that don’t have proper SLI compatibility, such as The Division, suffered from driver overhead compared to a single-card setup, but most games still got higher performance from the dual-GPU configuration. If thermals were better, you could overclock the graphics cards and possibly shrink the gap in performance against the Origin PC Millennium, but the Predator Orion runs hot (and doesn’t have a custom fan curve) out of the box.

Configuration Options

The Predator Orion 9000 is available in two different flavors. There’s a configuration featuring a Core i7-8700K, 16GB of DDR4-2666 memory, a 2TB HDD and 256GB SSD and a single GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card for $2,499.99. The model we tested, the PO9-900, features an Intel Core i9-7980XE, 128GB of DDR4-2666 memory, a 2TB HDD and 512GB SSD and dual GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards and is priced at $7,999.99. The less expensive model is still capable of top-tier gaming performance, and the Core i9 model is for those that want to go as big as possible with CPU cores, memory capacity and GPU performance.

We’d have like to have seen Acer offer larger HDD and SSD capacities for the Orion. Anyone that actually needs the level of hardware inside the most premium model (aside from the bragging rights) also likely requires substantial storage space for the large files they would be processing with the 18-core (36-thread) CPU and 128GB of memory. Professional CAD developers, video editors and perhaps even PC game streamers with a massive budget come to mind, but average consumers won’t be looking at the $8,000 model. We feel the storage configuration for the premium version better suits the $2,500 model.

The Bottom Line

The Predator Orion 9000 wasn’t designed with moderate gamers in mind, and Acer knows only hardcore gamers will look at the Orion’s enormous RGB LED-illuminated chassis or consider throwing that much money at a gaming PC. There’s no stopgap model between the “entry-level” $2,500 desktop and the $7,999 configuration. You have to go big or go home if you want the Orion 9000.

Hardcore gamers will appreciate the Orion 9000’s edgy design, bright lights and retractable headset cradle, and the top-side handles and rear-mounted wheels make moving the massive machine slightly easier. It definitely commands attention wherever you put it. For some PC gamers, that’s all that matters.

Acer’s price tag may be substantial, but you certainly get a PC with performance to match. Although the Orion 9000 trails the Origin PC Millennium (which has an overclocked Core i7-8700K processor and GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards) in many games due to its lower CPU and GPU clock rate, it provided unrivaled multi-core CPU performance and a ridiculous amount of memory. The $2,500, 8700K, 16GB DDR4-2666 and single GTX 1080 Ti-equipped model will satisfy most gamers. But if your workloads lean heavily on your system’s memory capacity and processor cores, this sort of premium configuration just might fit the bill.

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ASRock Deskmini GTX Z370 Review: The Ultimate Barebones PC

Derek Forrest — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

ASRock updated its Deskmini barebones mini PCs to a Z370 platform, and it’s one of the most capable and versatile systems of its kind. The Deskmini is the ultimate enthusiast mini PC with support for 8th generation (Coffee Lake) Intel desktop processors, options for GTX 1060 (in Taiwan) or GTX 1080 (in the United States) graphics, and more total storage drive capacity than any other mini PC we’ve ever seen. The GTX 1080 version sold in the U.S. will run for $1,529.99, while the GTX 1060 model we tested is around $900 USD (if you go by Taiwanese pricing). The new Z370 Deskmini is worth every penny if you need a seriously small form factor and like to build your own PC.

Specifications

Product/Price	ASRock Deskmini Z370 GTX ($900 - Estimated USD)
Processor	Support for Intel 8th Generation (Coffee Lake) LGA 1151 Celeron, Pentium, and Core Processors
Motherboard	ASRock Z370M-STX (Micro STX)
Memory	Up to 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2666 SODIMM
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5 (MXM); Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 8GB GDDR5X (MXM)
Storage Options	(2) M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA 6GB/s, (1) M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0/Optane, (2) 2.5” SATA 6GB/s Drive Bays
Optical Drive	None
Networking	Intel I219V Gigabit Ethernet; Intel Wireless-AC 3168 802.11ac WiFi + Bluetooth 4.2 (Included)
Interface	Rear: (4) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-AFront: (1) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C; (1) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A; (2) USB 2.0
Video Output	GPU: (1) DisplayPort 1.4, (1) HDMI 2.0, (1) Mini-DisplayPort 1.4 Motherboard: (1) HDMI 2.0
Power Supply	220W AC Adapter (GTX 1060); 270W AC Adapter (GTX 1080)
Case	Deskmini GTX/RX
Cooling	Stock Intel Cooling Solution (Heatsink/Fan)
Operating System	Windows 10 64-Bit
Dimensions	213 x 154.5 x 81.9mm
Other	Barebones PC (No CPU, Memory, Storage, OS)

Exterior

The ASRock Deskmini Z370 GTX isn’t designed to attract the eye - it could easily hide behind your attached display with its petite 213 x 154.5 x 81.9mm chassis. You certainly wouldn’t expect something this small to house a motherboard capable of supporting desktop processors and GTX 1060 or 1080 graphics, and the black steel and aluminum construction gives the tiny wonder a sturdy base and a clean, sleek look.

You could place the Deskmini horizontally, but the left, right, and top panels are all ventilated, and I preferred to leave them exposed by setting the PC upright. This gives the components inside considerable airflow and in theory, better cooling capability (which is critical at this small size). However, you have to start assembling the barebones PC before you even open the case - the rubber feet at the bottom panel that stabilize the upright chassis need to be peeled and attached (you’ll see the grooves where they go in each corner) before you place it anywhere.

The front panel features a black brushed aluminum finish with two off-center silver inlays that span from the top to the bottom of the device. The ports on the front panel are centered in between the two stripes and consist of a USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C port and a Type-A port, as well as two audio jacks (one mic-in, one headphone-out/mic-in combo). The left side panel’s edge also has two USB 2.0 ports that use a header on the motherboard.

The back panel doesn’t offer much more USB connectivity, with only four USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports. But the Deskmini can connect multiple displays via and HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4 and a mini-DisplayPort from the GPU or an HDMI 2.0 port on the motherboard.

Interior

As a barebones device, the ASRock Deskmini comes without a CPU, memory, storage or an operating system, so you’ll have to buy and install your own. To get to the components, you’ll have to remove the four Phillips-head screws at the back edge on the top and right side (two on each side) and slide the ventilated aluminum panel away from the front. The Deskmini’s Z370M-STX micro STX motherboard comes with a GPU (GTX 1060 or GTX 1080) pre-installed with a custom air cooler attached to the MXM card (this is much more commonly found in laptops). However, the board is also available by itself sans graphics.

You can access the Z370 motherboard’s LGA 1151 CPU socket and two DDR4 memory SODIMM slots without any further disassembly, but you’ll have to remove two screws (one on each side of the motherboard), unplug the front panel I/O cables and slide the board away from the front panel to get to the storage and Wi-Fi interfaces on the other side.

The opposite side of the device hides an impressive amount of storage interfaces. There’s a total of four M.2 slots - one for a Key-E WiFi module (which is included but not preinstalled) and three for 2280-sized storage devices. Two of the three M.2 slots support PCIe 3.0 and SATA 6GB/s drives, and the bottom (three-lane) interface can be equipped with a PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD or an Intel Optane memory module if you want to use the Z370 chipset to cache a secondary 2.5-inch HDD (why make a boot volume from an Optane-cached HDD with all that M.2 space?). Speaking of which, you can fit two 2.5-inch drives above the M.2 storage.

Software And Accessories

The ASRock Deskmini is shipped with a driver disk that also features RGB LED control software for the motherboard’s 4-pin RGB header, which helps if you want to install a flashy LED strip (not included) to illuminate the interior components. Since you have to install the operating system yourself, bloatware is not a factor.

ASRock provides a plethora of hardware to install your M.2 and 2.5-inch storage devices and Wi-Fi module (included). This includes two SATA power and data cables and the Wi-Fi antenna cables, both of which you need to install and run yourself. The antenna mounts can be installed by punching out two of the perforated holes at the back panel of the chassis, and the two 2.5-inch drives are attached with a combination of notches and screws.

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Benchmark Results & Conclusion

Comparison Products

Gigabyte BRIX Gaming VR (Barebones)

ZOTAC ZBOX MAGNUS EN1060K-U

We compared the ASRock Deskmini to a few recently reviewed barebones mini PCs, including the Zotac EN1060K-U barebones PC and the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR. All of the systems in our tests feature a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB MXM graphics card, and the key differentiator between them will be CPU and cooling performance, the latter of which is critical for small form factor gaming PCs.

Test System Configuration

Because this is a barebones PC, we had to install the CPU, memory and storage on our own. We loaded the Deskmini with a Core i7-8700 processor (provided by ASRock) and our usual barebones components, including an 8GB (2 x 4GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2400, a 256GB Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, and a 1TB Seagate HDD (to store the games). Since memory and storage are variable based on what you put in, we left out our storage and memory tests..

Fire Strike & Time Spy

The ASRock Deskmini unsurprisingly dominates the Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks compared to the EN1060K and the Brix Gaming VR, because we used a more recent, powerful CPU. The i7-8700 we tested easily outperforms the the mobile i7-7700HQ inside the Zbox and Gigabyte systems. The Deskmini also takes top honors with graphics performance, indicating that its cooling performance is on point (the CPU and GPU never throttled or exceeded 75 degrees Celsius).

Cinebench R15

Performance in Cinebench R15 is entirely based on the CPU performance, which we know will vary based on what the user installs. However, the Core i7-8700 we used performs as you’d expect against the less-capable competition, with strong single, multi-threaded, and OpenGL rendering performance.

CompuBench

The Deskmini continues its dominance in the CompuBench Video Processing and Bitcoin Mining tests. Whereas the Video Processing test is again indicative of the CPU’s superior performance, the Bitcoin Mining results speak to the Deskmini’s GPU acumen.

PCMark 8 & PCMark 10 Extended

The Deskmini finished our productivity and synthetic tests strong with massive leads over the competing systems in PCMark 8 and PCMark 10 Extended benchmarks. This can be attributed to the more powerful CPU, speedy storage, and memory performance, so the results will vary based on your configuration. However, we tested all the barebones PCs in the field with the same RAM and storage, so the gains are purely from the CPU in this case. PCMark 8 tests Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative workloads with the actual application, whereas the PCMark 10 results are purely synthetic.

Gaming Benchmarks

The ASRock Deskmini finds itself at the top of the performance heap among the other barebones mini PCs in the field. The GTX 1060 is adept for gaming at 1920 x 1080, but 4K will be tough to achieve with top-tier AAA game titles (Rise of the Tomb Raider, GTA V, The Division). However, you could still play at 3840 x 2160 with older games (Bioshock Infinite, DiRT Rally) if you are willing to sacrifice eye candy.

Configuration Options

The Deskmini Z370 appears in two forms, both of which are barebones PCs that come without a CPU, memory, storage, or an operating system. We tested the GTX 1060 version of the device (priced at around $900 USD, based on Taiwanese pricing), but ASRock said it has no definitive plans to release it in the US. However, there is also a GTX 1080 model for gamers that want the best GPU performance arriving, but the company has yet to announce pricing or release details.

The Bottom Line

The ASRock Deskmini is the king of the barebones mini PCs, offering more M.2 storage and 2.5-inch bays than any other system of its size. It’s also the ultimate enthusiast platform with options for GTX 1060 and 1080 graphics and a completely DIY approach, as you have to source and install your own CPU, storage, memory and OS.

ASRock presents an excellent PC product for a discerning PC hardware enthusiast by offering the Deskmini as a barebones PC that you equip with your choice of components. And you’d be hard pressed to find many cases that support the Z370M STX micro STX motherboard, even if you wanted to go the pure DIY route. You’d also have a difficult time finding a chassis this small that can pack as much storage space in it as the Deskmini. Simply put, it’s a true hardware enthusiast’s barebones PC.

You’re going to pay significantly more for the Deskmini than you would for a regular case, power supply, graphics card, and motherboard after all is said and done. However, your home-made system won't be as small, and for an enthusiast, the extra cash is worth the end result - a sleek and tiny powerhouse gaming PC.

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The Core i7-8086K Review: 40 Years Of x86

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Intel Core i7-8086K 40th Anniversary Model

Intel's 8086, the company's first processor to use its ubiquitous x86 instruction set architecture, debuted on June 8, 1978. Forty years later and by some stroke of fortuitous timing, Intel's desktop CPU portfolio is loaded with eighth-generation Core processors. So it was only fitting, then, that after a bit of prodding by a well-known chip analyst, Intel announced that it'd pay homage to the 8086 with a 40th-anniversary limited-edition Core i7-8086K.

Core i7-8086K is based on the same Coffee Lake architecture as Core i7-8700K, right down to its six Hyper-Threaded cores able to work on 12 threads concurrently. But it features a higher base frequency and more aggressive Turbo Boost bins, which tell us that Intel carefully picked out the best dies to use in these chips. This is the first Intel processor to ship with a 5 GHz Turbo Boost bin, matching AMD's record with the FX-9590. And if you're only looking at clock rate, the -8086K represents a 1000x multiplication of the original 8086's 5 MHz frequency.

Incidentally, the -8086K is also Intel's first six-core processor with a 4 GHz base frequency, though that specification isn't as eye-catching.

Intel kicked off its anniversary celebration with a giveaway of 8086 Core i7-8086Ks. If you didn't win one, you'll have to purchase the processor like we did. Your window of opportunity won't be large, though: our sources confirm a production run of just 50,000 units. We expect collector's items to sport premium pricing, and Intel doesn't disappoint in that department. As of this writing, the -8086K sells for $75 more than the once-flagship Core i7-8700K.

So what is this processor's appeal, other than the obvious nostalgia? Core i7-8086K comes from a higher-quality bin than Core i7-8700K, so enthusiasts with deep pockets can expect to receive the very best example of Coffee Lake silicon available. Of course, most folks won't consider the extra $75 worth paying for moderate gains at stock clock rates. But again, this is a limited-edition piece of hardware steeped in history.

Intel Core i7-8600K

The 6C/12T Core i7-8086K is manufactured on Intel's 14nm++ process, just like its other Coffee Lake CPUs. Like the company's Core i7-8700K, its 95W Core i7-8086K also features 13MB of L3 cache, support for up to 64GB of dual-channel memory at DDR4-2666, an unlocked multiplier to facilitate overclocking, and Intel's integrated UHD Graphics 630 engine that can boost up to 1.2 GHz. For more information about the Coffee Lake architecture, check out our Core i7-8700K review.

Frequencies	Base	1	2	3	4 - 5	6
Intel Core i7-8086K	4.0 GHz	5.0 GHz	4.6 GHz	4.5 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.3 GHz
Intel Core i7-8700K	3.7 GHz	4.7 GHz	4.6 GHz	4.5 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.3 GHz

The -8086K's real differentiation involves its modified Turbo Boost frequencies. But in an effort to maintain a 95W thermal design power rating, Intel only increased this chip's base clock rate by 300 MHz. Intel also increased the single-core clock rate to 5 GHz. We were able to sustain 5 GHz in tasks confined to a single core, such as Cinebench and LAME. However, the busy scheduling environment in a modern desktop operating system, which finds threads migrating frequently between cores, prevented 5 GHz operation in even mainstream tests like our gaming benchmarks. In other words, don't expect to see 5 GHz very often.

Product	Core i7-8086K	Core i7-8700K
Socket	LGA 1151v2	LGA 1151v2
TDP	95W	95W
Architecture	Coffee Lake	Coffee Lake
Process	14nm++	14nm++
Cores/Threads	6 / 12	6 / 12
Frequency Base / Boost	4.0 / 5.0 GHz	3.7 / 4.7 GHz
Memory Speed	DDR4-2966	DDR4-2966
Memory Controller	Dual-Channel	Dual-Channel
Cache (L2+L3)	13.5MB	13.5MB
Integrated Graphics	UHD Graphics 630 (up to 1200 MHz)	UHD Graphics 630 (up to 1200 MHz)
PCIe Lanes	x16 Gen3	x16 Gen3
Price	$425	$359

We've heard reports that some motherboards don't support Intel's 5 GHz single-core Turbo Boost bin. However, updated firmware could fix that in the future. Regardless, it's a shame that Intel didn't port over Turbo Boost 3.0 technology to pin lightly-threaded tasks to the CPU's fastest core. Overclockers might have more luck coaxing higher clock rates from the -8086K: our sample easily stretched up to 5.1 GHz with a bit of extra voltage.

We normally don't cover processor packaging, but it is relevant given the Core i7-8086K's status as a collector’s item. Like all of Intel's K-series SKUs, the -8086K doesn't include a bundled heat sink or fan.

The box tell us us that this is a limited-edition CPU. Intel even includes a certificate of authenticity, along with a signed statement from former CEO Brian Krzanich.

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Forty Years Of x86

Compared to the 16-bit 8086, Intel's Core i7-8086K represents a quantum leap in technology. Whereas a modern CPU can spend four years in the design process, Intel brought its 8086 to market in just 18 months. Stephen Morse, then 36 years old, was the lead architect. The 8086 was originally designed to be a filler product before Intel released the 8800, but Morse designed it to be the first in a line of chips that shared a common architecture to ensure forward compatibility.

Product	Intel 8086	Core i7-8086K	Core i7-8700K
Release Date	June 8, 1978	June 8, 2018	October 5, 2017
TDP	1W (power draw)	95W	95W
Cores / Threads	1 / 1	6 / 12	6 / 12
Frequency Base / Boost	5 - 10 MHz (0.005 GHz)	4.0 / 5.0 GHz	3.7 / 4.7 GHz
Transistors	29,000	~3 billion	~3 billion
Manufacturing Process	nMOS/HMOS 3 micron (3000nm)	CMOS 14nm++	CMOS 14nm++
Word Size	16-bit	64-bit	64-bit
Lithography	G-Line (Mercury Arc Lamps) 436nm Wavelength	Argon Fluoride Excismer Laser, 193nm Wavelength	Argon Fluoride Excismer Laser, 193nm Wavelength
Die Size	33mm2	149mm2	149mm2
Minimum Feature Size	3.2 Microns (3200nm)	8nm	8nm
Wafer Diameter	4 inches	12 inches	12 inches
Memory Support	1MB	64GB	64GB
Memory Bus Speed	4.77 MHz	2966 MHz	2966 MHz
Integrated Graphics	None	UHD Graphics 630	UHD Graphics 630
Socket	40-pin	LGA 1151v2	LGA 1151v2
Price	$86.65 (1978) $330 adjusted for inflation	$425	$359

And thus, the x86 instruction set architecture was born. Over the course of 40 years, Intel continually enhanced the x86 ISA, adding more than 3500 new instructions like MMX, SSE, TSX, and three flavors of AVX, among many others. Amazingly, the 64-bit Core i7-8086K is capable of running original 16-bit 8086 code. That's a testament to the x86 instruction set's longevity.

The original 8086 was fabbed on a 3200nm nMOS process using mercury arc lamps. Meanwhile, 40 years later, Intel is on its third-gen 14nm CMOS process that's manufactured with argon fluoride exerciser lasers.

8086 Die

Transistor measurements are no longer based strictly on feature sizes, but we can derive some basic comparative metrics. Die sizes have increased from the 8086's 33mm² to the -8086K's 149mm², and transistor counts are up from 29,000 to ~3,000,000,000 per processor, respectively. That means the original 8086 featured 879 transistors per square millimeter, while Core i7-8086K comes with 20,134,228 transistors per square millimeter for an astounding 22,905x density increase.

Coffee Lake Die

Interfaces have also changed as Intel added more cores, cache, new buses, expanded memory support, and on-die graphics. The original 8086 dropped into a 40-pin quasi-PGA interface, whereas the eighth-generation Core processors employ an LGA 1151v2 socket that boasts 1151 pins. If we widen the scope to Intel's 28-core enterprise behemoths, some interfaces pack a whopping 4637 pins.

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Silicon Lottery, Overclocking & Test Setup

Alternately, Silicon Lottery procures batches of processors and delids them to replace Intel's thermal paste with liquid metal Thermal Grizzly Condoctonaut. According to the company, this reduces operating temperatures by 15°C to 25°C, depending on the workload. The improved thermal transfer material helps facilitate more aggressive overclocks. Silicon Lottery sells the modified processors at a premium price, and with a one-year warranty (rather than Intel's standard three-year coverage).

Core i7-8700K - December 2017				Core i7-8700K - June 2018
Clock	Vcore	AVX2	Percentile	Clock	Vcore	AVX2	Percentile
4.9 GHz	1.387	-2	Top 99%	4.9 GHz	1.385	-2	Top 99%
5.0 GHz	1.4	-2	Top 72%	5.0 GHz	1.4	-2	Top 86%
5.1 GHz	1.412	-2	Top 43%	5.1 GHz	1.41	-2	Top 50%
5.2 GHz	1.425	-2	Top 16%	5.2 GHz	1.425	-2	Top 17%
5.3 GHz	1.437	-2	Top 3%	5.3 GHz	-	-	-

Silicon Lottery compiles statistics about the samples it modifies and shares them publicly, giving us a reasonable gauge of what's coming out of Intel's foundries. Some enthusiasts speculate that reserving the highest-quality silicon for Core i7-8086K would hurt the chances of scoring a higher-clocking -8700K. But as we can see, the percentage of -8700Ks able to hit anywhere from 5 to 5.2 GHz actually increased during the period of time we would have expected Intel to set aside top-binned dies for its -8086K. Then again, it looks like samples able to hit 5.3 GHz disappeared entirely, possibly representing those precious -8086K-capable dies.

Core i7-8086K - June 2018
Clock	Vcore	AVX2	Percentile
5.0 GHz	1.4	-2	Top 100%
5.1 GHz	1.41	-2	Top 92%
5.2 GHz	1.425	-2	Top 60%
5.3 GHz	1.435	-2	Top 14%

Silicon Lottery also shares statistics on the Core i7-8086K, and its probability of receiving top silicon is markedly better than what we see from the latest round of Core i7-8700K data. Nearly all of the company's -8086Ks reach 5 GHz, and the top 14% are capable of reaching 5.3 GHz.

Our own Core i7-8086K achieved 5.1 GHz with a 1.35V Vcore and default load line calibration settings. In addition, we adjusted our AVX offset by -1 and saw a peak temperature of 86°C during AVX-heavy workloads using Corsair's beefy H115i closed-loop cooler. Although we successfully dialed in DDR4-3466 rates with 14-14-14-24 timings, we feel we could have pushed even higher with more time for tuning.

Instead of splurging on a Core i7-8086K, you could always purchase a modified Core i7-8700K from Silicon Lottery capable of hitting the same 5.1 GHz that we achieved. Unfortunately, those models sell for $479, making the -8086K's $425 price tag attractive in comparison. If you're chasing the highest overclock possible, the company does sell a Core i7-8086K capable of 5.3 GHz for $849. As with all Silicon Lottery chips, however, you lose two years of warranty coverage in the exchange.

Comparison Products

Intel Core i7-8700 (8th Gen)

Intel Core i7-8700K

Intel Core i7-7700K

Test Systems

Like many other vendors, MSI motherboards feature a default Enhanced Turbo feature that allows the processor to run at its maximum Turbo Boost bin on all cores, at all times. For the Core i7-8086K, you're looking at 5 GHz across all six cores.

This setting modifies the CPU's clock rate and voltage to deliver higher performance, which is basically factory-sanctioned overclocking. Again, MSI enables it by default in the BIOS, similar to most of the competition. But performance, power consumption, and heat are all affected when it's on. We manually disable the feature for our stock CPU testing to best reflect Intel's specifications.

Test System & Configuration
Hardware	AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700, Ryzen 7 2700X, Ryzen 5 2600X, Ryzen 5 2600 MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i7-8086K, Core i7-8700K, Core i5-8600K, Core i5-8400, Core i7-8700MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2400, DDR4-2667, DDR4-3466All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500-TI, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703 - All Spectre and Meltdown mitigations
Cooling	Corsair H115iIntel stock thermal solution (Core i7-8700)

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

VRMark & 3DMark

Out of the box, Core i7-8086K effectively tied Intel's Core i7-8700K in the DX12 CPU benchmark. But its higher overclocked frequency outstripped the tuned -8700K by a decent margin. Both processors traded places in the DX11 test, though again, overclocking propelled Core i7-8086K past the -8700K.

VRMark found the -8086K and -8700K offering virtually the same performance at stock and overclocked settings. The Core i5-8600K and -8400 both beat the Core i7 models though, suggesting that this benchmark rewards configurations without simultaneous multi-threading technology exposing logical cores.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

At stock and overclocked settings, Core i7-8086K and the Core i7-8700K performed almost identically in Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation.

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Civilization VI Graphics & AI, Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

Civilization's AI test measures performance in a turn-based strategy game and tends to favor per-core performance.

At stock settings, the Core i7-8086K surprisingly trailed Core i7-8700K and -8700, though just barely. Overclocking provides a minuscule boost over the other tuned Intel processors.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Core i5-8600K dominated at both stock and overclocked settings, which tells us that this benchmark prefers physical cores over logical resources. The overclocked Core i7-8086K fell next in line with a lead over competing Core i7 and Ryzen 7 models. However, it trailed the -8700 by 1 FPS on average at stock settings.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

Dawn of War responds well to Intel's high clock rates, so it was no surprise to find overclocked Coffee Lake-based CPUs at the top of our chart.

Although the overclocked Core i7-8086K landed in first place, it's clear that the outcome in Dawn of War III was limited by graphics performance up top.

A stock Core i7-8086K beat the -8700K. But the difference between them was so small that the -8086K's 300 MHz peak Turbo Boost advantage didn't seem to help much.

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Far Cry Primal, GTA: V & Hitman

Far Cry Primal

Tuning provided small average frame rate boosts to Intel's six-core Coffee Lake-based CPUs. Meanwhile, Core i7-8086K only offered a slight advantage versus the less expensive eighth-gen Core i7s.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V favors Intel architectures and, more generally, multi-core designs with high clock rates.

The stock and overclocked Core i7-8086K yielded a small advantage over the Core i7-8700K.

Hitman

Our Hitman benchmark was rendered almost useless by a patch that imposed a 90 FPS cap on performance. A few weeks ago, though, a subsequent update restored our Hitman test to its prior glory.

With the frame cap removed, Intel's overclocked processors hit a performance ceiling that may be imposed by available graphics horsepower.

Shifting focus to the stock configurations, Intel's six-core CPUs were clearly faster than last generation's quad-core flagship.

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Shadow Of War & Project CARS 2

Middle-earth: Shadow Of War

Not all games respond to increased host processing resources; some of them are wholly limited by available graphics horsepower. Middle-earth: Shadow of War is definitely one of those graphics-bound titles, demonstrating a 4.5 FPS average variance from the slowest sample in our pool to the fastest. As a result, it was no surprise to see Core i7-8086K and -8700K tied.

Project CARS 2

Project CARS 2 is purportedly optimized for threading. However, our 6C/6T Core i5-8600K beat the overclocked 8C/16T Ryzen 7 2700X, so it's clear that parallelism isn't the most influential factor in defining this game's performance.

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Office & Productivity

Adobe Creative Cloud

At stock settings, Core i7-8086K offered minimal improvement over the Core i7-8700K in our overall Adobe Creative Cloud score. Even though this suite has a few parallelized workloads, the final score is heavily influenced by the lightly-threaded tasks common in most desktop applications. So, it wasn't surprising to see the Core i7-8086K's superior overclock beat the tuned -8700K by 6.5%.

Web Browser

The Krakken suite tests JavaScript performance using several workloads, including audio, imaging, and cryptography. Core i7-8086K trailed the -8700K in stock form, though overclocking changed the story.

The MotionMark benchmarks, which emphasize graphics (rather than JavaScript), are exceedingly sensitive to CPU clock rates. Yet, Intel's stock Core i7-8086K trailed the -8700K again, reinforcing our opinion that some motherboard firmware versions aren't fully optimized to exploit the 5 GHz single-core Turbo Boost bin.

Productivity

The application start-up metric measures load time snappiness in word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers under warm- and cold-start conditions. Other platform-level considerations affect this test as well, including the storage subsystem. Core i7-8086K exploited its clock rate advantage in stock and overclocked trim to provide snappy performance.

Our video conferencing suite measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection to model real-world usage. Core i7-8700 beat the -8086K by a hair; however, its locked multiplier prevents it from vying for chart-topping performance. Core i7-8086K posted a lead at stock frequencies during the writing benchmark, reinforcing that win after overclocking.

The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries using the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized, so it's no surprise the tuned Ryzen 7 processors lead by a large margin. The overclocked Core i7-8086K fared best among Intel's CPUs, but there's no substitute for core/thread count in this workload.

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Rendering, Encoding & Compression

Rendering

Threaded workloads remain an uncontested strength of AMD's Zen-based processors and their hefty core counts. But tasks that are also affected by memory performance, such as Blender, allow Core i7 to claim a lead. The multi-core Cinebench and POV-Ray tests are dominated by the Ryzen line-up.

At stock settings, Core i7-8086K lead the -8700K in our single-core POV-Ray and Cinebench benchmarks. Overclocking opened up a much wider gap between the two CPUs.

Encoding & Compression

LAME is a single-threaded workload that typically illustrates the advantage of higher clock rates and IPC throughput. Not surprisingly, then, Core i7-8086K's frequency advantage lead to a win.

Our threaded compression and decompression tests work directly from system memory, removing storage throughput from the equation. Thus, we found that performance scaled according to core/thread count.

y-cruncher, a single- and multi-threaded program that computes pi using AVX instructions, kept itself isolated to one core during our single-threaded test, allowing the Core i7-8086K to flaunt its higher frequency relative to the -8700K. Conversely, the multi-threaded y-cruncher test reminded us that both processors have the same multi-core Turbo Boost frequencies.

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Final Analysis

Core i7-8086K's higher base and single-core Turbo Boost frequencies delivered small speed-ups throughout our test suite. But because of Windows' busy nature, those gains were somewhat unpredictable. Although the -8086K rarely stayed in its single-core Turbo Boost bin for long, the same can be said for most CPUs. Regardless, Core i7-8086K earns recognition for becoming the fastest gaming processor on the market, if only just barely.

Our charts below plot gaming performance with a geometric mean of the 99^th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness) converted into a frame-per-second measurement. We also have price-to-performance charts that get split up to include the CPUs-only, plus extra platform costs. For the models that don't come with a bundled cooler, we add $25 for a basic heat sink. We also add $20 if overclocking requires a more expensive motherboard (as is the case for Z370).

If you're only looking to use Core i7-8086K at its stock settings, the processor provides nearly the same gaming experience as the Core i7-8700K at 4.9 GHz. Its advantage is minor at 1920x1080, and it'll shrink at higher resolutions. Granted, overclocking is one of the -8086K's selling points. But the extra 200 MHz you get compared to our -8700K just doesn't justify a $75-higher price tag. And as with all K-series SKUs, you need to buy your own cooler and 300-series motherboard.

We see similar trends throughout our application tests: Core i7-8086K is strikingly similar to the -8700K, and overclocking opens a slight advantage due to our sample's increased headroom. It's only a shame that Intel didn't have the margins to also improve Core i7-8086K's multi-core Turbo Boost frequencies. Such a move would have yielded bigger gains across the board.

You could always purchase a delidded Core i7-8700K, or do the risky work yourself, to match the -8086K's overclocking potential. But if you go the Silicon Lottery route, expect to pay even more than a brand new Core i7-8086K costs and lose two years of warranty coverage.

Core i7-8086K is probably overkill for most of our readers. Both Intel and AMD have far more economical options that provide similar performance through our benchmark suite. Given the limited supply of Core i7-8086Ks, however, we don't expect them to be available for long, and competitive positioning probably isn't the top priority for this CPU's target market.

In light of the anecdotal evidence we've heard from Silicon Lottery, you can rest assured that the -8086K represents Intel's very best Coffee Lake silicon. There are those among us who always seek out the best performance possible, regardless of price. If that describes you, then Core i7-8086K is the fastest gaming chip out there. Just be aware that you're paying dearly for a bit of overclocking headroom.

Moderate gains at stock clock rates mean Core i7-8086K isn't worthwhile for most of Intel's customers. But if you're willing to pay a premium for a piece of history that just so happens to perform well, the -8086K is a cool, enthusiast-oriented option.

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MSI Infinite X Desktop PC Review: Edgy Look, Premium Performance

Derek Forrest — Tue, 26 Jun 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction and Product Tour

MSI’s Infinite X features an edgy design with a tempered glass panel, a company-branded Z370 chipset motherboard and top-tier Nvidia graphics. Our review model, the VR8RE-006US, features a liquid-cooled Intel Core i7-8700K, 16GB of DDR4-2400, a 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD, and a company branded GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card; an arsenal strong enough for an enthusiast gamer. At $1,899, the Infinite X VR8RE is a worthy consideration for gamers looking for a high-end PC that delivers excellent 1440p gaming performance at a reasonable price.

Specifications

Product/Price	MSI Infinite X VR8RE 006US ($1,899)
Processor	Intel Core i7-8700K @ 4.4GHz
Motherboard	MSI Z370 ATX
Memory	16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-2400
Graphics	MSI GeForce GTX 1080 8GB GDDR5X
Storage Options	512GB Intel 600p PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
Optical Drive	DVD-RW
Networking	Intel I219V Gigabit Ethernet; Intel Wireless-AC 3168 802.11ac WiFi + Bluetooth 4.2
Interface	Rear: (1) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C; (3) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A; (2) USB 2.0Front: (1) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C; (1) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A; (1) USB 2.0
Video Output	(3) DisplayPort 1.3; (1) HDMI 2.0; (1) DVI-D
Power Supply	550W 80+ Bronze
Case	MSI Infinite
Cooling	Asetek 120mm CPU Liquid Cooler, Silent Storm Cooling 3
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
Dimensions	17.72 x 8.27 x 19.22”
Other	Tempered Glass Side Panel (Included), Vertically Mounted GPU

Exterior

The MSI Infinite sports solid black aluminum side panels with edgy grooves that match the angular design. The solid left side panel has a large vent that lines up with the vertically oriented graphics card’s fans, giving the GPU an avenue for potentially excellent heat dissipation. The Infinite X also ships with a tempered glass panel if you want to show off your components, but airflow won’t be as copious with solid glass. However, there is a gap between the chassis and panel that lets some air enter the case.

The front panel features a brushed aluminum finish and a transparent window that showcases an integrated and patterned RGB LED light (it looks like circuit traces). A vent lines the right side of the front panel, letting air into the chamber via a 95mm case fan. The top edge hides a DVD-RW optical drive above the power button and I/O, which consists of two USB 3.1 Gen 1 (one Type-A, one Type-C) and a USB 2.0 port, in addition to headphone-out and mic-in audio jacks. The top panel is angular, with a large vent and handle on the backside that makes moving the Infinite X infinitely easier.

The rear panel of the Infinite X offers significantly more USB connectivity, with four USB 3.1 Gen 1 (one Type-C, three Type-A) and two USB 2.0 ports, in addition to a gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port powered by an Intel i219V NIC, five audio jacks, and an S/PDIF interface. The motherboard I/O also includes two display outputs (an HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 interface), but you won’t need to connect those with the dedicated GPU, which sits vertically at the bottom right side of the rear panel and sports the usual GTX 1080 outputs (three DisplayPort 1.4 connects, an HDMI 2.0, and a DVI-D).

Interior

Removing the side panels exposes the primary components. An Asetek CPU liquid cooler’s radiator is mounted to the rear panel’s 120mm exhaust vent, but the radiator and matching non-LED fan are slightly smaller in size (95mm) and require an adapter for the case’s 120mm mount. The top RGB LED fan is of the standard 120mm variety, and the pump sports an MSI dragon emblem with a white LED light for some additional aesthetic flare. There’s also a 95mm fan feeding fresh air to the components mounted to the front of the chassis.

Under the cooler’s cold plate sits an Intel Core i7-8700K on top of a custom MSI Z370 ATX motherboard. The six-core processor isn’t overclocked out of the box, but MSI pre-installs one-click overclocking software that boosts the CPU to an all-core 4.4GHz (we’ll get into that more later).

The motherboard’s four DIMM slots are half occupied by a 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston DDR4-2400. The memory itself lacks heatsinks and is slightly slower than the usual DDR-2666 we usually see accompanying Core i7-8700K-equipped PCs (it’s the standard memory speed for the CPU’s controller), but MSI provides an acceptable starting point for gamers (who generally don’t rely on memory speeds so long as it’s of adequate capacity) and a reasonable upgrade path for those seeking faster or higher-capacity RAM down the line.

For storage, the MSI Infinite X VR8RE comes equipped with a 512GB Intel 600p PCIe 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD. The lack of an additional storage volume is disheartening, and gamers with extensive libraries will likely want to invest in a HDD. Fortunately, there are three empty 3.5” drive bays and a 2.5” drive mount behind the right-side panel for any storage upgrades you’d want to add down the line.

The vertically mounted graphics card is a retail model - an MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Armor 8G OC that should provide excellent 1080p and 1440p gaming performance, and the unbranded 550W 80-Plus Bronze certified PSU is more than adequate to power the components.

However, the cable management is mediocre, with fan cables from the radiator fan, pump, and vertically mounted M.2 WiFi module (an Intel Wireless-AC 3168) strewn across the motherboard with seemingly no effort to hide them or run them inconspicuously. A clip holding a bunch of wires at the top of the chassis came loose during shipping, but the adhesive wasn’t strong enough to stay attached for long when we tried to remedy this (we know this happens sometimes, but it’s normally easy to fix).

Software and Accessories

MSI pre-loaded a handful of company branded software utilities in the Infinite X, including Command Center (for CPU overclocking and monitoring), Gaming App (to adjust monitor color modes and more) Dragon Eye (an overlay program), and Mystic Light (RGB LED controller). The company also loaded it up with SteelSeries Engine, which has been pre-configured for MSI’s RGB LED-illuminated MPG27C gaming monitor (not included).

The Infinite X also comes with an Interceptor DS4200 gaming keyboard and an Interceptor B1 gaming mouse. The keyboard features a 20-key anti-ghosting capability with membrane switches, multimedia function hotkeys, and multi-color LED backlighting. The lights are controlled onboard without software, with three illumination modes (Off, Steady, Breathing), four levels of brightness, and ten adjustable flash speeds. The mouse is also geared for gaming with onboard LEDs and a plethora of additional buttons.

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Synthetic, Productivity, and Gaming Benchmarks

We compared the MSI Infinite X VR8RE to the recently reviewed Zotac Mek1 desktop PC, in addition to our test rig (the full specs are below). The Zotac sports a 7^th generation Intel Core i7-7700 (locked) processor and a GeForce GTX 1070 Ti but has an MSRP $300 less than the Infinite X VR8RE. The comparison should hash out how much more performance you’ll get from MSI’s next-gen Core i7 and GTX 1080-equipped Infinite X.

Comparison Products

MSI Infinite X

Zotac Mek1 Gaming Desktop

Test System Configuration

The Infinite X was tested using the company’s one-click overclocking settings, which sets the six-core i7-8700K to optimized frequencies based on how many cores are active. Single core performance can reach as high as 5.0GHz, and it dials down as you increase the core count. Dual-core operation is set to 4.9GHz (400MHz higher than the CPU’s base Turbo frequency), 4.7GHz utilizing three-to-five cores, and 4.4GHz with all six cores engaged. The Coffee Lake CPU should easily outperform our stock-clocked Core i7-7700K, which sports a base frequency of 4.2GHz and boosts to 4.5GHz in lightly threaded workloads. However, it should really outshine our aging Z270 reference system in multi-core applications and tests.

The MSI offering’s 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston DDR4-2400 features a CAS latency of 17-17-17-39, and the frequency is slightly lower than the Z370 platform’s native memory controller speed of DDR4-2666. This won’t affect most gamers, but bandwidth-intensive workloads may not be up to par with the platform’s full potential.

The GTX 1080 inside the Infinite X is factory overclocked to a base and boost frequency of 1,657MHz and 1,797MHz, respectively, and it should provide slightly better framerates compared to our test rig’s stock-clocked GTX 1080 in GPU-intensive games.

Fire Strike & Time Spy

The MSI Infinite X VR8RE starts our test suite off strong against our previous-gen test bed, netting higher scores in UL’s (formerly 3DMark) Fire Strike and Time Spy synthetic gaming benchmarks. The substantially higher Physics (CPU) scores contribute to the Overall results, and the Infinite X easily pushes ahead of the competition in the field.

Cinebench R15

The Infinite X again makes short work of the other competing systems in the Cinebench R15 Single and Multi-CPU rendering tests. This is especially prevalent in the multi-core benchmark (six cores vs four – obviously), but the MSI contender falls slightly behind our test rig by a pie slice (3.14 FPS, get it?) in the OpenGL Shading tests. This could be due to a slightly slower memory subsystem, but it is within a reasonable variance.

CompuBench

The Infinite X’s performance is also bested by our reference rig in the CompuBench Video Processing tests by a small margin, again pointing to a slight disadvantage with OpenGL workloads against the previous-gen Core i7 at stock clocks. However, the VR8RE’s factory overclocked GTX 1080 gives the X a slight edge in the Bitcoin Mining benchmark.

Storage Test

The MSI Infinite X sports an Intel 600P SSD, the pitfalls of which we have already documented. Not surprisingly, the Infinite X’s PCIe 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD only narrowly outperforms our test rig’s SATA SSD in sequential read and write performance by about 130MB/s and 70MB/s, respectively.

However, the 600p’s random 4K read speeds are substantially lower than both of the competing systems' SSDs at QD2. The 4K write performance is only slightly below that of our test rig, but only power users with storage-intensive workloads would notice the difference between most SSD classes. Average gamers (whom this product is aimed at) would just be happy to have one in general.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

Unsurprisingly, the MSI Infinite X doesn’t perform much better or worse than the Zotac Mek1 in the Sandra Memory Bandwidth benchmarks. Both systems sport DDR4-2400, but that’s the standard speed for the Mek1’s Core i7-7700.

MSI could have done better with the memory, and although Kingston is a reputable brand, a kit of RAM with heatsinks and speeds that match the platform’s memory controller would provide a big boost to memory bandwidth-intensive workloads. However, most consumers won’t need more than the 16GB capacity, and raw RAM speed is much less important if the goal is to game.

PCMark 8 & PCMark 10 Extended

The MSI Infinite X finishes the Productivity and Synthetic portion of our suite with impressive performance in the PCMark8 Application and PCMark 10 Extended tests. The PCMark 8 results are derived from real-world workloads using Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office, and the X outpaces our reference machine by about 100 points in both tests. The PCMark 10 Extended tests are purely synthetic, but they paint a similar picture – the MSI Infinite X has some moderate productivity chops thanks to its overclocked CPU.

Gaming Benchmarks

The MSI Infinite X VR8RE maintains its dominance over our test rig and the Zotac Mek1 with its overclocked Core i7-8700K and factory overclocked GTX 1080 in the gaming benchmarks. Titles such as Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, DiRT Rally, and The Division see significant performance gains from the VR8RE’s overclocked (one-click CPU, factory GPU) components, but the advantages are less pronounced in Bioshock Infinite, GTAV, Middle Earth: Shadows of War (where it performed identically to our Z270 test bench), and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Overall, the Infinite X offers impressive gaming performance adept for ultra-high settings at 1440p and 4K with less eye candy turned on.

Configuration Options

The MSI Infinite X has several different configurations, but all of them feature an Intel Core i7-8700K, a Z370 motherboard, and 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory. You can get the Infinite X with a GeForce GTX 1070, a 256GB NVMe SSD, and a 2TB HDD starting at $1,499. Our review unit sports a GTX 1080 with a 512GB NVMe SSD (no HDD) for $1,899, and the top of the heap features a GTX 1080 Ti with a 512GB NVMe SSD and a 2TB HDD for $2,199.

Bottom Line

The MSI Infinite X is designed for gamers looking for an edgy RGB LED-illuminated chassis with a tempered glass side panel, top-tier components, and easy to use (and pre-installed) overclocking software. However, this premium desktop is not without flaws, including some dangling wires on the inside (due to a loose clip), a mediocre SSD and a RAM that could be faster. However, at $1,899, the VR8RE model is reasonably priced, especially when you consider its high end hardware. If you want a prebuilt desktop with strong performance and flashy aesthetics, the MSI Infinite X is a compelling choice.

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Intel Core i7-8700 Review: Stock Cooler Falls Flat

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Mon, 25 Jun 2018 13:00:00 +0000

The Core i7-8700 Review

Intel's Core i7-8700 packs all of the Coffee Lake architecture's goodness into a 65W envelope, including six Hyper-Threaded cores, the benefits of 14nm++ manufacturing, and higher Turbo Boost clock rates than previous-generation CPUs. Although it's handicapped somewhat by a locked ratio multiplier, stymieing enthusiasts looking for a 5 GHz+ overclock, Core i7-8700 does feature operating frequencies that come close to the flagship -8700K. As a result, its performance is often similar in real-world tasks. And yet, the vanilla -8700 costs $50 less. That's a win if you weren't planning to overclock anyway.

Great benchmark results and an attractive price also put Core i7-8700 up against AMD's revamped Ryzen 7 line-up. Specifically, it's forced to contend with Ryzen 7 2700's eight cores, 16 threads, unlocked multiplier, affordable motherboard support, and capable cooler. Particularly on that last point, Intel's solution is severely deficient.

You see, Intel's thermal design power specification applies to the CPU's base frequency. But its processors exceed that rating when they jump to higher Turbo Boost bins. We found that the Core i7-8700 can overwhelm Intel's bundled heat sink and fan during certain heavily-threaded workloads, negatively affecting performance. You'll have to purchase a better thermal solution for any chance at realizing Core i7-8700's highest Turbo Boost frequencies. Naturally, the CPU loses some of its luster as a result.

Intel Core i7-8700

Core i7-8700 may be destined to live in the -8700K's shadow. But again, it does feature the same complement of six cores, 12MB of L3 cache, and DDR4-2666-capable memory controller. Like all of Intel's Core i7, i5, and i3 models, the i7-8700 comes with an integrated UHD Graphics 630 engine that gives Intel a leg up over competing Ryzen 7 and 5 processors without any on-die graphics.

Unfortunately, due to Coffee Lake's lack of backward compatibility, you do need a 300-series motherboard if you're upgrading from an older platform.

	IntelCore i7-8700K	IntelCore i7-8700	AMD Ryzen 7 2700X	AMD Ryzen 7 2700	AMD Ryzen 5 2600X	Intel Core i5-8600K	AMD Ryzen 5 2600	Intel Core i5-8400
MSRP	$359	$303	$329	$299	$229	$257	$199	$182
Process	14nm++	14nm++	GloFo 12nm LP	GloFo 12nm LP	GloFo 12nm LP	14nm++	GloFo 12nm LP	14nm++
Cores/Threads	6/12	6/12	8/16	8/16	6/12	6/6	6/12	6/6
TDP	95W	65W	105W	65W	95W	95W	65W	65W
Base Freq. (GHz)	3.7	3.2	3.7	3.2	3.6	3.6	3.4	2.8
Precision Boost Freq. (GHz)	4.7	4.6	4.3	4.1	4.2	4.3	3.9	4.0
Cache (L3)	12MB	12MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	9MB	16MB	9MB
Unlocked Multiplier	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Integrated Graphics	UHD Graphics 630 (1200 MHz)	UHD Graphics 630 (1200 MHz)	No	No	No	UHD Graphics 630 (1150 MHz)	No	UHD Graphics 630 (1150 MHz)
Cooler	No	Intel Stock	105W Wraith Prism (LED)	95W Wraith Spire (LED)	95W Wraith Spire	No	65W Wraith Stealth	Intel Stock

Intel is infamous for aggressively segmenting its portfolio, meaning it trims frequencies, only makes overclocking available on premium models, turns Hyper-Threading on and off, and disables cores to create lower-priced models. Of course, the company did this with its seventh-gen Core CPUs, too. The Core i7-7700 was multiplier-locked, while the -7700K catered to enthusiasts. But Intel capped the -7700's top Turbo Boost bin at a mere 4.2 GHz. Core i7-8700 isn't as constrained. Its four-core ceiling is 4.4 GHz, while six active cores reach up to 4.3 GHz, just like Core i7-8700K. In most workloads, the 500 MHz base frequency difference between Core i7-8700 and -8700K quickly disappears as Turbo Boost kicks in.

Frequencies	Base	1	2	4	6
Intel Core i7-8700K	3.7 GHz	4.7 GHz	4.6 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.3 GHz
Intel Core i7-8700	3.2 GHz	4.6 GHz	4.5 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.3 GHz
Intel Core i7-7700K	4.2 GHz	4.5 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.4 GHz	-
Intel Core i7-7700	3.6 GHz	4.2 GHz	4.1 GHz	4.0 GHz	-

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The Stock Cooler Dilemma & Test Setup

The Stock Cooler Dilemma

Intel ships its multiplier-locked CPUs with basic thermal solutions. Although they are notoriously flimsy and usually pretty noisy, they've proven sufficient for cooling previous-generation models. That changes with Core i7-8700.

In the not-too-distant past, Intel's stock heat sink employed a copper core. More recently, however, the company switched to all-aluminum designs. That means Core i7-8700 comes with the same cooler as quad-core Kaby Lake-based Core i5s.

Frankly, we're surprised that Intel carried over the same heat sinks from those seventh-generation Core CPUs. Despite the -8700's 65W TDP, it's still based on a notably more complex die.

On paper, the -8700's 65W TDP fits nicely within the low-profile cooler's 73W rating. But remember that Intel specs the CPU's thermal design power according to its base frequency. Its chips actually exceed the TDP when they dynamically increase voltage and frequency through their Turbo Boost algorithms. As noted on Intel's Turbo Boost 2.0 informational page:

Note: Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 allows the processor to operate at a power level that is higher than its TDP configuration and data sheet specified power for short durations to maximize performance.

According to our measurements, Core i7-8700 peaks at up to 126W during taxing all-core workloads. With that data in-hand, the stock cooler does appear insufficient.

While Intel guarantees base frequencies during normal operation, the company doesn't make promises about Turbo Boost clock rates because its processors only shift to higher P-states (pre-defined frequencies and voltages) when they're running below certain temperature, voltage, power, and current limits. Above them, the opportunistic algorithms are reigned in to keep the CPU in-spec.

As a general rule, Turbo Boost targets lower frequency bins as more cores become active. Intel does still advertise its maximum single-core clock rates, but it no longer divulges the multi-core clock rates (even though you can expose them through the company's XTU software).

Frequencies	Base	1	2	4	6
Intel Core i7-8700K	3.7 GHz	4.7 GHz	4.6 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.3 GHz
Intel Core i7-8700	3.2 GHz	4.6 GHz	4.5 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.3 GHz

We've seen lots of speculation that Intel stopped disclosing multi-core Turbo Boost frequencies with Coffee Lake-based processors because its stock heat sink and fan couldn't fully facilitate those clock rates. Sure enough, a quick online search reveals several reports from owners claiming that their Core i7-8700s hit the maximum safe temperature of 100°C (TJ Max) during extended workloads. Once the processor reaches TJ Max, it throttles back voltage and frequency (along with power and heat) as a protection mechanism. Of course, throttling also results in lower performance.

Measuring The Impact

To investigate the claims, we observed a Core i7-8700 and its stock cooler during our x265 HandBrake benchmark. This real-world application is optimized to utilize all available cores. Moreover, it employs AVX instructions, which tend to increase power consumption considerably. We opened AIDA's system stability test window to monitor our -8700 during the workload.

As you can see in the second slide, Intel's cooler was quickly overwhelmed, causing the processor to repeatedly bounce off of its 100°C temperature limit and throttle performance to protect itself (charted in red in the lower window).

With the bundled fan manually set to 100% duty cycle, we logged frequency throughout our test run (first album image). Even with the thermal solution working as hard as possible, the -8700 regularly throttled back from its 4.3 GHz all-core bin into lower ranges.

We also monitored VRM temperature during the test to ensure our motherboard's power delivery subsystem wasn't responsible for the throttling. Those measurements landed within the range we expected.

Next, we ran the same test using a beefy Corsair Hydro Series H115i "Extreme Performance" all-in-one liquid-cooler. Manually cranking the two 140mm fans and pump up to 100% helped ensure that thermal output had no impact on our test results.

The difference is night and day. Intel's Core i7-8700 never exceeded 67°C, and the processor's frequency remained at a pleasingly-constant 4.3 GHz (though we did notice a few spikes higher during brief periods of lighter utilization). AIDA's system monitor confirmed that the CPU didn't throttle. Again, we see that our motherboard's power delivery subsystem satisfied the Core i7-8700's power and current requirements.

Comparing the difference between Intel's stock cooler (HS&F) and the all-in-one makes it clear that thermals clearly affect the -8700's performance. Turbo Boost is clearly designed to minimize the impact of thermal throttling: we only observe a 72-second delta over the course of our ~35-minute test.

A mere 3.4% separating those results may seem insignificant, but remember that we tested these configurations on an open test bench. A closed case would change the outcome almost assuredly. Also, we benchmarked at maximum fan settings, generating quite a bit of noise. It's far more common to use the motherboard's default fan curve, or to dial in an optimized fan profile that ramps up gradually. Unfortunately, those algorithms don't respond to control temperature fast enough to mitigate wild spikes and dips. As a result of the normal delay in fan speed adjustments, plus the less-than-ideal airflow in most PC cases, you could see larger slow-downs than what we recorded from a best-case test environment. This doesn't bode well for builders working with small form factors.

We did experiment with various thermal compounds between the stock cooler and heat spreader, but they didn't help much. Thus, we pin the negative outcome of our experimentation on Intel's paltry heat sink and fan combination.

Bear in mind that our benchmarks are run with the stock cooler and Corsair's all-in-one to highlight the difference in thermal performance. Some tests are short, while others take longer to complete. Some are single-threaded, while other are fully parallelized. Thus, the effects of heat influence each result in a unique way. As noted, we kept the fan speed at maximum and tested on an open-air bench, so our results represent a best-case scenario for Intel's stock cooler.

Comparison Products

Intel Core i5-8400

Intel Core i5-8600K

Intel Core i7-7700

Test Systems

Test System & Configuration
Hardware	AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700, Ryzen 7 2700X, Ryzen 5 2600X, Ryzen 5 2600 MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i7-8700K, Core i5-8600K, Core i5-8400, Core i7-8700MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2400, DDR4-2667, DDR4-3466All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500-TI, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703 - All Spectre and Meltdown mitigations
Cooling	Corsair H115iIntel stock thermal solution (Core i7-8700)

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

VRMark & 3DMark

Core i7-8700 fell right where we expected it to in VRMark: slightly below the stock Core i7-8700K.

AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X was a little faster though, as was the Core i5-8400. VRMark tends to reward high IPC throughput and frequency, but it also seems to prefer physical cores over simultaneous multi-threading technology.

Although the Core i7-8700 outstripped its K-series counterpart in the Fire Strike test, its lead isn't significant enough to call a definitive win. The heavily-threaded DX11 and DX12 benchmarks ran for an extended period of time. But frequent breaks in the sequence likely helped Core i7-8700 maintain the same level of performance under Intel's stock cooler and Corsair's Corsair H115i.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Our three-minute Ashes of the Singularity benchmark scales exceedingly well with additional cores, so it was surprising to see Core i7-8700 perform similarly with both thermal solutions.

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Civilization VI Graphics & AI, Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

Civilization's AI test measures performance in a turn-based strategy game and tends to favor per-core performance.

In our Core i7-8700K review, we pointed out that Intel's vanilla -8700 often outperformed the flagship -8700K in our gaming benchmarks. Obviously, those results were difficult to explain, given each CPU's specifications. But the issue persisted for several months (and many motherboard firmware updates). Intel and its motherboard partners have been unable to explain this phenomenon. However, we did notice that it was resolved around the time updates went out for our Spectre/Meltdown patch testing. We still saw a few scattered cases of Core i7-8700 beating the flagship K-series chip, but they're typically results that fall within a margin of error.

Our Civilization VI AI test results are a perfect example. The Core i7-8700 with Corsair's cooler slipped past the Core i7-8700K, but just barely. More important is that you can get -8700K-class performance from the locked model if you don't plan on overclocking.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

The Civilization VI graphics test shows Intel's Core i7-8700 beating the -8700K by a larger margin. In fact, strong performance put the -8700 on equal footing with a tuned Ryzen 7 2700X, and within striking distance of the overclocked Core i7-8700K.

Separately, we saw the Core i7-7700K about 6 FPS ahead of the -7700. This illustrates the bigger gap between Intel's previous-gen locked and K-series models, attributable to large differences in base and Turbo Boost frequencies.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

Core i7-8700 almost kept up with the stock -8700K. But tuning Intel's flagship Coffee Lake-based CPU solidified its lead.

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Far Cry Primal, GTA: V & Hitman

Far Cry Primal

Far Cry Primal obviously runs well on quad-core processors, and doesn't gain much from architectures with more execution resources. Meanwhile, a big gap between the Core i7-7700K and -7700 tells us that the game is sensitive to operating frequencies, too.

Core i7-8700 and -8700K were nearly indistinguishable through this benchmark run.

AMD's Ryzen CPUs appear to fare worse than the Intel chips in Far Cry Primal. Average frame rates can be misleading, though. Our frame time charts reveal much more performance variability from the Core processors. Ryzen 7 2700X's nice clean line is indicative of a smoother experience.

Grand Theft Auto V

The Grand Theft Auto V benchmark we use is one of our suite's longest in terms of run time. We record 100 seconds of the fly-by scene, first allowing the preceding sequences to run through and keep our hardware nice and toasty for consistent measurements.

Even though Intel's stock heat sink and fan finished in front of the -8700 cooled by Corsair's closed-loop H115i, the results fell within the range we anticipate between tests.

Hitman

Our Hitman benchmark found the Core i7-8700 and -8700K pretty much tied. Both models are ~4 FPS ahead of the nearest Ryzen CPU.

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Shadow Of War & Project CARS 2

Middle-earth: Shadow Of War

Middle-earth didn't respond any better to our six-core Coffee Lake-based samples than it did to their quad-core predecessors. Sometimes you just need more graphics horsepower.

Project CARS 2

According to its developers, Project CARS 2 is well-optimized for multi-core CPUs. But a 6C/6T Core i5-8600K beat the overclocked 8C/16T Ryzen 7 2700X, so it's clear that threading isn't the most influential variable in determining this game's performance.

The stock Core i7-8700K established a slight lead over the -8700 in our benchmark, although overclocking increased its advantage. More than likely, though, the top of this chart is graphics-bound.

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Office & Productivity

Adobe Creative Cloud

Core i7-8700 with its stock heat sink lost some ground to Corsair's closed-loop liquid cooler in the Illustrator test. Otherwise, there was little to differentiate both configurations.

The stock Core i7-8700K barely beat Core i7-8700 in our aggregate score. However, overclocking the K-series chip to 4.9 GHz propelled it into a second-place finish (after Core i5-8600K, interestingly enough).

Web Browser

The Meltdown and Spectre patches imposed performance penalties on Intel CPUs through our Web browser tests. However, Core processors still lead through these lightly-threaded benchmarks.

The Krakken suite tests JavaScript performance using several workloads, including audio, imaging, and cryptography. AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X slid in ahead of Core i7-8700, reminding us that second-gen Ryzen CPUs are much more competitive than their predecessors in workloads that aren't well-optimized for parallelization.

MotionMark emphasizes graphics performance, rather than JavaScript, but is also sensitive to CPU clock rates. There, Core i7-8700 turned things around and beat the Ryzen 7 2700X. We weren't expecting a stock Core i7-8700K to carve out such a large advantage over the vanilla -8700, though.

Productivity

The application start-up metric measures load time snappiness in word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers under warm- and cold-start conditions. Core i7-8700 impressed in this benchmark by barely beating a stock -8700K. But the benefit of an unlocked K-series chip became evident in the Core i5-8600K and Core i7-8700K results at 4.9 GHz.

Our video conferencing suite measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection to model real-world usage. This workload is parallelized, so it responds well to Ryzen's core count advantage. Nevertheless, a six-core design with Hyper-Threading allowed Core i7-8700K to muscle out the competition when we overclocked it to 4.9 GHz.

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Rendering, Encoding & Compression

Rendering

We expected to see more variation from Intel's stock cooler during our Cinebench multi-core test. Given its relatively short run time and our open-air bench, however, we didn't see much difference between our two configurations. Interestingly, the stock Core i7-8700K and -8700 performed almost identically.

Similar trends emerged through the other threaded rendering tasks. While Core i7-8700's stock heat sink and fan imposed slightly lower performance than the liquid cooler in certain cases, we still think the -8700 is a solid alternative to the pricier flagship if you don't plan to overclock and cooling inside your case is sufficient.

Encoding & Compression

LAME is a single-threaded workload that typically illustrates the advantage of higher clock rates and IPC throughput. Case in point: Core i7-7700K and -7700 were separated by a larger delta than the two Coffee Lake-based Core i7s, which we know feature similar single-core Turbo Boost bins.

Our threaded compression and decompression tests work directly from system memory, removing storage throughput from the equation. These workloads are especially intensive. Yet, we didn't record any surprising variations between the -8700 cooled by Intel's stock thermal solution and the Corsair all-in-one. Both of our HandBrake benchmarks, on the other hand, exploit AVX instruction, generate lots of heat, and illustrate a wider performance gap between the two configurations.

Surprisingly, y-cruncher, a single- and multi-threaded program that computes pi using AVX instructions, didn't expose any variation between the two coolers we tested atop Core i7-8700.

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Final Analysis

Intel made some significant changes to the Coffee Lake architecture in order to keep its Core CPUs competitive with AMD's Ryzen line-up. Beyond giving the Core i7 family six Hyper-Threaded cores, Intel also narrowed the clock rate difference between premium K-series chips and the more mainstream models. Core i7-8700K does boast a 500 MHz base frequency advantage over Core i7-8700. But that gap shrinks as Turbo Boost is enabled and more cores spin up. By the time four cores are active, both chips should sustain 4.4 GHz.

Unfortunately, the decision to bundle Core i7-8700 with an all-aluminum heat sink means that you may not always get the chip's most aggressive Turbo Boost frequencies under taxing workloads. You'd assume that a CPU with 50% more cores would also dissipate more heat than its predecessor. And yet Intel didn't think to include a cooling solution with enough thermal headroom to realize its peak performance. This is especially perplexing given the praise AMD received for packaging its processors with beefy heat sinks.

Most of the time, though, Core i7-8700 does deliver an experience that closely mirrors the flagship -8700K at its stock settings. Check out the charts below, which plot gaming performance with average frame rates and a geometric mean of the 99^th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness) converted into a frame-per-second measurement. We also have price-to-performance charts that get split up to include the CPUs-only, plus extra platform costs. For the models that don't come with a bundled cooler, we add $25 for a basic heat sink. We also add $20 if overclocking requires a more expensive motherboard (as is the case for Z370).

For those similar performance results, expect to spend about $50 less on a Core i7-8700. If you game at higher resolutions, the differences between CPUs shrink even more. And the -8700 looks a lot like a stock -8700K through most of our other application benchmarks, too.

Intel doesn't have a great track record for building backward compatibility into its platforms, so you are on the hook for a new 300-series motherboard, regardless of what you're stepping up from. But unless specific features of the Z370 chipset catch your eye, Core i7-8700 offers the exact same performance if you drop it onto a cheaper B-series board. That should save a few extra dollars...

...which you'll want to turn around and spend on a better thermal solution than what Intel includes with its -8700. That heat sink and fan combination is obviously a poor fit, and better thermal paste won't fix the issue. By stepping up to a sufficient third-party cooler, you won't have to worry about artificially clipping the -8700's top-end Turbo Boost bins due to overheating. A six-core, Hyper-Threaded CPU rated for 65W sounds great for performance-sensitive applications in small form factors. But power consumption definitely spikes higher under load. Apparently, many low-profile coolers lack the headroom for Core i7-8700, so do your homework before replacing the stock sink in a space-constrained environment.

In the past, we recommended Ryzen 7 2700X over Intel's Core i7-8700K due to AMD's lower price point, similar gaming performance, bundled cooler, and better benchmark results in threaded applications. We expected Core i7-8700's comparable performance and pricing advantage to level the field. However, Intel's sub-standard cooling solution means we can't recommend the -8700 without a suitable replacement, adding to the CPU's overall cost.

AMD's Ryzen 7 2700 is also worth considering in this category. Its unlocked ratio multiplier and overclocking support on B-series motherboards yields a more attractive value story than what we get from Core i7-8700. Of course, if you need integrated graphics with your high-end CPU, Intel is the only game in town. And if you're looking for the best blend of price and performance for gaming specifically, the Core i5-8400 is still a favorite.

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Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 3GB Review: (Mostly) Faster Than 1050 2GB

Chris Angelini — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 13:00:00 +0000

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB Graphics Card Review

Nvidia’s mainstream graphics card lineup is already dense. And yet, with its GeForce GTX 1050 3GB, the company attempts to slip another model between GeForce GTX 1050 2GB and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Back in 2016, those two cards started a mere $30 apart. So how the heck does Nvidia see room for additional segmentation?

According to our sources, it really doesn’t. Slowly but surely, GeForce GTX 1050 3GB cards will start replacing 2GB boards, particularly as the 512MB memory chips used on those 2GB implementations become harder to source. A 3GB version gives Nvidia's partners another option for satisfying demand using higher-density GDDR5. In turn, we’re told that GeForce GTX 1050 2GB and 3GB should be priced similarly.

Surprisingly, our benchmarks do show GeForce GTX 1050 3GB trailing the 2GB model in a couple of games. More often, though, it’s a fair bit faster. That’s why you won’t catch us gnashing our teeth over Nvidia’s naming strategy this time around, even though GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is based on a distinctly unique GPU configuration. We want clarity when an inferior product may be confused for something better. Here, GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is at least comparable to the family’s lowest-end member and deserving of its designator.

Meet GeForce GTX 1050 3GB

Notice that you haven’t seen any GeForce GTX 1050 3GB cards for sale yet. Launch plans are still in a state of flux, it seems, and our test sample’s manufacturer is camera shy as a result. For now, we’ll have to do without any glamuor shots.

Just imagine a small PCB with a GP107-301 processor, flanked by four memory emplacements, three of which are populated by 1GB GDDR5 packages. In comparison, GeForce GTX 1050 2GB has its emplacements occupied by four lower-density chips, while GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB employs a quartet of 8Gb packages. All three configurations offer 7 Gb/s data rates.

The display output configuration is similar to what we’ve seen from other GeForce GTX 1050 models: there’s one DisplayPort 1.4-capable connector, HDMI 2.0b, and a dual-link DVI port.

Really, though, what makes the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB unique is its GPU. Nvidia uses a GP107 with all six of its available Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs) enabled. Each SM features 128 single-precision CUDA cores and eight texture units, totaling 768 CUDA cores and 48 texture units across the processor (similar to the front-end of a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB).

But the company disables one of GP107’s four 32-bit memory controllers, taking the aggregate bus down to 96 bits. Armed with 3GB of the same 7 Gb/s GDDR5 used on GeForce GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti, the new card’s theoretical memory bandwidth drops to 84.1 GB/s. This also results in the loss of one Render Output Unit (ROP) partition, taking the ROP count down to 24, and reducing the GPU’s available L2 cache by 256KB.

	GeForce GTX 1050 3GB	GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB	GeForce GTX 1050 2GB
GPU	GP107	GP107	GP107
SMs	6	6	5
CUDA Cores	768	768	640
Base Clock	1392 MHz	1290 MHz	1354 MHz
GPU Boost Clock	1518 MHz	1392 MHz	1455 MHz
GFLOPs (Base Clock)	2138	1981	1733
Texture Units	48	48	40
Texel Fill Rate (Boost Clock)	72.9 GT/s	66.8 GT/s	58.8 GT/s
Memory Data Rate	7 Gb/s	7 Gb/s	7 Gb/s
Memory Bandwidth	84.1 GB/s	112.1 GB/s	112.1 GB/s
ROPs	24	32	32
L2 Cache	768KB	1MB	1MB
TDP	75W	75W	75W
Transistors	3.3 billion	3.3 billion	3.3 billion
Die Size	132 mm²	132 mm²	132 mm²
Process Node	14nm	14nm	14nm

In order to help compensate for fewer back-end resources, Nvidia specifies a more aggressive GPU clock rate. GeForce GTX 1050 3GB sports a 1392 MHz base frequency with a typical GPU Boost rate of 1518 MHz. That’s higher than either GeForce GTX 1050 2GB or 1050 Ti 4GB. And in our gaming tests, it was common to see clock rates start in excess of 1800 MHz, stabilizing around 1750 MHz after warming up.

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How We Tested GeForce GTX 1050 3GB

Our Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 & 1050 Ti Review is coming up on two years old. In that piece, we benchmarked the 1050s against AMD’s Radeon RX 460, 470, and older R9 270X. Really, though, the RX 470 (and newer RX 570) is in a different class altogether, while the R9 270X is approaching its five-year birthday and not as relevant. So, let’s keep this comparison tight: the most important cards to compare include Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 2GB, the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB, and AMD’s Radeon RX 560.

MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB

MSI GeForce GTX 1050 2GB

Asus ROG Strix RX560 04G Gaming 4GB

The GeForce cards are tested from scratch (no recycled benchmark data) using driver version 398.11. Similarly, we started fresh with AMD’s Radeon RX 560 using Adrenalin Edition 18.5.2. Our test platforms run Windows 10 Pro version 1803.

As for the supporting hardware, we have an MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard hosting a Core i7-7700K CPU. The platform is complemented by G.Skill’s F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ memory kit. Intel’s Kaby Lake architecture remains one of the company’s most effective per clock cycle, and a stock 4.2 GHz frequency is higher than the models with more cores. Crucial’s MX200 SSD remains, as does the Corsair H110i cooler and be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W power supply.

Benchmarks

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 family targets the same 1920x1080 resolution and eSports demographic as AMD’s Radeon RX 560, so our test settings reflect more mainstream performance expectations.

DirectX 12, 1920x1080, Standard quality preset, built-in benchmark, 150-second PresentMon recording

DirectX 12, 1920x1080, Medium quality preset, custom benchmark, 60-second PresentMon recording

DirectX 11, 1920x1080, Medium quality preset, FXAA, HDAO, custom benchmark, 60-second PresentMon recording

Vulkan, 1920x1080, High quality preset, custom benchmark, 60-second PresentMon recording

DirectX 11, 1920x1080, Normal quality preset, TAA, built-in benchmark, 60-second PresentMon recording

DirectX 11, 1920x1080, Medium quality preset, FXAA, SSBC, built-in benchmark, 50-second PresentMon recording

DirectX 12, 1920x1080, Medium quality preset, 16x anisotropic filtering, 2x MSAA, built-in benchmark, 25-second PresentMon recording

DirectX 12, 1920x1080, Medium quality preset, built-in benchmark, 80-second PresentMon recording

DirectX 9, Ultra quality preset, Serral vs. ShoWTime 2018 WCS Leipzig, 90-second PresentMon recording from 10:00 mark

DirectX 11, Medium quality settings, HairWorks disabled, custom Tom’s Hardware benchmark, 100-second PresentMon recording

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Results: Ashes of the Singularity, Battlefield 1, Destiny 2, and Doom

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB landed right between GeForce GTX 1050 2GB and 1050 Ti 4GB in our average frame rate bar chart.

As we saw back in '16 when Nvidia launched its GeForce GTX 1050s, the whole family outperformed AMD’s Radeon RX 460/560.

Battlefield 1

The same goes for Battlefield 1, another game that we tested under DirectX 12.

GeForce GTX 1050 2GB and Radeon RX 560 4GB demonstrate the largest frame time spikes. They both register lower 99^th percentile frame rates as a result.

Destiny 2

This is one of two DirectX 11-based games that place GeForce GTX 1050 2GB ahead of the 3GB configuration. Presumably, the changes Nvidia made to GP107’s back-end are not counterbalanced by the chip’s additional SMs and higher clock rate in Destiny 2.

Doom

In contrast, our Vulkan-based run through Doom puts GeForce GTX 1050 3GB on the same level as GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB.

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Results: Far Cry 5, Ghost Recon Wildlands, and Forza Motorsport 7

Far Cry 5

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB landed between the 1050 Ti 4GB and 1050 2GB cards, but also notably turned the 1050’s slight loss against Radeon RX 560 into a slight win.

What’s more, while the 1050 2GB board’s 99^th percentile results looked pretty strong, that last percentile dropped off sharply. GeForce GTX 1050 3GB didn't suffer the same fate.

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Our frames per second by percentile chart shows GeForce GTX 1050 2GB and 3GB performing almost identically in this DirectX 11-based game. Both cards outpace Radeon RX 560 4GB.

Forza Motorsport 7

Forza Motorsport 7 is a newcomer to our benchmark suite, but it dutifully represents the racing genre with a DirectX 12 game engine.

Based on what we’ve seen from GeForce GTX 1050 3GB and other titles based on low-level APIs, it was no surprise to see Nvidia’s latest land closer to GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB than the 1050 2GB board. Again, 1050 3GB also beat Radeon RX 560 in the process.

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Results: Rise of the Tomb Raider, StarCraft II, and The Witcher 3

Rise of the Tomb Raider

The frame rate bar chart drops GeForce GTX 1050 3GB between the 1050 Ti 4GB and 1050 2GB, and ahead of Radeon RX 560. But our 99^th percentile frame rates tell another story.

Mainly, Radeon RX 560 did the best job of maintaining a frame rate above 30 throughout our benchmark run. Conversely, GeForce GTX 1050 2GB fell off quickly due to a number of severe frame time spikes.

StarCraft II

Nvidia dominated in StarCraft II, with all three GeForce cards hitting a platform-imposed bottleneck. Only AMD’s Radeon RX 560 trailed quite a way behind. The GCN architecture just doesn't perform as well in older DirectX 9/10/11-based games.

The Witcher 3

This is the second game in our suite where GeForce GTX 1050 3GB trailed the 2GB version, though they both beat Radeon RX 560.

In reality, AMD’s card hung right with the 3GB GeForce GTX 1050 through most of our benchmark. It was only the slowest two percent of frames that caused AMD’s Radeon to lose ground.

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Results: Power, Clock Rates, and GPU Temperature

Slowly but surely, we’re spinning up multiple Tom’s Hardware labs with Cybenetics’ Powenetics hardware/software solution for accurately measuring power consumption.

Powenetics, In Depth

For a closer look at our U.S. lab’s power consumption measurement platform, check out Powenetics: A Better Way To Measure Power Draw for CPUs, GPUs & Storage.

The software is set up to log the power consumption of graphics cards, storage devices, and CPUs. However, we’re only using the bricklets relevant to graphics card testing. Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050s get all of their power from the PCIe slot, while our Asus Radeon RX 560 requires a single six-pin auxiliary connector.

Idle

Sitting on the Windows desktop, driving a single QHD monitor, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 3GB averaged less than 7W, spiking about 1W higher during our 10-minute data collection window.

The card’s fan barely spun up (there is no semi-passive mode) and its GPU only got a little warmer than our ambient environment.

Gaming

The built-in benchmark of Metro: Last Light Redux gives us a consistent sequence that can be looped as many times as needed to generate good data.

An almost-65W average landed well below the 1050 3GB's 75W total board power rating (though our peak power reading gets quite a bit closer at 72W).

Interestingly, although we observed an average current draw of 5.39A on the 12V rail through three runs of the Metro benchmark, there were some spikes that exceeded the PCI-SIG’s 5.5A ceiling. For comparison, check out the same data next to current draw from GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB and GeForce GTX 1050 2GB:

Those two notable dips are indicative of brief pauses between test runs. Otherwise, the data clearly shows our GeForce GTX 1050 3GB sample pulling more current from the PCIe slot than it should.

The card’s fan speed does ramp up in response to increased thermal load, even though Nvidia’s GP107 processor never heats up much more than 65°C.

FurMark

A more consistent workload is less susceptible to power consumption spikes (even if the task is as taxing as FurMark). GeForce GTX 1050 3GB doesn’t exceed 70W.

This time, average current draw of 5.58A does exceed the official 5.5A ceiling.

Again, putting all three GeForce GTX 1050s on one graph shows current draw from the 1050 3GB higher than it should be.

Voltage was pulled back to avoid violating Nvidia’s power limit, and core clock rate consequently dropped to about 1595 MHz. For comparison, the GPU voltage during our Metro run remained above 1.0V, and the core clock rate stuck right around 1771 MHz.

Comparing All Of The Cards

AMD’s Radeon RX 560 was easily the most power-hungry card in our gaming and stress test workloads. Between the GeForce GTX 1050s, though, Nvidia’s new 3GB card came closest to the company’s 75W rating (as you might have guessed from our current draw data).

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB also ran the warmest across both of our benchmarks.

Nvidia pushes the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB’s clock rate a bit higher than what we got out of GeForce GTX 1050 2GB through our Metro: Last Light Redux workload.

Meanwhile, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB, with its 768 CUDA cores and 128-bit memory bus, doesn’t need to operate at aggressive frequencies to lay down better performance than the other two cards. It took a bigger clock rate hit in gaming scenarios to avoid violating its power limit.

FurMark makes each card’s respective ceiling much more obvious. Given their power limits, GeForce GTX 1050 3GB sustained roughly 1.6 GHz, the 1050 2GB was allowed right around 1.4 GHz, and 1050 Ti 4GB topped out around 1.3 GHz.

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Conclusion

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 3GB isn’t just an arbitrary addition to the company’s Pascal-based graphics card family. Rather, it’s meant to gradually replace GeForce GTX 1050 2GB, which utilizes 4Gb of GDDR5 memory that’s purportedly getting harder to source. Introducing a different configuration designed with 8Gb densities in mind gives board partners more flexibility, while also pushing performance higher in most of the games we tested.

For that reason, we aren’t particularly bothered that a GP107 processor with 768 CUDA cores and a 96-bit memory bus shares a model name with the original 640-core/128-bit version. This is much less egregious than rolling out a GeForce GT 1030 with DDR4, cutting memory bandwidth by 65% (or quietly introducing a Radeon RX 560 with 14 Compute Units instead of 16). Give us more performance any day of the week. Just don’t take it away without abundant clarity.

Of course, our favorable reception of GeForce GTX 1050 3GB hinges on pricing that puts it in the same league as GeForce GTX 1050 2GB. Multiple sources tell us this is the plan. But then again, GeForce GTX 1050 2GB starts at $140 today. In 2016, it debuted at $110. Forgive us for extreme cynicism when it comes to claims concerning costs.

One issue we do have with GeForce GTX 1050 3GB—at least the sample we tested—is its tendency to exceed the PCI-SIG’s 5.5A maximum over a motherboard’s slot connector. Spikes in the 5.8 to 5.9A range are far less severe than the 6.74A we originally observed from Radeon RX 480. However, it’s still higher than GeForce GTX 1050 2GB or 1050 Ti 4GB, both of which abide the specification.

After a taxing year of inflated graphics card prices and tenuous availability, enthusiasts are unquestionably ready to herald the next generation of gaming hardware, particularly at the high end where we’d love to see a single-GPU solution able to drive new 4K displays. Lower-end cards like GeForce GTX 1050 generally show up months later, though. No doubt, it’ll be a while before anything replaces GP107. A 3GB variant of GeForce GTX 1050 stands to weather time more gracefully than a 2GB configuration reliant on lower-density GDDR5. And if 3GB cards do indeed show up at 2GB pricing, we’ll have to rethink Radeon RX 560’s position as our top recommendation for FHD gaming.

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iBuypower Snowblind Element Extreme PC Review: A Powerhouse With A View

Derek Forrest — Sat, 26 May 2018 01:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

iBuypower's Snowblind sports one of the most unique aesthetic features we've ever seen in a custom shop gaming PC with its translucent side-panel LCD display. The company sent us its second-generation version of the chassis called the Element bearing a modified “Extreme” configuration - the most-premium component setup for the Snowblind. For those with the cash, the $2,542 price tag is worth the performance and one-of-a-kind side-panel display.

Exterior

The iBuypower Snowblind Extreme can come in two different cases – the original N450 or the Element chassis. Both are two toned white and black, with the majority of the exposed surface area colored white. Our review sample came in the company’s 2^nd generation Element case, with smooth edges and a tempered glass front and side panel.

The front glass exposes two 120mm white LED intake fans that take air from the bottom of the chamber. The right side is a solid white aluminum panel, but the hinged glass on the left side (that exposes the interior components) is the primary feature of the Snowblind series – a transparent LCD display (more on that below).

The top panel sports a vent with a black magnetic dust filter. Even though there isn’t a fan attached under it (in this particular configuration), it still provides an outlet for the waste heat and matches the two-toned theme. The PSU is mounted at the bottom of the chassis and sports a sliding dust filter over the power supply intake vent on the underside of the case. The rear panel also sports a vent, which acts as an exhaust for the attached 120mm radiator and fan.

The top I/O is limited to a power button, two USB 3.0 ports, and two audio jacks (mic-in and headphone-out). The backside of the Snowblind offers more connectivity, with two USB 3.1 Gen 2 (one Type-A, one Type-C), four USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A, three USB 2.0, and a PS/2 port. There’s also five audio jacks and an S/PDIF interface, in addition to two buttons that allow users to clear the motherboard's CMOS or update the BIOS from a flash drive (a feature MSI calls BIOS Flashback+).

The GPU sports the usual Nvidia Founder’s Edition outputs – three DisplayPort 1.4 ports and an HDMI 2.0 port. The controller card for the side-panel display has a DVI-D and VGA D-sub input, and iBuypower includes a DVI-D to DisplayPort cable so that you can connect it to the graphics card, which is requirement to use the featured translucent LCD screen.

LCD Side Panel

The LCD panel itself has a resolution of 1280 x 1024 with a refresh rate of 60Hz, and it can be used to customize your rig at a level not previously seen in the mainstream market. The joint venture with Intel is a one-of-a-kind aesthetic feature, but the company doesn’t offer any proprietary software for the device.

However, iBuyPower recommends overlays and wallpaper programs such as Rainmeter and Wallpaper Engine to make the panel display function (we’ll get into the specifics of these programs later). The display is most visible with a white background and lighting (hence the chassis and motherboard), and the white LED fans and light strip (both included at base price) help make the image on the screen clearer. We did find some animations that looked cool, which we show below.

Interior

The interior chassis of the Snowblind Element Extreme matches the exterior, with an array of white and black components attached to the white backdrop of the case, with a plastic panel bearing the iBuypower logo to hide away the neatly-run cabling. Regardless of the components (you can customize the parts for almost any budget and performance needs), the appearance is sleek and classy.

To open the hinged side panel, simply press the two locks at the top and bottom of the plastic edge of the panel and pull the glass away from the chassis. The previously mentioned white LED light strip is integrated into the interior edges (top, side, and bottom) of the LCD side panel display.

The transparent side-panel LCD display’s controller card is mounted in a single PCIe slot while the Nvidia GTX 1080 card lives in the PCIe x16 slot. The silver color of the Nvidia card makes it stand out from the black and white aesthetic of the case, though if you configure with a different GPU, the look will vary.

Configuration Options

The iBuypower Snowblind starts at $1,679 for its most-basic setup, which consists of a Core i5-8600K, 8GB DDR4-3000, a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB graphics card, and a 1TB HDD. The Extreme model we tested had an Intel Core i7-7800X processor, a MSI X299 Tomahawk Arctic motherboard and a Deepcool Captain EX120 120mm all-in-one (AIO) CPU liquid cooler. It had 16GB (4 x 4GB) of Adata DDR4-3000 RAM, with a strong CAS latency of 16-16-16-36,

Our unit came with a top-of-the-line, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GDDR5X graphics card, a 500GB Western Digital Blue 2.5” SATA SSD and a 2TB Seagate 7,200RPM HDD. Enthusiasts seeking higher capacities and faster PCIe NVMe SSDs can deviate from the base configuration, for a price. The system also comes with an unbranded 850-watt power supply, which is more than good enough for the components inside.

The Snowblind can be configured with other CPU options (up to Core i7-8700K for Z370, i9-7980XE for X299), and the cooling is just as customizable, with multiple sizes of radiators for AIO and custom open-loop liquid cooling systems.

Software And Accessories

The iBuypower Snowblind Element Extreme may have a unique side-panel display, but the company didn’t ship the PC with any software to control it preinstalled (the Windows 10 Home 64-bit installation was also devoid of bloatware). Instead, it provides all Snowblind buyers with a Steam key for Wallpaper Engine, a custom background utility with a vast collection of desktop themes and animations that can be displayed on the 1280 x 1024 60Hz transparent display, but the user still has to setup the display for themselves.

We already mentioned that users needed to connect the PCIe x1 controller card to the GPU with the provided cable, but you’ll also have to adjust the screen’s orientation through the Nvidia Control Panel, turning the image 90-degrees to the right in order to frame the desktop correctly (although the resolution is 1280 x 1024, it reads as a 1024 x 1280 when properly oriented).

We also hid our task bar so that it didn’t appear at the bottom of the side-panel display.

After you get the side-panel display oriented correctly, you should redeem the Steam key and install Wallpaper Engine. Using the software, you can download user-created themes and animations and run them on the secondary panel screen. The company also recommended Rainmeter (free) for those that wanted to place custom meters on the display, but we didn’t have much time to play around with that.

Specifications

Processor	Intel Core i7-7800X
Motherboard	MSI X299 Tomahawk Arctic ATX
Memory	16GB (4x4GB) ADATA DDR4-3000
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GDDR5X (Founder’s Edition)
Storage	500GB WD Blue 2.5” SATA SSD; 2TB Seagate 2.5” 7,200RPM HDD
Optical Drive	N/A
Networking	Intel I219V Gigabit Ethernet
Interface	Rear: (1) USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C; (1) USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A; (4) USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A; (3) USB 2.0, Front: (2) USB 3.0
Video Output	(3) DisplayPort 1.3; (1) HDMI 2.0
Power Supply	850W 80 Plus Gold (Includes Sleeved Cables)
Case	Snowblind Element Mid-Tower ATX
Cooling	Deepcool Captain 120EX 120mm AIO Liquid Cooler (White); (3) 120mm LED Fans (White)
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
Extras	1280 x 1024 Translucent Side-Panel Display, Custom Side-Panel Controller, White LED Strip (Included), Optional White GPU Backplate
Dimensions	437 x 210 x 475mm
Price As Configured	$2,542

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

The iBuypower Snowblind Element Extreme faces off against our Z270 test bed, which sports a quad-core i7-7700K on an AsRock Z270 Gaming i7 motherboard with a 16GB (2 x 16GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2133. We loaded it with a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GDDR5X Founder’s Edition graphics card and powered it all with an EVGA Supernova 1000 G3 PSU. You can see the full specs for our test rig below.

Test System Configuration

We also compared the Snowblind Extreme to the recently-reviewed Corsair One Elite, which sports an 8^th generation Z370 platform with a six-core i7-8700K processor, 16GB of DDR4-2666, and a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Although the form factor and cooling are significantly different, the two PCs both offer six-core processors and GTX 1080 Ti graphics, and it will be interesting to see how the Snowblind’s X299 platform competes with the top end CPU of the Z370 chipset (in both price and performance).

The iBuypower Snowblind Extreme in our lab wasn’t overclocked (although it can be, at a price), so we should expect normal base and max Turbo Boost frequencies (3.5GHz base, 4.0 GHz boost) from the Core i7-7800X, and similar baseline GTX 1080 Ti performance as the competing systems. However, the quad-channel DDR4-3000 memory should provide excellent performance in bandwidth-intensive applications, especially over the systems with dual-channel memory setups.

We tested the Snowblind with the side-panel transparent LCD display set to the normal windows extended desktop. We noticed performance loss in games when running Wallpaper Engine with a graphically demanding animation (which can range from light to heavy workloads), but we didn’t want to completely leave out the impact such a feature would have on the average user (who wouldn’t be bothered unplugging the side panel before gaming).

Leaving it on with the desktop still demonstrably reduced GPU performance (we confirmed this with a few runs of 3DMark with the screen connected and disconnected), and we feel that leaving it on without running a heavy animation represents a more realistic load on the system for potential buyers.

3DMark

The iBuypower Snowblind Element Extreme starts our test suite with a mixed bag of results. It manages higher Physics (CPU) performance against our i7-7700K test rig in the Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks. However, the Corsair One’s speedier i7-8700K matches the Snowblind’s -7800X core count and easily outperforms the X299 counterpart with its higher clock rate, producing a higher Physics and CPU score. We observed the Snowblind reaching 4.0GHz in the tests with all the cores engaged,

The GPU inside the Snowblind is clocked identically to the competition in the field, and it is saddled by the side-panel display, which syphons some of the GPU’s resources in order to function. We ran our tests without any special background or animations running (just the desktop), but it still appears to take away some horsepower from the GPU in these synthetic benchmarks.

Cinebench R15

The battle of six-cores continues with the Cinebench R15 tests, which again place the Snowblind behind the Corsair One and our Z270 test bench. We aren’t surprised to see it fall behind the Core i7-7700K and -8700K processors in single-threaded rendering (those CPUs have much higher single-core Turbo frequencies), but it still can’t beat out the One’s six-core CPU with higher all-core clockrates in the multi-threaded tests (the -8700K operates at 4.3GHz, the -7800X reaches 4.0GHz). It’s also no surprise to see the X299 platform trailing the pack in the OpenGL portion of the test.

CompuBench

Similar to Cinebench, the synthetic workloads of the Compubench tests put the Snowblind behind the other systems in the field, with iBuypower’s X299 offering falling short of the next competing PC by roughly 20 FPS. This is again due to the difference in CPU clock rates. However, the Bitcoin Mining tests still put the GPU performance of the One in the same ballpark as its competitors, despite the hampered potential from the side-panel display.

Storage Test

The 500GB WD Blue 2.5” SATA SSD inside of the Snowblind is a sturdy base for a primary storage drive, with enough capacity for a handful of your favorite AAA games. It performs on par with our Z270 test rig’s SATA SSD with sequential read speeds (around 550 MB/s), but it falls behind by almost 100 MB/s in sequential write performance. The drive’s 4K random read and write performance is not as spectacular at QD2, coming in at roughly 1/3 of the read performance (around 25K IOPs) and about 9K IOPs less than our reference machine. The One’s PCIe NVMe storage outclasses the other systems and provides speeds above the SATA 6 Gb/s bandwidth cap.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

The X299 platform inside the Snowblind Extreme finally finds a place to shine in our Sandra Memory Bandwidth tests. The quad-channel memory controller doesn’t fare well against the dual-channel systems in single-threaded tests, but multi-threaded bandwidth performance nearly doubles that of the next competing system. Programs that rely on memory bandwidth will see impressive gains with the Snowblind Extreme’s X299 setup.

PCMark 8 & PCMark 10 Extended

The Snowblind’s slower CPU clock rate and storage performance is on display again in the PCMark 8 application tests, which use Microsoft Office and Adobe Create Suite applications with synthetic workloads. The PCMark 10 Extended tests (which are entirely synthetic) follow suit, with the Snowblind falling considerably high in the various targeted workloads, including Gaming.

VRMark

The iBuypower Snowblind finishes the productivity and synthetic benchmarks in the same place it started – at the back of the line. The X299 platform’s gaming performance is not as adept as the faster-clocked Z270 and Z370 machines we compared it to (although it comes extremely close in the Orange Room test), and we have also seen evidence that the secondary side-panel screen is stunting GPU performance in games. However, it doesn’t significantly impact the scores in this particular benchmark, and performance between all the systems is within a few FPS of each other.

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Gaming Benchmarks & Conclusion

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

The iBuypower Snowblind Element Extreme begins our test suite with similar results as our productivity and synthetic benchmarks, with average framerates falling below our Z270 test rig and the Corsair one at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440, where the CPU frequency plays a pivotal factor in the results. However, at 4K, the processor’s core count helps upend our Core i7-7700K-equipped test bed by a small margin, despite the small performance penalty of having a second screen attached.

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite provides similar results, with the Snowblind falling short of the other GTX 1080 Ti-equipped PCs in the field at all tested resolutions. The lower minimum framerate points to the CPU clock speed as being a prime contributor, especially with triple-digit average framerates even at 4K.

DiRT Rally

Although the CPU plays less of a role in the Snowblind’s performance in the DiRT Rally benchmarks, it still causes it to fall behind the other PCs by a small margin. Even at 4K (where the CPU bottleneck is weakest), the Snowblind still falls behind by a 3.63 FPS average, and we suspect the side-panel display could be a factor. However, you won’t see much a of a difference in performance with the human eye.

Grand Theft Auto V

The performance impacts of the Snowblind’s CPU clockrate are better defined in the GTAV in-game tests. At 1920 x 1080, the iBuypower offering falls behind its closest competitor (our Z270 test rig) by an average of 3.21 FPS, but increasing the pixel count to 2560 x 1440 shifts the bottleneck to the GPU and narrows the lead to 1.68 FPS. At 4K, the Snowblind’s performance is near identical to the other GTX 1080 Ti-equipped PCs in the field, averaging 30.81 FPS with all the highest setting enabled. Although the Snowblind again takes a backseat to our Z270 reference rig and Corsair’s Z370-equipped One Elite, the performance gap is hardly noticeable in this particular game.

Hitman

The Snowblind continues to trail the Corsair One, but it’s by about 1 FPS average in the Hitman benchmarks at all tested resolutions. The Snowblind does manage to outperform our Z270 test bench, albeit by a small margin.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider’s in-game benchmark is punishing to even high-end hardware, especially with all the eye candy turned to the maximum. The iBuypower Snowblind Element Extreme continues to fall behind other GTX 1080 Ti-equipped PCs, but it’s only by about 3 FPS average at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440. At 3840 x 2160, there’s a still a 2 FPS gap, which leads us to believe the side-panel could also be a factor. However, none of the GTX 1080 Ti systems are enough to get a playable 30 FPS at 4K at these settings, but it’s still considered top of the heap for single-GPU PCs.

The Division

We see similar results with higher average framerates in The Division, where the Snowblind’s Core i7-7800X keeps it behind the other GTX 1080 Ti PCs with faster processors. However, you can still get more-than-playable framerates at 4K with all the highest details enabled, and you can easily reach above a target 60 FPS at 2560 x 1440.

Middle Earth: Shadows of War

The iBuypower Snowblind Element Extreme ends our test suite exactly where it’s been for the duration of the review, at the bottom of the chart against our Z270 test rig and the Z370 version of the Corsair One Elite. Although CPU horsepower does play a role at 1920 x 1080 (as shown by the gap in performance between our test rig and the One), the Snowblind nets lower average frame rates in the Middle Earth: Shadows of War in-game benchmarks even at higher resolutions (where the GPU performance equalizes for the two other GTX 1080 Ti systems).

We again suspect the side-panel display plays a role in the 5 FPS average difference between the similarly-equipped PCs, and the cost of the innovative feature appears to be some GPU performance (but no more than you would see by attaching any additional display, provided you don’t run resource-eating animations on it while gaming).

The Bottom Line

The iBuypower Snowblind is certainly eye catching, and the Extreme model housed in an Element chassis we reviewed impressed us with its sleek design, premium components, and reasonable pricing. The star of the show is the transparent 1280 x 1024 60Hz tempered glass side-panel display, which is both a blessing and a curse in that it looks cool, but it draws some graphics horsepower away from gaming workloads. However, this unique feature is sure to turn heads and is worth the performance hit and premium pricing.

Nevertheless, the iBuypower Snowblind Element Extreme earns our Tom’s Hardware Editor’s Choice award for its unique side-panel display, reasonable pricing, and top-tier performance. An X299 platform may not be the best weapon for a pure gamer, but the Snowblind can be equipped with other chipsets (including Z370) if you want more horsepower. Starting at $1,679, iBuyPower's desktop can fit most premium gamers' budgets.

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AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Review: Spectre Patches Weigh In

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Ryzen To The Mainstream

AMD's 2000-series Ryzen CPUs are already available, challenging the Coffee Lake-based Core line-up from Intel. As we found in our Ryzen 7 2700X review, a host of improvements made possible by 12nm manufacturing, such as higher frequencies and Precision Boost 2, add more performance in threaded apps. Meanwhile, lower system memory and cache latencies augment AMD's showing in lightly-threaded apps like games. Unlocked multipliers, backward compatibility with older Socket AM4 motherboards, a beefy bundled cooler, and a $330 price tag combine to leave us impressed. The Ryzen 7 2700X offers a great alternative to Intel's Core i7-8700K, which costs more, doesn't come with a thermal solution, and drops into more expensive motherboards (at least if you want to overclock).

Similarly, Ryzen 5 2600X targets Intel's enthusiast-oriented Core i5-8600K, leveraging similar advancements and a more attractive $230 price tag. As we'll see, it's even faster than the first-gen flagship Ryzen 7 1800X in many workloads.

But First, Spectre Variant 2

Unfortunately, due to a lack of communication from AMD, we weren't told that the company had rolled its Spectre Variant 2 patch into shipping X470 platforms. As a result, our Ryzen 7 2700X launch day coverage didn't include Intel CPUs tested with their corresponding patches. Today's review does, however, feature results generated on Intel-based systems with the latest Spectre microcode updates.

Ryzen 5 2600X

Ryzen 2000-series processors, otherwise known by their Pinnacle Ridge code name, are based on the same basic Zen core design as previous-gen models (though AMD now uses Zen+ nomenclature to reference the architecture's various improvements). The CPUs still utilize a dual-CCX configuration, tied together with Infinity Fabric, yielding eight physical cores. The flagship Ryzen 7 2700X comes with all eight of its cores active. For Ryzen 5 2600X, AMD turns two off, creating a six-core, 12-thread configuration with an unlocked ratio multiplier.

As mentioned, Ryzen 5 2600X sells for $230, replacing the $220 Ryzen 5 1600X. It slots into the gap between Core i5-8600K and the Core i5-8400, forcing the chip to contend with Intel's recently-announced Core i5-8600. While we don't have that model in our lab yet, we do have the two nearest Coffee Lake-based competitors in today's benchmark charts.

What do you get, performance-wise, for the extra $10? Ryzen 5 2600X sports the same 3.6 GHz base clock rate and a slightly higher 4.2 GHz Precision Boost 2 frequency (+200 MHz) than 1600X. That might seem minor, but as our benchmarks show, the gains are quite pronounced in threaded workloads. Like its predecessor, the 2600X also features 16MB of L3 cache and a 95W TDP.

	AMD Ryzen 7 2700X	AMD Ryzen 7 1800X	AMD Ryzen 7 2700	AMD Ryzen 5 1600X	Ryzen 5 1600	AMD Ryzen 5 2600X	AMD Ryzen 5 2600	Intel Core i5-8600K	Intel Core i5-8600	Intel Core i5-8400
MSRP	$329	$349	$299	$219	$189	$229	$199	$257	$224	$182
Cores/Threads	8/16	8/16	8/16	6/12	6/12	6/12	6/12	6/6	6/6	6/6
TDP	105W	95W	65W	95W	65W	95W	65W	95W	65W	65W
Base Freq. (GHz)	3.7	3.6	3.2	3.6	3.2	3.6	3.4	3.6	3.1	2.8
Precision Boost Freq. (GHz)	4.3	4.1	4.1	4.0	3.6	4.2	3.9	4.3	4.3	4.0
Cache (L3)	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	9MB	9MB	9MB
Unlocked Multiplier	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Cooler	105W Wraith Prism (LED)	-	95W Wraith Spire (LED)	-	95W Wraith Spire	95W Wraith Spire	65W Wraith Stealth	-	Intel	Intel

Although AMD didn't include thermal solutions with its original Ryzen X-series processors, the company does bundle coolers with its pricier models now. On one hand, it's nice that the 95W Wraith Spire cooler neatly matches the 2600X's thermal design power. On the other, we're not expecting much overclocking headroom from the combination.

Ryzen 5 2600X can drop into either new X470 or older 300-series motherboards. As usual, AMD allows you to overclock on value-minded B-series boards, too. And even though 400-series B-models aren't available yet, they'll undoubtedly offer a lower-priced alternative for overclocking.

Officially, the Ryzen 5 2600X supports up to DDR4-2933 memory, just like Ryzen 7 2700X. This trumps Coffee Lake's Intel-specified DDR4-2666 ceiling (with a few caveats). AMD also sticks with Indium solder between Ryzen 5's die and heat spreader, improving thermal transfer performance. And as we mentioned in our Ryzen 7 2700X review, these new CPUs also include StorMI Technology, which is a software-based tiering solution that blends the low price and high capacity of a hard drive with the speed of an SSD, 3D XPoint (including Intel's Optane parts), or even up to 2GB of RAM.

Precision Boost 2 and XFR2

In a nutshell, AMD is leveraging GlobalFoundries' 12nm process to enhance its design, rather than shrink it. The enhancements offer higher performance or lower power consumption at any given frequency, giving AMD headroom for other improvements.

The company's previous-gen Ryzen processors have Precision Boost, which is similar to Intel's Turbo Boost technology, and eXtended Frequency Range (XFR), capable of delivering a frequency uplift when your cooling solution has thermal headroom to spare.

The new Precision Boost 2 (PB2) and XFR2 algorithms improve performance in threaded workloads by raising the frequency of any number of cores. AMD doesn't share a list of specific multi-core Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 bins because the opportunistic algorithms accelerate to different clock rates based on temperature, current, and load.

AMD gave us a graph of the PB2 frequencies for Ryzen 7 2700X, but we followed up with our own measurements to compare the current and previous-gen Ryzen 5 models. As you can see, Ryzen 5 2600X offers more robust multi-core frequencies than its predecessor, and our Ryzen 7 2700X measurements largely mirror AMD's. We tested both CPUs with AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive active. The Ryzen 7 2700X does have a higher TDP rating that some older motherboards may struggle with, so PB2 performance will vary based upon the power delivery subsystem.

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AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

AMD Ryzen 5 2600X

Patching Up, Overclocking & Test Setup

Patching Up

The Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities impose overhead that affect performance, but it's the Spectre Variant 2 patches that incur the largest penalties. We've been waiting for AMD and Intel to release their respective updates, leveling the playing field. AMD gave no indication in its press material that the X470 motherboards used in our Ryzen 7 2700X review already had Spectre 2 mitigations built-in. But hours before launch, we learned that the patches were present. At that point, we didn't have enough time to test with Intel's corresponding microcode.

In our 2700X review, the test rigs included Meltdown And Spectre Variant 1 mitigations. Spectre Variant 2 requires both motherboard firmware/microcode and operating system patches, though. We had already installed the operating system updates for Variant 2 on our Intel-based platforms, so we only lacked the fourth and final piece: new microcode.

There are two options for applying this microcode. One is a Windows KB that allows the operating system to load microcode during boot-up. The other is a motherboard firmware update. We used the Windows KB to install patches on our Z270-based platform, providing a true measure of pre- and post-patch performance.

Faster processors suffer less from the Spectre Variant 2 updates. This creates a conundrum for us and our Z370-based platform. In previous reviews, we noticed that Intel's Core i7-8700 was consistently faster than the more expensive Core i7-8700K on MSI and Gigabyte motherboards. We disclosed this during our launch coverage. The issue becomes relevant today because MSI's latest firmware update, which also includes the Spectre Variant 2 microcode, fixes most of the performance disparities we observed. As we suspected, the problem seems attributable to the Core i7-8700K. It's now faster in several games, performing the way we originally expected. So, on this motherboard, we're using new firmware instead of the Windows-based patch since it fixes our Core i7-8700K issues. That means our Coffee Lake-based CPUs don't correctly reflect pre- and post-patch performance. Instead, allow those results to serve as a general indication of competitive deltas.

In any case, with the exception of our AMD X370-based motherboards, all of the platforms in today's review are fully patched. The company hasn't given us a time frame for securing its previous-gen chipsets, but you can bet that we'll follow up with benchmark results once a Spectre Variant 2 patch becomes available.

Overclocking

We ran our gaming and application tests in the U.S. lab, while power/thermal measurements were collected in our German lab.

In the U.S. lab, we paired our Ryzen 5 2600X with Corsair's H115i cooler for overclocking. This allowed us to maintain a 4.2 GHz all-core frequency at 1.3875V Vcore, 1.2V SoC voltage, and default Load Line Calibration settings. These are the same settings used on the Ryzen 7 2700X, albeit with a slight 0.009V Vcore boost to ensure stability.

First-gen Ryzen processors don't have much memory overclocking headroom, so we're still testing tuned X370 platforms at DDR4-3200. The X470 chipset is remarkably stable at higher data rates with both 2000-series Ryzen CPUs installed. So, we settled on DDR4-3466 with 14-14-14-34 timings. We also ran our overclocked Intel processors at DDR4-3466.

Precision Boost Overdrive

AMD hasn't shared much information on this pending feature, which increases the maximum boost voltage and boost duration. We attempted to disable Precision Boost Overdrive as we tested for our Ryzen 7 2700X review, but didn't observe a performance difference one way or the other. Now we know the feature wasn't toggling correctly due to an issue with the board. Instead, it remained enabled throughout our benchmarking.

Precision Boost Overdrive is an AMD-sanctioned feature, unlike the multi-core enhancements you often find in Intel-based motherboards. Because this is a standard capability for Ryzen 2000-series processors, we leave it enabled.

MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC

Our MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC has a PCI Express 3.0 slot with a x16 link, a slot with a x8 connection, and another PCI Express 2.0 slot with a four-lane link for graphics cards. Its four RAM slots support DDR4-2933 and can scale up quite a bit higher through overclocking.

The motherboard also provides two M.2 slots with PCIe connectivity. The I/O panel has a USB 3.1 Type C connector. The USB 3.1 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 support fast charging for smartphones and tablets. If RGB is your thing, MSI has you covered. The integrated RGB Mystic lighting allows customizable effects with several software-controlled zones.

Comparison Products

Intel Core i5-8400

Intel Core i5-8600K

Intel Core i7-7700K

Test Systems

Test System & Configuration
Hardware	Germany AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, Ryzen 5 2600XMSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i5-8600K, i5-8600K, Core i5-8400MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2666AMD Socket AM4 Workstation (300-Series)AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, Ryzen 5 1600X, Ryzen 5 1400MSI X370 Tomahawk4x 8GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 @ 2667 and 3200 Intel LGA 1151 (Z270)Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2400 and 3200All SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition (Gaming)Nvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700XMSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i7-8700K, i5-8600K, Core i5-8400MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2400, DDR4-2667, DDR4-3466AMD Socket AM4 (300-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1700, Ryzen 5 1600XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2667, DDR4-3200Intel LGA 1151 (Z270)Intel Core i7-7700K MSI Z270 Gaming M72x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2400All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500-TI, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703 - All Spectre and Meltdown mitigations
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)U.S.Corsair H115i
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK
PC Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Extension Kit and Mods Configurations: Open Benchtable, Closed Case
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500 MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100 kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500 MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80 Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

VRMark & 3DMark

These are busy charts with the addition of our retested Intel platforms, including the Spectre Variant 2 microcode patches. At stock settings, the Ryzen 5 2600X outperforms its overclocked predecessor across the board, which is especially meaningful in the lightly-threaded VRMark workload. Overclocking yields significant gains in synthetic gaming benchmarks, which don't necessarily translate to the rest of our benchmark suite.

Several of the patched Intel processors do lose performance compared to before the updates. This is particularly apparent in VRMark on Intel's Core i7-8700K, while other tests reflect minimal regression. Meanwhile, the Core i5-8400 and -8600K give us mixed results. Core i7-7700K is a more representative measure of pre- and post-patch performance, and it takes a healthy dive in VRMark as well (verified several times by removing and reinstalling the OS-based Spectre patch).

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ryzen 5 2600X is clearly superior to its predecessor in threaded titles. After all, the stock 2600X beats an overclocked 1600X. Those gains propel the Ryzen 5 up the chart, where it matches a stock Core i7-8700K.

Flip over to the album's next slide, which includes Intel CPUs before and after we patched their platforms. The Core i7-7700K loses a few frames per second in our retest, falling outside of this consistent benchmark's margin of error. Aside from the Core i5-8400's gains, which remind us that firmware updates sometimes fine-tune performance, too, most of the Intel CPUs land within the run-to-run variance we expect to see.

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Civilization VI Graphics & AI, Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

The Ryzen 5 2600X represents a nice step forward for AMD, particularly since Intel's processors typically lead in this test due to their per-core performance advantage.

A few of the processors exhibit slight regressions post-patch, but nothing outside of the variances we'd expect.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

An overclocked Ryzen 5 2600X beats the stock Ryzen 7 2700X, which should excite value-seekers.

Then again, Intel's Core i5-8400 slips past the tuned Ryzen 5 in this test, yielding better performance at a lower price (and despite a locked ratio multiplier).

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

Dawn of War finds the tuned Coffee Lake-based CPUs at the top of our chart. Even the fastest Ryzen (overclocked, no less) lands behind a stock Core i7-7700K.

Interestingly, the Coffee Lake CPUs enjoy slight gains after we patch them, while Core i7-7700K doesn't change much.

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Far Cry Primal, GTA: V & Hitman

Far Cry Primal

Ryzen 5 2600X nearly matches Intel's Core i7-8700K at stock clock rates. But tuning propels the chip ahead of an overclocked Ryzen 7 2700X and into contention with Core i5-8600K at 4.9 GHz. Clearly, this title responds well to physical core count, favoring platforms without SMT enabled.

Grand Theft Auto V

It's no surprise to see Intel's processors dominate our Grand Theft Auto V charts. An overclocked Ryzen 5 2600X essentially ties the stock Core i7-7700K, while Core i5-8400 stands out again for its higher performance and lower price point.

The post-patch Core i7-8700K averages 9 FPS-higher in GTA V. This is one of the games where -8700K historically lagged the slower Core i7-8700, so it looks like motherboard firmware fixed a few issues. We also see an improvement from the Core i5-8400.

Hitman

A recent update added a frame rate cap to Hitman, causing most of our configurations to reflect a graphics bottleneck. It's no surprise, then, that an overclocked Ryzen 5 2600X nearly matches the fastest Intel CPUs.

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Shadow Of War & Project CARS 2

Middle-earth: Shadow Of War

Ryzen 5 2600X beats the overclocked Ryzen 7 1800X, and tuning propels it to within 0.5 FPS of the fastest CPU.

Intel's Core i5-8400 is less expensive and tends to outperform the 2600X in many games, but the 2600X does lead in this one. Aside from the Core i5-8400, we observe lower average frame rates from the post-patch Intel processors, though the variances only amount to one or two frames per second.

Project CARS 2

Ryzen 5 2600X delivers a commendable performance in Project CARS 2, but it lags the less expensive Core i5-8400.

Aside from the Core i7-8700K's and i5-8400's performance gains, we don't significant variations related to Spectre mitigations.

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Office & Productivity

Adobe Creative Cloud

The stock Ryzen 5 2600X trails most of AMD's first-gen Ryzen CPUs, notably lagging behind the previous-gen Ryzen 5 1600X. We reran this benchmark several times to verify its results, and the outcome is repeatable. But given the performance observed in other tests, PCMark's Creative Cloud component may be an outlier.

Although we didn't see much performance variation from the patches in our game testing, that changes drastically in our Adobe Creative Cloud suite. Every Intel processor's overall score takes a significant haircut (the Core i7-8700K drops ~9%, while the Core i5-8400 drops ~10%).

Web Browser

The Krakken suite tests JavaScript performance using several workloads, including audio, imaging, and cryptography.

AMD's processors typically lag Intel's in Web browser benchmarks due to their lower per-core performance. The Ryzen 5 2600X is competitive with Intel's Core i5-8400 in this test. But as we noted in our Ryzen 7 2700X review, overclocking actually results in lower scores during lightly-threaded tasks. That's a bit more surprising in this case because, as we pointed out on the first page, Ryzen 5 2600X sustains up to 4.2 GHz on a single core, which is the same frequency as our all-core overclock. XFR2 contributes an extra boost during sporadic workloads though, and that's likely what we're seeing here.

The MotionMark benchmarks, which emphasize graphics performance (rather than JavaScript), are also sensitive to CPU clock rates. Ryzen 5 2600X isn't as competitive compared to the Intel models, reminding us that AMD still lags what it comes to IPC throughput.

Again, we see performance regressions from Intel's processors in these workloads, which we measured with a Spectre-patched version of Firefox.

Productivity

The application start-up metric measures load time snappiness in word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers under warm- and cold-start conditions. Other platform-level considerations affect this test as well, including the storage subsystem. Initially, we thought that'd be bad news for Intel's CPUs. After all, the security mitigations have an intense impact on I/O operations. Surprisingly, though, we actually recorded higher results from the Intel-based platforms. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 2600X beats AMD's first-gen Ryzen CPUs, but trails the Core i5-8400.

Our video conferencing workload measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection to model real-world usage. Ryzen processors perform well in this test, joining an overclocked Core i7-8700K at the top of the chart. At stock settings, the Ryzen 5 2600X handily dispatches Intel's Core i5-8400.

The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries using the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized, so Ryzen 7 2700X naturally takes a lead. The Ryzen 5 2600X performs well given its price point. And the Intel CPUs all take a hit after we get them patched.

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Rendering, Encoding & Compression

Rendering

Threaded rendering workloads favor Ryzen's SMT-enabled cores. Ryzen 5 2600X slots in right where we'd expect it to land, while Intel's processors suffer slight performance hits after installing the Spectre mitigation patches.

Encoding & Compression

LAME is the quintessential example of a single-threaded workload, normally favoring Intel's per-core performance advantage. AMD's 2000-series Ryzen CPUs go a long way in closing the gap by offering better per-core performance than their predecessors.

Our threaded compression and decompression tests adsorb data directly from system memory, removing storage from the equation. The Ryzen 5 2600X fares well during the test, easily beating Intel's Core i5-8400 and -8600K. Given Windows' new dual page table addressing structure that prevents Meltdown-based attacks, we expected more performance overhead after the patches. However, the company's latest processors have a PCID (Post-Context Identifiers) feature that accelerates page table translations. As a result, older Core CPUs without the PCID feature are likely affected more than the ones we're testing.

There's a larger delta between Intel and AMD processors during our HandBrake x265 test compared to the x264 benchmark due to its heavier distribution of AVX instructions. The 2600X slots in where we'd expect given its six cores with SMT technology.

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Final Analysis

AMD’s Ryzen 5 2600X isn’t quite as impressive as the higher-end Ryzen 7 2700X, but it does offer a solid mixture of performance and value that's well-suited to many different workloads. Whereas professionals might be more interested in the 2700X's eight cores, gamers on a budget will want to check out the 2600X. After all, saving money on other system components is critical at a time when you're certain to pay a premium for discrete graphics.

In the chart below, we plot gaming performance with both average frame rates and a geometric mean of the 99^th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness), which we then convert into a frame-per-second measurement. We also have price-to-performance charts that get split up to include CPUs-only and extra platform costs. For the models that don't come with a bundled cooler, we add $25 for a basic heat sink. We also add $20 if overclocking requires a more expensive motherboard (as is the case for Z370). The Intel test results reflect our patched configurations.

Games show the Ryzen 5 2600X offering a universal improvement over AMD's previous-gen Ryzen 5 1600X. Unfortunately, we see limited gains from overclocking, though that's just as well given this family's meager headroom. More important is that Ryzen 5 2600X beats the Ryzen 7 1800X throughout our suite.

Intel's Core i5-8600K is also in the 2600X’s crosshairs; AMD takes aim with a significantly lower price, a bundled thermal solution, and compatibility with less expensive motherboards. If you're not worried about overclocking, though, the Core i5-8400 is an even better buy for gaming. It offers nearly the same performance as the 2600X at a ~$50 discount. The i5-8400 drops into value-oriented B-series motherboards and comes with a stock cooler/fan, too.

Although we're big fans of the Core i5-8400 for entertainment, Ryzen 5 2600X is a smarter all-around value when it has the change to stretch its six cores and 12 threads. The processor distances itself from the i5-8400 in our rendering, encoding, compression, and decompression apps. It even challenges the eight-core Ryzen 7 1700X in several tests, particularly after tuning. That highlights the improvements borne of the Ryzen 2000-series’ enhanced multi-core boost algorithms and lower memory/cache latency.

Like all of AMD’s processors, the Ryzen 5 2600X comes with an unlocked ratio multiplier. AMD is pushing the frequency/voltage curve to its limits, so we didn’t experience massive gains in some mundane workloads. However, we did see more of a benefit with the 2600X in heavily-threaded tasks compared to the Ryzen 7 2700X. That’s largely due to the 2600X’s lower multi-core boost frequencies.

We wish AMD was ready with its B450-series motherboards at launch time. But you can still pair the Ryzen 5 2600X with a capable 300-series model.

The Spectre patches did take some wind out of Intel’s sails in many of our application tests, but the impact varies by application. In most cases, the regressions aren’t severe enough to change our recommendations. Still, it's always disappointing to observe performance stepping backward. Luckily for Intel, gaming wasn't affected much.

Intel beefed up its Coffee Lake-based Core i5s by adding 50% more cores. Up against the Ryzen 5 1600X, we couldn't help but acknowledge Intel's great performance and generally better compatibility with existing games. This time, however, AMD brings the heat in our benchmarks, while most of its optimization-oriented issues are ancient history. If gaming is your only concern, save some cash and pick up a Core i5-8400. But we think you’ll be happier with the Ryzen 5 2600X, which has more resources to handle general desktop workloads with ease.

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AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Review: Redefining Ryzen

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Redefining Ryzen

AMD's return to prominence last year found it rolling out a long stream of CPUs that pressured Intel in almost every segment of the desktop PC market. Even after Intel countered with dramatic adjustments to its processor portfolio, AMD continues gobbling up market share. Even in the face of stiff competition, AMD says it enjoys as much as 50% of CPU sales to DIYers on sites like Newegg and Amazon.

And a slow transition to 10nm manufacturing continues to leave Intel vulnerable. AMD is now ready to evolve its Zen architecture with a round of new processors. To be sure, the improvements they offer are iterative. The low-hanging fruit that made it possible for first-gen Ryzen to compete are already baked in. These chips do incorporate some notable advantages, though.

To begin, second-generation Ryzen processors are manufactured using an optimized 12nm LP node that promises performance and efficiency gains compared to the original Ryzen's 14nm LPP process. AMD also tweaked the Zen architecture, now dubbed Zen+, to support higher frequencies, more sophisticated multi-core boost rates, and faster memory/caches. Overall, the company claims that its 2000-series facilitates nearly equivalent gaming performance compared to similarly-priced Core CPUs, plus a 20% advantage in threaded workloads.

AMD certainly hasn't forgotten its core message: more cores and features for less money. The second-gen Ryzen processors are priced competitively, all models come with beefy stock coolers, and they are backward compatible with older Socket AM4 motherboards. AMD even throws in free caching software to sweeten the deal. It all starts with silicon though, so let's take a look.

Ryzen 7 2700X

Ryzen 2000-series processors, otherwise known by their "Pinnacle Ridge" code name, are based on the same basic Zen core design as previous-gen models. But they benefit from 12nm manufacturing, along with targeted tweaks to improve cache and memory latency. The company says its resulting Zen+ architecture delivers up to a 3% boost in IPC (instructions per cycle) throughput.

The CPUs still utilize a dual-CCX configuration tied, together with Infinity Fabric. Not surprisingly, then, they're divided into eight-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 and six-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 families, both with 16MB of L3 cache. Like the Ryzens that came before, all 2000-series models boast unlocked ratio multipliers for easy overclocking. Intel, in comparison, still charges a premium for its overclockable K-series SKUs.

AMD separates its the 2000-series stack into high-performance X-series models and their non-X counterparts. But it shrinks the Ryzen 7 family from three models to two. Ryzen 7 2700X would seem to suggest a Ryzen 7 1700X replacement. However, it actually replaces the flagship Ryzen 7 1800X. AMD claims that its 2700X offers up to 12% more performance than Ryzen 7 1800X in threaded applications. Much of that improvement comes from a 100 MHz-higher base clock and 200 MHz of additional boost frequency (though multiple other refinements also contribute).

While the Pinnacle Ridge processors drop into 400-series motherboards, AMD is only releasing its X470 chipset at launch time. We still don't have a release date for the less expensive B450- and A420-based motherboards. As the company originally promised, it continues supporting Socket AM4 (and purportedly will until 2020), so the new Ryzen CPUs also work with 300-series motherboards after a BIOS update. First-gen Ryzens do work with 400-series platforms as well, allowing you to drop an older CPU into a brand-new board, if desired.

	AMD Ryzen 7 2700X	AMD Ryzen 7 1800X	AMD Ryzen 7 2700	AMD Ryzen 5 1600X	AMD Ryzen 5 2600X	AMD Ryzen 5 2600	Intel Core i7-8700K	Intel Core i7-8700	Intel Core i5-8600K	Intel Core i5-8400
MSRP	$329	$349	$299	$219	$229	$199	$359	$303	$257	$182
Cores/Threads	8/16	8/16	8/16	6/12	6/12	6/12	6/12	6/12	6/6	6/6
TDP	105W	95W	65W	95W	95W	65W	95W	65W	95W	65W
Base Freq. (GHz)	3.7	3.6	3.2	3.6	3.6	3.4	3.7	3.2	3.6	2.8
Precision Boost Freq. (GHz)	4.3	4.1	4.1	4.0	4.2	3.9	4.7	4.6	4.3	4.0
Cache (L3)	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	12MB	12MB	9MB	9MB
Unlocked Multiplier	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Cooler	105W Wraith Prism (LED)	-	95W Wraith Spire (LED)	-	95W Wraith Spire	65W Wraith Stealth	-	Intel	-	Intel

The $329 Ryzen 7 2700X should sell for $20 less than an 1800X (though prices of previous-generation chips will likely fall as long as stock is robust), while the $299 Ryzen 7 2700 lands right where you formerly found the 1700. AMD's non-X models were apparently more popular with enthusiasts since they also had unlocked multipliers, enabling similar performance as the pricier models (after some tuning) for less money. You could save $50 stepping down from Ryzen 7 1800X to the 1700, for example. But that gap shrinks to $30 this time around.

AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X grapples with Intel's $359 flagship Core i7-8700K. Though that seems like an uncomfortably close comparison, AMD allows you to overclock with one of its value-oriented B-series motherboards (B350-based, for now), whereas Intel compels users splurge on a Z-series platform for overclocking. Adding the CPU and motherboard together, Intel's premium ends up being quite a bit higher.

Second-gen Ryzens now support up to DDR4-2933 RAM as well, trumping the Coffee Lake architecture's official DDR4-2666 ceiling (with a few caveats that we'll cover shortly). More bandwidth should help latency-sensitive apps, such as games. Also, X470 motherboards pave the way for better memory overclocking than previous-gen platforms.

AMD's first-gen X-series processors, which topped out at 95W, came without a bundled thermal solution. This time around, all 2000-series CPUs include a cooler. The 105W Ryzen 7 2700X includes a "Wraith Prism" LED cooler that features four direct-contact copper heat pipes, three independent RGB zones, switchable fan profiles, and a 39 dB(A) noise rating. The cooler is rated to dissipate 116W of waste heat in "L" mode (2800 RPM) and 124W in "H" mode (3600 RPM). Cooler Master manufactures the heat sink/fan, while AMD provides software for controlling the lighting and fan profiles. Company representatives claim the cooler represents a roughly $43 value, and that it also allows for some overclocking headroom.

As with the generation before, AMD employs Indium solder between its die and heat spreader to improve thermal transfer. In contrast, Intel uses standard thermal interface material on its Core i7-8700K. Also, that Intel chip doesn't come with a cooler, widening the price gap between a Ryzen 7 2700X-based configuration and a current-generation unlocked Intel Core i7.

According to AMD, its 2000-series CPUs benefit from an improved SensMI suite that also includes its new StorMI Technology. The latter is a software-based tiering solution that melds the low price and high capacity of a hard drive with the speed of an SSD, 3D XPoint (including Intel's Optane parts), or even up to 2GB of RAM. AMD sold this software as a $20 add-on in the past, but now it comes free as part of the 2000-series package. As with any tiering utility, you assume the same risks of data loss inherent to a RAID 0 array. For more details about this software, read our feature: AMD and Enmotus Expand FuzeDrive Offerings.

The GlobalFoundries 12nm LP Process

As mentioned, AMD's 2000-series CPUs are not manufactured on GlobalFoundries' 14nm GPP node, but rather its 12nm LP process technology. The ported-over design helps boost transistor performance, but does not affect die area or transistor density. As a result, Pinnacle Ridge's ~4.8 billion transistors and 213mm² area remain the same as first-gen Ryzen.

Lower leakage current does enable roughly 300 MHz-higher clock rates or a 50mV core voltage reduction at any given frequency compared to 14nm manufacturing. The company also refined some of the architecture's critical pathways with higher-performance transistors. All told, AMD claims the 12nm design enables up to 11% less power consumption than 14nm-based Ryzen CPUs at the same clock rates, or up to 16% more performance at the same thermal design power. All-core overclocks are expected to land in the 4.2 GHz range moving forward.

AMD also adds other nuanced refinements to the performance story, reportedly improving L1, L2, and L3 cache latencies, while also reducing memory latency by 11%.

Ryzen 7 2700X's 105W TDP represents a 10.5% increase compared to the 1800X for a 4.65% increase in boost frequencies. That seems like a simple trade-off of power consumption for higher clock rates. But the TDP rating also takes the multi-core Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 algorithms' higher power draw into account, allowing access to Socket AM4's full 95-amp current ceiling even during stock operation.

Precision Boost 2 And XFR2

AMD's previous-gen Ryzen processors have Precision Boost (a Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling implementation similar to Intel's Turbo Boost), and eXtended Frequency Range, which provides additional frequency uplift if your cooling solution has thermal headroom to spare. Those 1000-series CPUs only offer dual-core or all-core Precision Boost and XFR clock rates. But lightly-threaded applications (like games) often offload less-critical tasks to other threads. Unfortunately, light helper threads can apply enough of a load to trigger the lower all-core frequency, limiting performance potential even when the CPU could be operating at higher clock rates.

The new Precision Boost 2 (which debuted on the desktop with AMD's Raven Ridge processors) and XFR2 algorithms improve performance in threaded workloads by raising the frequency of any number of cores. Precision Boost 2 delivers up to 500 MHz-higher clocks during multi-core workloads, while XFR2 adds an additional 7% boost if your cooler is beefy enough. This extends Ryzen's already-strong threaded performance to a wider variety of tasks, though it levels off when the processor reaches 60°C (tCase) or 95 amps of current. Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 also work on 300-series motherboards.

AMD doesn't share a list of specific multi-core Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 bins, because its opportunistic algorithms achieve different frequencies based on temperature, current, and load.

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AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

AMD Ryzen 5 2600X

X470 And Ryzen Master 1.3

AMD's Socket AM4 was designed with robust power delivery capabilities that aren't entirely used by first-gen Ryzen processors. The 2000-series chips are much better at leveraging the platform's current headroom through their improved boost algorithms. Some value-oriented motherboards employ scaled-back power delivery capabilities, so AMD's second-gen Ryzen CPUs communicate with the platform to modulate performance based on what the motherboard can do. That's a necessary addition to accommodate Ryzen 7 2700X's 105W TDP, which didn't exist before this new chip line. As a result, less-capable motherboards may not expose the full performance potential of higher-TDP processors like the Ryzen 7 2700X.

The processor monitors Package Power Tracking (PPT) and Thermal Design Current (TDC) variables, measuring available margin to the motherboard's maximum power output and current, respectively. Electrical Design Current (EDC) also indicates the maximum current possible from the VRMs during peak/transient conditions. A control loop feeds the real-time telemetry data back to the Infinity Fabric, which then allows the processor to dynamically affect performance based on thermal and power conditions.

If the motherboard BIOS supports it, AMD exposes some of these monitoring features with its updated Ryzen Master 1.3 overclocking software. The fastest cores are identified during the binning process and flagged by Ryzen Master with gold stars on a per-CCX basis. The third- and fourth-fastest cores are marked with a circle.

AMD's software now supports per-CCX overclocking as well, and includes a built-in stress test. The warranty does not cover damage caused by overclocking, so exercise caution.

Because there are still plenty of 300-series motherboards available for sale, AMD designed a badge to let you know that a firmware update may be necessary before dropping a 2000-series CPU into one of those older platforms. Unless your 300-series motherboard has an out-of-band update mechanism like BIOS Flashback, you need a previous-gen Ryzen processor to update it. AMD also offers its Boot Kit solution, which is a loaner processor you can use to update the motherboard firmware.

Eventually, all 300-series motherboards will support 2000-series processors right out of the box. AMD expects X470 and X370 boards to coexist for the foreseeable future, so it may be possible to find excellent deals on those previous-gen motherboards.

DIMM Slots Filled	Memory Ranks	Supported Speed
2 of 2	Single	2933*
2 of 2	Dual	2677
2 of 4	Single	2933*
2 of 4	Dual	2400
4 of 4	Single	2133
4 of 4	Dual	1866

*Note: requires a motherboard with at least six PCB layers. DDR4-2667 is supported on four-layer PCBs.

AMD's 2000-series processors support up to DDR4-2933 with a pair of single-rank DIMMs, though you need a six-layer motherboard to unlock that capability. Support drops back to DDR4-2667 for four-layer motherboards. Fortunately for enthusiasts, most mainstream platforms utilize six or eight layers.

From what we've seen thus far, X470 motherboards have an improved layout to facilitate aggressive memory overclocking. As you might expect, X470 boards in our labs are much more mature at launch than the 300-series platforms we battled last year. Thanks to this, we're easily running memory at DDR4-3466 with tight timings. Our motherboard team also noticed vastly improved overclocking with all memory slots populated, which was an issue on some X370 motherboards.

X470-based motherboards feature lower power consumption, higher multi-hub USB throughput, and improved power delivery. But they still have the same connectivity options as 300-series motherboards.

I/O Source	USB 3.1 Gen2	USB 3.1 Gen1	USB 2.0	PCIe Gen3	GPP PCIe Gen2	SATA
AMD Ryzen SoC (1000- and 2000-series)	0	4	0	20x	0	2
X470/370	2	6	6	0	8	8
B350	2	2	6	0	6	6
A320	1	2	6	0	4	6

The first line in our chart covers Ryzen's I/O capabilities, which you then combine with one of the chipsets underneath to determine platform connectivity. A Ryzen CPU sports 20 PCIe 3.0 lanes. Sixteen are dedicated to the PCIe slots, while four lanes are dedicated to SATA ports or a 4x link for NVMe SSDs. Four of the SATA ports can also be assigned to SATA Express interfaces at a 2:1 ratio, yielding a maximum of two SATA Express connections.

As you can see, the X470 chipset offers the same connectivity options as its predecessor, with two USB 3.1 Gen2 ports, four USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, six USB 2.0 ports, and eight general-purpose PCIe 2.0 lanes that vendors can carve up for additional functionality (like hanging M.2 slots off of the chipset or enhanced 5/10GbE support).

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Cache And Memory Performance, IPC

Memory Latency

AMD Measurements	L1 Cache Latency	L2 Cache Latency	L3 Cache Latency	Memory Latency
Latency Improvements	13%	34%	16%	11%

AMD's first-gen processors demonstrated higher memory latency than we expected, affecting the performance of memory-sensitive applications. The company claims it reduced memory latency by 11% this time around, as well as cutting cache latencies by double-digit percentages. We'll start by measuring the memory and Infinity Fabric subsystems, and then move on to IPC tests.

SiSoftware's Sandra is used to measure cache and memory latency with three different access patterns, giving us more granularity than a single test. Sequential access patterns are almost entirely prefetched into the TLB, so that one's a good measure of prefetcher performance. The in-page random test measures random accesses within the same memory page. It also measures TLB performance and represents best-case random performance. The full random test features a mix of TLB hits and misses, with a strong likelihood of misses, so it quantifies worst-case latency.

We tested both the Ryzen 7 1800X and Ryzen 7 2700X on the same X470 motherboard. We include results with the Ryzen 7 2700X at DDR4-2933 for the stock configuration, DDR4-3466 for the overclocked configuration, and DDR4-2666 to normalize it with AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X.

With normalized DDR4-2667 data rates and timings, the Ryzen 7 2700X posts impressive gains over Ryzen 7 1800X, regardless of the data access pattern. As percentages, the 2700X's improvements weigh in at 11.49% for full random, 6.64% for in-page, and 9.35% for the sequential access pattern.

The Infinity Fabric speeds up as we increase memory frequency to the 2700X's default DDR4-2933. This fabric ties the IMC and cores together, so we record even larger improvements of 18% in the full random test, 13.4% with a full random access pattern, and 12.9% with the sequential metric.

AMD isn't fully disclosing the steps it took to improve memory latency, but we suspect the company worked on the Infinity Fabric and integrated memory controller to realize these gains.

Cache Latency And Bandwidth

Regardless of the memory access pattern, the smallest data chunks fit into L1 cache. As the data gets larger, it populates the 2700X's higher tiers of cache, which we outlined in the following table:

	L1	L2	L3	Main Memory
Range	2KB - 32KB	64KB - 512KB	1MB - 4MB	8MB - 1GB

% Improvement Over 1800X	L1	L2	L3
In-Page	11.11%	51.72%	26.38%
Full-Random	11.11%	53.5%	25.64%
Sequential	11.11%	13.3%	13.3%

The cache latency reductions that we measured are even better than what AMD suggested we'd see, though its lab might be using different access patterns. Regardless, the apples-to-apples results in our table are downright impressive.

We also see a notable increase in cache bandwidth. Feeding the cores with lower latency and higher throughput is a win-win on the performance front. Intel's S-series processors still have a big single-core L1 bandwidth advantage, but AMD's updated L2 cache is measurably faster than the 1800X in both single- and multi-threaded tests. AMD even enjoys better L2 cache latency than Intel in the sequential test and better L3 cache latency with several data patterns.

To Infinity, And Beyond

The updated Zen+ design fuses two four-core CCXs together with the Infinity Fabric, which is a crossbar that also handles IMC, northbridge, and PCIe traffic. As such, fabric latency is a critical variable that ensures the memory latency gains we observe can actually be delivered to the cores.

SiSoftware Sandra's Processor Multi-Core Efficiency metric helps illustrate the Infinity Fabric's performance. We use the Multi-Threaded test with the "best pair match" setting (lowest latency). The utility measures ping times between threads to quantify fabric latency in every possible configuration. We boil those benchmarks down to latency averages for the different pathways, but head here for a more detailed explanation of the various components.

AMD reduced Ryzen 7 2700X's intra-core latency by 11.8% and the critical cross-CCX latency by 8.3%. We also notice that Ryzen 7 2700X offers significantly improved fabric bandwidth.

Instructions Per Clock

It's important to remember that IPC can vary by workload, so dissimilar tasks may yield different outcomes. We set a static 3 GHz clock rate for the following tests:

Our single-core Cinebench benchmark suggests a 1.6% IPC improvement favoring Ryzen 7 2700X. But while AMD does improve, Intel still holds onto a distinct IPC throughput advantage. Switching to the Multi-Threaded Cinbench test gives Ryzen 7 2700X a 2.7% improvement over its predecessor.

Core i9-7820X employs two 256-bit AVX FMA units per core that operate in parallel, whereas Ryzen's Zen architecture divides 256-bit AVX operations across two FMA units per core. That difference hands the Skylake-X processor a commanding lead in y-cruncher. We do see a 3.9% increase in the 2700X's Multi-Threaded y-cruncher result compared to Ryzen 7 1800X. But the gains in single-threaded AVX performance are marginal.

We see similar results in our single-core cryptographic tests, though Ryzen 7 2700X takes an 8.7% lead over the 1800X in the Multi-Threaded AES-256-ECB encryption workload. AMD's Zen architecture includes two AES cryptographic accelerators for each core, so it isn't surprising to see Ryzen dominate over Intel's S-series CPUs in the AES-256-ECB tests.

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Overclocking, Spectre, And Test Setup

Overclocking

We ran our gaming and application tests in the U.S. lab, while power/thermal measurements were collected in our German lab.

In the U.S. lab, we paired our Ryzen 7 2700X with Corsair's H115i cooler for overclocking. This allowed us to maintain a 4.2 GHz all-core frequency at 1.3785V Vcore, 1.2V SoC voltage, and the default Load Line Calibration settings. Since we couldn't smash through to 4.3 GHz without exceeding AMD's 1.40V maximum recommended Vcore setting, we stopped at 4.2 GHz.

We did encounter temperatures as high as 90°C during extended AVX testing, so we recommend a capable closed-loop or custom water cooler for overclocking. AMD would really benefit from an AVX-offset feature as well, which could cut clock rates during power-hungry AVX workloads. Should you choose to go the more extreme route, there have been reports of 5.8 GHz with Ryzen 7 2700X under LN2.

First-gen Ryzen processors don't have much memory overclocking headroom, so we're still testing tuned X370 platforms at DDR4-3200. However, the X470 platform was remarkably stable at higher data rates with Ryzen 7 2700X. So, we settled on DDR4-3466 with 14-14-14-34 timings (though we're confident that more time to tune would yield even higher overclocks). We also ran our overclocked Intel processors at DDR4-3466.

Spectre And Meltdown

Our test rigs now include Meltdown And Spectre Variant 1 mitigations. Spectre Variant 2 requires both motherboard firmware/microcode and operating system patches. We have installed the operating system patches for Variant 2.

Today's performance measurements do not include Intel's motherboard firmware mitigations for Spectre Variant 2 though, as we've been waiting for AMD patches to level the playing field. Last week, AMD announced that it’s making the mitigations available to motherboard vendors and OEMs, which the company says should take time to appear in the wild. We checked MSI's website for firmware updates applicable to our X370 platforms when AMD made its announcement, but no new BIOSes were available (and still aren't).

Unfortunately, we were only made aware that Variant 2 mitigations are present in our X470 board's firmware just before launch, precluding us from re-testing the Intel platforms with patches applied. We're working on this now, and plan to post updated results in future reviews.

The lack of Spectre Variant 2 patches in our Intel results likely give the Core CPUs a slight advantage over AMD's patched platforms. But the performance difference should be minimal with modern processors.

Test Setup

AMD is working on a Precision Boost Overdrive feature, which seems similar to the Multi-Core Enhanced Turbo (MCE) feature that allows Intel's K-series processors to run at their maximum Turbo Boost bin across all cores at all times. The setting on Intel platforms modifies the CPU's clock rate and voltage to deliver higher performance, basically amounting to factory-sanctioned overclocking.

AMD's Ryzen Master 1.3 software doesn't currently let you activate this feature from within Windows. But as we often find with MCE, AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive is enabled by default in many BIOSes. After extensive experimentation, we can conclude that the option doesn't deliver an appreciable performance gain in its current form. Thus, we ran our tests with Precision Boost Overdrive disabled.

Comparison Products

Intel Core i5-8400

Intel Core i5-8600K

Intel Core i7-7700K

Test Systems

Test System & Configuration
Hardware	Germany AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700XMSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i5-8600K, i5-8600K, Core i5-8400MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2666AMD Socket AM4 Workstation (300-Series)AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, Ryzen 5 1600X, Ryzen 5 1400MSI X370 Tomahawk4x 8GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 @ 2667 and 3200 Intel LGA 1151 (Z270)Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2400 and 3200All SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition (Gaming)Nvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700XMSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i7-8700K, i5-8600K, Core i5-8400MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2400, DDR4-2667, DDR4-3466AMD Socket AM4 (300-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1700, Ryzen 5 1600XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2667, DDR4-3200Intel LGA 1151 (Z270)Intel Core i7-7700K MSI Z270 Gaming M72x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2400Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i7-7820XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2666All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500-TI, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)U.S.Corsair H115i
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK
PC Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Extension Kit and Mods Configurations: Open Benchtable, Closed Case
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500 MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100 kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500 MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80 Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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VRMark, 3DMark And AotS: Escalation

VRMark & 3DMark

Gaming is where rubber meets the road for most enthusiasts. AMD tells us that its 2000-series processors should be nearly equivalent to Intel's comparable models, at least at stock settings. And there's no doubt that Ryzen 7 2700X will excel in heavily-threaded titles. But tests that are sensitive to clock rate and IPC throughput, such as VRMark, have traditionally been a challenge for Ryzen.

The 2700X bridges the gap between Intel's processors and first-gen Ryzen. AMD's stock 2700X outstrips the Ryzen 7 1800X by 11.8%. More impressively, it also beats the overclocked 1800X by 2%. The 2700X's lead over its predecessor extends further after tuning its cores and memory subsystem.

Synthetic benchmarks are great because they tend to scale more clearly than real-world applications. 3DMark's real usefulness lies in measuring the amount of performance available to game engines, giving us a peek at what highly-optimized games could be capable of.

Ryzen 7 2700X's 16 threads beat Core i7-8700K's 12 threads in our DX11 and DX12 CPU tests, even after overclocking. The 2700X also bests Intel's $589 Core i7-7820X during both tests.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation evokes memories of AMD's early struggles with the Zen architecture. This was one of the first games to receive an update optimized for AMD's processor design.

Although the patch improved performance, Ryzen 7 1800X still fails to beat a stock Core i7-8700K. But Ryzen 7 2700X and its Precision Boost 2 algorithm turn the tables, giving AMD an advantage in stock and overclocked trim.

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Civilization VI Graphics & AI, Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

Civilization's AI test measures performance in a turn-based strategy game and tends to favor per-core performance. Ryzen 7 2700X almost ties the Coffee Lake-based Core i7-8700K at its stock settings. However, Intel gains more from overclocking, pulling away after our tuning efforts.

Again, notice that the stock Ryzen 7 2700X is fast enough to beat the overclocked 1800X.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

The stock Ryzen 7 2700X beats every other Ryzen CPU by ~10 FPS (or more). But Intel's stock CPUs have no problem maintaining their advantage.

Tuning the 2700X yields a 6.3% speed-up on average. But that doesn't help it catch the Core i5-8600K, which takes the top two spots in our chart.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

The overclocked Ryzen 7 2700X lands just shy of the Core i7-7700K and -8700K. Tuning those chips allows them to walk away from AMD's flagship, though.

Meanwhile, Ryzen 7 2700X beats AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X by 14% right out of the box.

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Far Cry Primal, GTA: V, Hitman

Far Cry Primal

Far Cry Primal responds well to Intel's Core i7-7700K. It's also interesting that a stock Core i5-8600K beats the overclocked 6C/12T Core i7-8700K. Then again, we've seen this tendency before.

The stock Ryzen 7 2700X lags behind Intel's newest K-series CPUs, though tuning does help AMD's case.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V favors Intel architectures and, more generally, multi-core designs with high clock rates. The overclocked Ryzen 7 2700X vies with Intel's chips at stock frequencies. But again, giving Coffee Lake the same treatment propels those chips to the top of our chart.

Ryzen 7 1700 suffers from a low base clock rate and languishes at the bottom of our chart as a result. This processor often provides similar performance as AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X after some tuning. However, it's clear that the Ryzen 7 2700X sets a new high water mark for AMD CPUs in games.

Hitman

Hitman's GOTY update imposed a hard 90 FPS cap on performance, so this title no longer scales well with high-end PCs. Unfortunately, some popular AAA games employ similar frame rate limits, so we leave this result in place to show that not all titles respond to faster components.

We do see slight scaling from Ryzen 7 1700 up to Intel's overclocked models. However, these differences would be hard to spot during a gaming session. Ryzen 7 2700X lands in a familiar position ahead of AMD's previous-gen Ryzen CPUs.

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Shadow Of War, Project CARS 2

Middle-earth: Shadow Of War

Middle-earth: Shadow of War doesn't scale as dramatically as some of our other benchmarks, and it certainly isn't as sensitive to IPC throughput and frequency as Shadow of Mordor. While CPU reviews tend to focus on games that scale well with certain host processing specifications, some games just can't get enough graphics performance.

Ryzen 7 2700X comes tantalizingly close to matching the Coffee Lake-based processors at stock and overclocked settings.

Project CARS 2

Project CARS 2 is purportedly optimized for threading. A 6C/6T Core i5-8600K beats the overclocked 8C/16T Ryzen 7 2700X though, so it's clear that parallelism isn't the most influential factor in defining this game's performance.

A stock Ryzen 7 2700X trails all of the Intel CPUs except for Core i7-7820X. But overclocking nudges AMD's flagship closer to the top.

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Office And Productivity

Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe's Creative Cloud suite generally favors higher frequencies and IPC throughput, giving Intel an advantage. Still, Ryzen 7 2700X provides a nice balance of high clock rates and core count, yielding an impressive 13.8% speed-up in the overall score compared to AMD's tuned Ryzen 7 1800X.

Overclocking doesn't deliver the big gains we recorded in our gaming suite. In some of the lightly-threaded application tests (like After Effects), a stock Ryzen 7 2700X is even faster than the overclocked one. This is a result of the 2700X's 4.3 GHz Precision Boost 2 frequency, which outstrips our 4.2 GHz all-core overclock. These tests also aren't as latency-sensitive as gaming workloads, so DDR4-3466 doesn't deliver as much of a performance improvement.

Web Browser

The Krakken suite tests JavaScript performance using several workloads, including audio, imaging, and cryptography. AMD's processors typically lag Intel's in Web browser benchmarks due to their lower per-core performance. However, a stock Ryzen 7 2700X still outpaces its overclocked predecessor.

The MotionMark benchmarks, which emphasize graphics performance (rather than JavaScript), are also sensitive to CPU clock rates. Again, the 2700X's higher stock Precision Boost 2 frequencies allow it to slip past the overclocked configuration. At the same time, we measure a 14.6% gain over the stock 1800X.

Productivity

Ryzen 7 2700X is much more competitive than AMD's previous-generation CPUs. We also observe slim gains from overclocking in many of these workloads.

Our video conferencing workload measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection to model real-world usage. Not surprisingly then, a stock Ryzen 7 2700X leads the rest of the field at default clock rates thanks to its 8C/16T configuration and higher frequencies.

The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries using the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized, which obviously plays to the 2700X's eight-core design.

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Rendering, Encoding, And Compression

Rendering

Ryzen 7 2700X takes a commanding lead in the multi-core Cinebench benchmark, which we expected in light of the radical cache latency and bandwidth improvements that AMD made. POV-Ray also shows the 2700X to be a chart-topper, though again it's faster in stock form than overclocked.

AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X leads in many of the threaded workloads, but isn't as impressive in workloads that tax a single core. There, Intel's architectures continue shining.

Core i7-7820X leads in LuxMark. But notice that we don't have OpenCL results for it. This is because the older OpenCL SDK doesn't support AVX-512. Intel updated the SDK fairly recently, and it works correctly with Skylake-X-based processors. We'll have to retest all of these CPUs to reflect the changes, but be assured that AVX-512 is a powerful addition.

Encoding & Compression

LAME is the quintessential example of a single-threaded workload, and the 2700X posts solid gains over Ryzen 7 1800X in its stock configuration.

Our threaded compression and decompression tests adsorb data directly from system memory, thus removing storage from the equation. As per usual, the Ryzen processors dominate the decompression workload while Intel's Skylake-X leads in compression-oriented benchmarks. It's notable that Core i7-8700K needs overclocking in order to beat AMD's flagship.

There's a larger delta between Intel and AMD processors during our HandBrake x265 test compared to the x264 benchmark due to its heavier distribution of AVX instructions. Ryzen 7 2700X is particularly impressive in the x264 metric, where it upsets the capable Core i7-7820X.

We also provide results from y-cruncher, a single- and multi-threaded program that computes Pi using AVX instructions. We tested with version 0.7.3.9474, which includes Ryzen optimizations. The 2700X trails Intel's portfolio in the single-core benchmark. However, parallelization puts it in a more competitive position. Also, we clearly see the benefit of Core i7-7820X's dual 256-bit AVX FMA units (per core) in the AVX workloads.

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XFR2 vs. Manual Overclocking

XFR2, Cooling, and Clock Rates

In contrast to the first-gen Ryzen models and their strange temperature curves, the tCTL (core temperature) values now correspond with what we'd expect to see. AMD does add a 10-degree offset to the 2700X specifically, which motherboard BIOSes already take into account. We subtract this offset from our own measurements.

Chip quality naturally influences achievable clock rates as well. These effects are seen much more clearly with second-gen Ryzen CPUs supporting XFR2, since they have to be binned precisely.

With as much cooling performance as we could muster, Ryzen 7 2700X still reaches almost 4.2 GHz. A more conventional thermal solution would result in a lower clock rate. However, with a good air cooler, it should be possible to sustain 4 GHz on all cores.

Manual Overclocking

Ryzen 7 2700X can be manually overclocked to 4.3 GHz. But the 1.475V required for this is more aggressive than we want to get long-term. Pushing to 4.35 GHz resulted in a crash no matter how much voltage we applied.

As the following curve shows, power consumption and performance in Cinebench are almost directly proportional, so long as the system runs stably and doesn't crash. It's also worth noting that Cool'n'Quiet is completely disabled on our test platform when we configure the ratio multiplier manually. When that happens, the configured clock rate doesn't drop from its specified maximum, even at idle.

We measure a maximum of 135W in Cinebench and just over 150W in Prime95 with AVX, although this extreme torture test is more of an exhibition.

If you spend some money on good cooling, there's no reason to manually overclock Ryzen 7 2700X. Thanks to XFR2, AMD's flagship should remain stable above 4 GHz, even under full load. Try to go any higher and you'll pay a hefty price in heat, power, and possibly long-term reliability.

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Power Consumption

At idle, Ryzen 7 2700X lands behind most of the Intel competition, but ahead of previous-gen Ryzen CPUs. First and second place in our chart go to a couple of AMD APUs, perhaps surprisingly.

Under a light CAD workload, Ryzen 7 2700X performs better and uses less power than its predecessor. This shows us that AMD didn't pay for better clocks with a sacrifice to power consumption. Its progress is already apparent at this point in the measurements.

Gaming tells a similar story; the performance increase is again more pronounced than the differences in power consumption.

When it comes to our stress test, AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X is much more reserved than its predecessor. We attribute this to the chip's XFR2 functionality, along with more granular frequency/voltage settings.

Even when we hit it as hard as possible, the new CPU stays stable above 4 GHz.

Performance rises and power consumption falls (if only slightly). There's truth to AMD's marketing material, so says our lab equipment. Ryzen 7 2700X really does deserve attention for these results.

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Thermals And Noise

The Wraith Prism

Ryzen 7 2700X's Wraith Prism thermal solution is a large, high-finned cooler with four flattened heat pipes and a plate behind them for stabilization. The heat sink's entire contact surface is thus made of copper. Its fins are arranged in such a way that the exhaust air is focused toward the memory and I/O shield.

The fastening clamp is a big disadvantage of this large cooler, which takes us back to the old Athlon XP days. Even at maximum load on all cores in the stress test, the CPU only reaches a maximum temperature of 82.8°C (corrected value), so it remains below the thermal throttle threshold. The cooler handles the 105 watts easily. You can expect peaks up to 70°C and a little above, depending on the motherboard's predefined fan curve.

The cooler is loud and emits 44 dB(A) under load (50 cm distance, 45° diagonal) when the fan is spinning at 2600-2700 RPM. The fan can even be a bit noisy even when the system is idling on the Windows desktop. Unfortunately, the fan adjusts much too rapidly as the cooler reacts to short-term temperature jumps.

We see the result in the narrow-band frequency spectrum of the motor noise, which shifts back and forth between approx. 240 and 300 Hz. The fan generates almost 39 dB(A) at idle, which isn't necessary. It helps if adjust the fan curve to a fixed speed of at least 1400 RPM if the processor is under 60°C. However, you'll have to experiment because each case will require different settings.

AMD has made good progress with XFR2 and the powerful cooling finally pays off in terms of performance. The power consumption remains largely the same and you get a nice clock rate increase, but we don't like the unnecessary noise levels or the fiddly mounting mechanism.

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Final Analysis

AMD's 2000-series processors aren't revolutionary, but they are far beyond the normal evolutionary updates we've become accustomed to over the last several years.

In the chart below, we plotted gaming performance with both average frame rates and a geometric mean of the 99^th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness), which we then converted into an FPS measurement. We're also presenting price-to-performance charts that get split up to include CPUs-only and extra platform costs. For the models that don't come with a bundled cooler, we add an extra $25 for a basic heat sink. We also add $20 if overclocking requires a more expensive motherboard (as is the case for Z370).

In gaming, AMD's stock Ryzen 7 2700X delivers a great performance boost that rivals its overclocked predecessor in every one of our tests. Tuning the 2700X provides additional performance, though you probably won't notice the difference. Check out our chart: as you can see, the Ryzen 7 2700X effectively ties Core i7-8700K based on the geometric mean. But it sells at a $30 discount, drops into a less expensive motherboard, and comes with a thermal solution that adds even more value.

While the overclocked Core i7-8700K is a fierce competitor, it requires you to buy a Z-series motherboard for overclocking, along with a capable cooler. Core i5-8600K offers most of the -8700K's performance, but you lose Ryzen 7 2700X's sixteen threads and bundled heat sink/fan. We think it's safe to say that AMD is delivering on its pledge to provide a near-equivalent gaming experience in most titles.

If you're searching for a more productivity-oriented processor, Ryzen 7 2700X is incredibly attractive. It offers superior performance compared to the Core i7-8700K in many of our threaded tests, and is much more competitive in lightly threaded applications than previous-gen models.

AMD's Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 algorithms are already pushing the voltage/frequency curve to its limits, so don't expect much in the way of overclocking headroom. We did tune Ryzen 7 2700X up to 4.2 GHz, but a higher dual-core Precision Boost 2 frequency of 4.3 GHz offers better performance than our all-core overclock in certain applications. Significant gains in games were likely a result of heightened sensitivity to our DDR4-3466 memory.

AMD's latest Ryzen 7 delivers a host of features that make enthusiasts swoon, such as an unlocked multiplier, backward compatibility with 300-series motherboards, solder between the heat spreader and die, and an LED-equipped cooler. We only wish that B450-based motherboards were available at launch time. Hopefully we hear more about AMD's lower-cost platform soon.

In a broader sense, AMD is delivering on its first update to the Ryzen processor series, proving that it can execute on its roadmap. It looks like it's going to be another busy year in the CPU space--and that's more good news for enthusiasts and gamers.

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How to Choose the Right CPU for 1080p Gaming: 14 Processors Compared

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 18:30:00 +0000

Introduction

Last year, we saw innovation from AMD and Intel that we hadn't experienced in a long, long time. The Zen architecture made AMD competitive in segments of the CPU market it previously couldn't touch, and Intel moved as quickly as possible to defend its incumbent position. We thoroughly enjoyed the back-and-forth as both companies jockeyed for enthusiasts' adoration.

But even as new platforms were springing up with more PCIe connectivity than ever before, graphics-card availability dried up. Cryptocurrency miners bought up everything they could find to capitalize on rising valuations. Even today, you can't find modern models anywhere near their suggested retail pricing. We've resorted to buying pre-built systems and scouring the forums for previous-generation cards, trying to score a bargain.

The best spread of CPU technology in ages, paired with sky-high GPU prices, is a recipe for confusion for PC builders. For the same amount of money, enthusiasts can afford less graphics performance than they could not long ago. That makes it easy to overspend on host processing, since balance is thrown out of whack. But you can also get a lot more CPU for your dollar than this time a year ago. How do you make sure you're getting the most for your budget?

Well, we set out on a mission with 14 CPUs and three different GPUs to find the best combination in nine popular games.

Moving The Goalposts

For the last 11 years, Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs featured four cores. Coffee Lake changed this. Now, Core i3s sport four cores, Core i5s include six cores, and Core i7s boast six Hyper-Threaded cores. Intel also gave its low- and high-end models a makeover: Skylake-X stretches up to 18 cores/32 threads for high-end desktops, while Pentium processors have now gained Hyper-Threading technology.

Of course, AMD introduced its line-up of Ryzen 7, 5, and 3 models with copious core counts. Moreover, the Ryzen Threadripper series landed with up to 16 cores/32 threads and such friendly prices that Intel was forced to make its Skylake-X chips more affordable.

The Contenders

As you might imagine, the old rules of picking a CPU family to go with certain graphics cards changed as a result of these new processors. Thus, we decided to investigate using the best performers from each CPU class.

Representing AMD, we have the Ryzen 7, 5, and 3 models. We didn't bother testing last-generation Bulldozer-based CPUs, but we did throw in the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X for good measure.

For Intel, we have K-series Core i7, i5, and i3 CPUs from the Coffee Lake and Kaby Lake generations. We also added the Core i9-7900X and Core i9-7980XE to cover high-end desktops. Out of curiosity (or because we're gluttons for benchmarking punishment?), we couldn't help but include two of the latest Pentium processors, too.

That gives us 14 processors spread across five test platforms. We paired these with the GeForce GTX 1080, GTX 1070, and GTX 1060 (6GB) graphics cards. Although the GTX 1080 is considered an extravagance these days, we have to imagine it'll come down in price someday.

Finally, we selected nine games for testing. Some of the titles are new, while others are older. We did weigh the suite, though, more toward modern games. Some of them are CPU-dependent, others are decidedly graphics-bound, and a few are actually pretty well split down the middle. This allows us to explore bottlenecks from different angles.

Today's tests are all run at 1920x1080. (We have more data coming at 2560x1440 and 3840x2160, too, so expect a follow-up story or stories to present our findings there.) To best represent the experience we'd want to have, all benchmarks were run with the highest graphics settings possible.

Test Systems

To avoid variance from GPU Boost as our GeForce GTX graphics cards heat up, we use multiple runs from each benchmark in quick succession. We select the median value from the last recordings.

Test System & Configuration

Hardware

Intel LGA 1151 (Z370) @ 2666/2400AMD Socket AM4 @ 2667 Intel LGA 1151 (Z270) @ 2400AMD Socket SP3 (TR4) (In Game Mode) @ 2667 Intel LGA 2066 @ 2666 Common To AllGigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming 6G 1TB 1500W (Creators Update Version 1703)

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Ashes Of The Singularity: Escalation

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

Ashes of the Singularity was one of the first titles to receive a Ryzen-optimized patch. And it appears that host processing is always going to be your bottleneck if you're using a GeForce GTX 1080 at 1920x1080. As we can see, the 18-core/36-thread Core i9-7980XE takes a healthy lead over the rest of the field, while the 10C/20T Core i9-7900X captures second place.

This benchmark scales well with increased core counts, highlighting some of the generational transitions in Intel's line-up. The 6-core/12-thread Core i7-8700K illustrates a big jump over Intel's previous-gen 4-core/8-thread Core i7-7700K, which basically ties the Core i5-8600K.

The Core i3-7350K (and every CPU below it in our chart) struggles mightily during the benchmark.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

Stepping down a notch to the GeForce GTX 1070 finds Intel's Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7900X providing nearly identical performance, while the rest of the field scales down as we'd expect.

Really, the Core i7-7700K and most processors under it offer nearly the same performance as they did paired up to a GeForce GTX 1080. We do measure a 2.3 FPS delta between the i5-8600K with both graphics cards, but that appears to be an exception. Such small variances hardly make it worth stepping up to the GeForce GTX 1080 in this title at this resolution.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

The limitations of a GeForce GTX 1060 become clear, even in this CPU-bound test, though Intel's Core i9-7980XE still maintains a healthy lead over the rest of the field.

At this point, a graphics bottleneck is emerging, pushing the GTX 1060 to its limit. As a result, the Core i9-7900X and Core i7-8700K fall a few positions. It's possible that a lighter workload isn't pushing the execution cores hard enough for them to maintain their highest Turbo Boost bins. If true, the uncore frequency drops as well, slowing the cache and ring bus frequencies, reducing performance throughout. We'll see this phenomenon in other titles, too.

Compared to our GeForce GTX 1080 results, we see similar performance from every CPU beneath the Core i5-8600K, showing that lower-end processors are still the bottleneck.

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Civilization VI Graphics

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

Intel's Core i9-7900X leads this benchmark with an impressive 106.6 FPS. The remainder of the results are uneventful, generally following trends we've observed through past CPU reviews. The Core i7-7700K averages 102.8 FPS, and the nearest mainstream Ryzen competitor achieves 80.1 FPS.

We tested the Threadripper 1950X in Game Mode simply because there wasn't enough room in our charts for the many combinations that AMD enables. Head over to our Threadripper 1950X Game Mode, Benchmarked article if you're interested in the impact of the various modes on Threadripper's performance. Just be aware that the processor behaves differently in many games, depending on the settings you choose.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

Stepping down to the GeForce GTX 1070 exposes a graphics bottleneck with some of our faster CPUs. Intel's Core i9 models push the limits at around 94 FPS, landing within the range we'd expect for a graphics-bound situation. The rest of the field falls into line based on host processing power, though some CPUs fare worse than others.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

A more definite GPU limitation irons out some of the variance between CPUs. Worthwhile scaling is no longer observable. Case in point: There is only a 6.4% delta between the Ryzen 5 1600X and Threadripper 1950X, showing how a midrange graphics card can neutralize the benefit of a high-end processor if you aren't careful to maintain balance.

Fortunately, this also means you can snag an affordable Ryzen 3 or Core i3 and enjoy almost the same performance as you would with a much more expensive model.

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Dawn Of War III

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

Dawn of War III scales well with increased execution resources. As we can see from the fastest CPUs, though, it also favors high clock rates.

Intel's Core i7-8700K reaches up to 113.6 FPS. However, its 1.5 FPS advantage over the Core i7-7700K isn't very impressive considering the Core i7-8700K boasts 50% more Hyper-Threaded cores.

Meanwhile, the $1000 Core i9-7900X doesn't offer as much performance as a $175 Core i3-8350K. This is why we don't recommend HEDT processors for purpose-built gaming rigs.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

The same general scaling trends persist with the GeForce GTX 1070, albeit at a lower performance level. Intel's Core i3-8350K continues behaving like older Core i5 CPUs, while the Core i5-8600K really hits a price/performance sweet spot with this pairing.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

Again, some of the highest-end processors drop a few places because they aren't utilized fully. There's only a 3.3 FPS (4%) delta between the Core i9-7980XE and the first-place finisher...but that chart-topper is a Core i5!

Again: Striking the right balance is important. Not only is it a waste to buy too much CPU if you don't need the processing power for other workloads, but you can even handicap it with a graphics card incapable of keeping it busy.

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Far Cry Primal

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

Far Cry Primal's Dunia Engine 2 responds well to high clock rates and IPC throughput. However, it also benefits when we turn off simultaneous multi-threading. As a result, you'll notice that the Core i5s are very competitive.

An increasing number of games are being tuned for quad-core CPUs, and this one is no exception. We think it'll take some time before chips with more cores start distinguishing themselves, though Coffee Lake fares well enough.

Although AMD doesn't do as well in our average measurements, its Ryzen 5 1600X and Ryzen 7 1800X processors demonstrate the least amount of frame-time variance. Rest assured that they offer a smooth gaming experience.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

We observe much less variance between CPUs as we step down to a less powerful GeForce GTX 1070. The 6-core/12-thread Ryzen 5 1600X continues outmaneuvering the 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 1800X, while the Threadripper 1950X inexplicably jumps higher in the rankings.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

We enter graphics-bound territory with the GeForce GTX 1060, which mixes up the finishing order. Notably, even though they don't lead when it comes to average frame rate, Intel's Core i7-8700K and i5-8600K provide the smoothest performance with the least frame-time variance. The Pentium models also respond well to this pairing.

AMD's Threadripper 1950X is the only processor that lands below our expectations. Then again, we've proven that Game Mode isn't the best option for this title. A bit of tuning might rectify the issue.

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Grand Theft Auto V

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

Grand Theft Auto V favors Intel architectures and, more generally, multi-core designs with high clock rates. It may seem odd that the Core i5-8600K beats Intel's Core i7-8700K, but we've observed this tendency on other occasions.

Did you notice that Core i3-8350K out there in front of the quad-core Core i5-7600K? Clearly, Coffee Lake propels the Core i3 family to new performance heights.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

The finishing order remains intact as we test with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070, though average frame rates fall a bit. Still, many of the slower models land within 1 FPS of what we saw from the GTX 1080, suggesting that we're not seeing a graphics-bound workload. Host processing appears to be the limiting factor.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

Plain and simple: Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060 restricts performance at this point.

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Hitman

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

We began our testing with the Pentium CPUs and worked our way up, benchmarking all nine games for each processor before moving on to the next. So, you can imagine how thrilled we were when we discovered that IO Interactive implemented a 90 FPS frame cap at some point through a patch. Soldiering on anyway, we observed little scaling above the Core i9-7900X.

Intel's Pentium processors average a solid 60+ FPS, though we could see quite a bit of hitching during the test sequence. The Ryzen 3 1300X and the Core i3-7350K fare better, but you want a Ryzen 5 or a Kaby Lake-based Core i5, at the least, for smooth performance in this title.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

The frame cap continues to be a killjoy, but at least a GeForce GTX 1070 and a reasonably-priced Core i5-8600K push Hitman's limits at 1920x1080. There is a bit of unevenness to report from the Ryzen 3 1300X and Pentium models, which manifests in our frame-time variance chart.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

We finally duck under the frame cap, but only because Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060 isn't fast enough.

There's only a 3% delta between the quad-core Core i3-8350K and first-place finisher. This is definitely a graphics-bound workload that only breaks apart a bit when we drop to the lowest-end CPUs.

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Shadow Of War

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

Middle-earth: Shadow of War doesn't scale as dramatically as some of our other benchmarks, and it certainly isn't as sensitive to IPC throughput and frequency as Shadow of Mordor. CPU reviews tend to focus on games that scale well with certain host processing specifications, such as core count, clock rate, cache size, or memory bandwidth. But some games just can't get enough graphics performance.

This title exhibits a 12.6 FPS (~16%) gap between the fastest and slowest processors in our pool, but every system surpasses the 70 FPS mark easily. There is a difference in smoothness between the Pentium and Ryzen 3 1300X processors, but it isn't extreme.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

Naturally, a GeForce GTX 1070 is even more tied up, tightening the delta from top to bottom to just 3.3 FPS.

The Pentium processors still struggle a bit with hitching.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

A GeForce GTX 1060 puts all of these CPUs on an even footing. Subjectively, there is no difference between the processors, even though our data suggests that the Core i7-8700K lags behind.

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Project CARS 2

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

Project CARS 2 is purportedly optimized for threading, and it seems to scale well with increased host-processing resources. After all, we see a 41 FPS delta between the fastest and slowest processors in our test pool. The Core i5-8600K leads, and it is followed closely by Intel's Core i7-7700K.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

The Core i3-8350K shows that it's a surprisingly capable quad-core CPU, besting AMD's entire line-up. With that said, the Ryzen 5 1600X specifically offers most of what higher-end models can do, but at a much lower price.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

The GeForce GTX 1060 limits performance at 1920x1080. AMD's Ryzen 3 1300X is the only processor to exhibit a marked amount of hitching during our recording.

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PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG)

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds can be a frustrating title to benchmark. Its constant cadence of updates seems to introduce more problems than are solved, and we've seen visible hitching from even the fastest CPUs and GPUs.

Aside from the Pentiums, scaling in PUBG is fairly meager. AMD's Ryzen 3 1300X suffers the most jarring stuttering during playback of our recorded game.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

Stepping down to a GeForce GTX 1070 confirms that we're decidedly graphics-bound. Not that this game is particularly detailed; it may just be poorly optimized. Either way, there's no real meaningful conclusion we can draw from such an outcome.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

Our final test leaves little to explain: There are no meaningful differences between CPUs when you're constrained by a GeForce GTX 1060.

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The Best Combinations of CPU and GPU at 1080p

Boiling our testing down into one general recommendation is almost impossible, especially given the pricing of graphics cards right now. But we can identify some of the more obvious trends.

Fast-paced first-person shooters tend to prefer high clock rates and fast graphics cards. Nimble CPUs like the Intel Core i5 and i7, and AMD's Ryzen 5 and 7, fare best in our performance measurements. Some titles are easily graphics-bound, though that could be due to poor optimizations or minimal effort to parallelize the game engine. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is the perfect example. It doesn't respond at all to faster processors. It's far better to buy a higher-end graphics card if that game is your main squeeze.

Real-time strategy titles seem to respond more favorably to CPUs with lots of cores; so do many turn-based games. Of course, that genre isn't as sensitive to graphics performance because it doesn't require quick response times. But a fluid experience in RTS games is a must. Often, host processing is the bottleneck, so dialing back your GPU investment and buying a better CPU yields the best performance possible.

Charting Out The Trends: The Best Pairings

We typically plot our test results on a scatter chart with price and performance on two axes, but we aren't even going to take a stab at graphics pricing during these tumultuous times. Instead, we're providing a geometric mean of the 99th percentile frame times, representing smoothness, converted into an FPS measurement for each class of graphics card. Each game factors into this calculation except for the artificially hamstrung Hitman.

Balance is the goal here. Intel's Core i7-8700K is the first chip we think of when it comes to top-of-the-line for gaming PCs. But it doesn't always lead in our benchmarks. It would likely fare better with more heavily threaded titles tested. Otherwise, the Core i5-8600K seems to be a better value pairing for Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080.

The GeForce GTX 1070 pairs well with either a Core i5-8600K or Ryzen 7 1800X, though the latter notably offers additional performance in other enthusiast-oriented desktop apps. We've also found that the Ryzen 7 1800X is a great chip for game streaming, so give it serious consideration for more taxing workloads. If you're looking to go Intel, aren't interested in overclocking, and want to save a few dollars, the Core i5-8400 complements a GeForce GTX 1070 well, too.

On the value scale, Core i3-8350K and Ryzen 5 1600X both pair well with a GeForce GTX 1060. If you're willing to do a bit of overclocking, though, a Ryzen 5 1600 looks even better.

Speaking of overclocking, most of the CPUs we tested can operate at even higher frequencies. AMD has a much friendlier policy here; all of its chips are unlocked. Meanwhile, Intel charges a premium for its unlocked K-series SKUs. If you want to know more about available headroom, we have plenty of test results with every processor overclocked in their individual reviews, so head to those for an idea of potential gains.

Of course, our findings would be all the more interesting if we could run out and build a well-balanced machine with affordable hardware. Here's hoping the availability of graphics cards improves sometime soon!

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Origin PC Millennium (2018, 8th Gen) Desktop Review: Strong Coffee Lake

Derek Forrest — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 14:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

Origin PC recently debuted its new Millennium gaming desktop and shipped us a fully decked-out configuration with an overclocked 8^th generation Core i7 processor, dual GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards, and plenty of extras. Can the new chassis and overclocked performance help justify the nearly $4,600 price tag?

Specifications

Exterior

The Millennium is a full-tower desktop with a custom case designed by Origin PC. It features a server-grade steel frame with aluminum panels, both of which can be tailored to a color of your choosing. (Our review sample’s front panel is red with a black interior.) However, the colored panel doesn’t add to the bill, with Origin PC offering three standard exterior and interior colors (black, grey, and red for exterior; black, red, and white for interior) at no extra cost. Customers can also choose custom paint colors for the exterior of the chassis, starting at $100.

The hinged side panels open like a door, and they are magnetized so that they stay closed. Customers can choose between solid metal or tempered-glass panels for each side of the PC, and the company can ship it with an extra aluminum or tempered-glass panel (which would cost customers an additional $50 and $75, respectively), in case you want to swap them out for a different look.

The front aluminum panel bears an RGB-illuminated Origin PC logo and is also a hinged door (which can be oriented to swing open in either direction), with five 5.25” bays hiding behind it. Customers can fill these bays with optical drives, in addition to an optional VR panel (for $43) that adds an HDMI port and two USB 3.0 ports to the front of the PC so you can easily connect a VR HMD.

Our review sample didn’t come with the VR panel, but it does have an optional five-slot 3.5” lockable hot-swap bay (which added $93 to the total bill). Customers can also forgo the exterior bays in favor of a five-slot 3.5” interior drive bay, which comes standard with the Millennium.

The top of the Millennium sports a removable vented plastic panel that gives you easy access to three 120mm Origin PC-branded case fans, which are configured as an intake for the 360mm radiator mounted to the interior of the chassis. (We’ll get to that in a bit.) A sliding plastic panel toward the front (on the angled panel between the front door and top vents) slides upward to reveal the front-panel I/O, which consists of two USB 3.0 ports, a USB 3.1 (Gen 2) Type-C port, mic-in and headphone-out audio jacks, and power, reset, and LED toggle switches.

The rear I/O panel features two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (fed by an ASMedia controller); a Type-A and a Type-C. There’s also four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports (provided by the Intel Z370 chipset), and two USB 2.0 ports. Display connectivity consists of the motherboard’s HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 interfaces and the six DisplayPort 1.3 and two HDMI 2.0 ports of the graphics cards.

Interior

Swinging the left-side tempered-glass side panel open reveals all of the Millennium’s interior components. Our sample came equipped with an Asus ROG Maximus X Hero WiFi-AC motherboard (which sports RGB LED accent lighting) loaded with an Intel Core i7-8700K and a 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4-3000 memory. The CPU is overclocked (for an additional $75) to an impressive all-core frequency of 5.0GHz and is cooled by an Origin PC-branded Frostbyte 360mm all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler, which is mounted to the top vented panel.

The cooler itself has three 120mm intake fans attached to it from the exterior, which are configured to pull in cool air from the top. The heated air in the chassis is exhausted by a single 120mm rear-mounted fan, which could be troublesome with the two EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GDDR5X graphics cards in SLI. The GPUs are also overclocked and can add considerable ambient heat to the interior (despite their blower-style design), but we’ll have to see how this configuration performs under load before we pass judgement on the cooling setup.

A 512GB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD is hidden behind an M.2 heatsink emblazoned with the Republic of Gamers logo, which is also illuminated with RGB LED lighting controlled by Aura Sync. The external five-slot hot-swap bay on the front of the PC houses a 3TB Seagate Barracuda 7,200 RPM hard drive, and the total storage capacity is great for a serious PC gamer who wants to put some high-priority apps and games on his or her main SSD volume and store a sizable gaming library on the mechanical drive. There's also two more internal storage bays (2.5" or 3.5") below the drive cage.

We weren’t able to photograph it without disassembling the PC, but the Millennium is powered by an 850W EVGA Supernova G3 PSU, which is fully modular and 80 Plus Gold Certified. The sleek interior shroud hides the power supply on both visible sides of the system, with individually braided cables masterfully run to the ATX, CPU, and GPU power connectors on the motherboard. Even the five-slot hot-swap drive bay has a red braided SATA cable, though it’s barely visible when gazing through the side-panel window.

The right side’s interior also sports a rubber cover that hides the motherboard’s ILM backplate. Its only purpose is to make the build look even cleaner for customers who choose to get the tempered-glass panel, but it’s a thoughtful accessory that adds a little more aesthetic value to the Millennium at no extra cost.

The RGB LED light strips are mounted across the interior’s top and rear panels, illuminating the interior of the chassis along with RGB LED memory and the motherboard’s M.2 and PCH lighting. The LED toggle switch on the front panel synchronizes the RGB logo and interior LED light strip with the motherboard-controlled lighting when in the on position. Turned off, the user can control the light strip and logo LEDs with the included remote control. However, the RGB memory and motherboard lights are still controlled via the software.

Software & Accessories

Origin PC didn’t preload any bloatware to speak of, with the company only installing the essential overclocking and RGB LED control software. In this case, the Asus-branded motherboard uses Aura Sync to synchronize the G.Skill RGB LED memory and motherboard lights, in addition to the RGB LED light strips and RGB LED exterior logo (if you turn on the LED control toggle). EVGA Precision X is also installed to overclock and monitor the graphics cards, which are both tuned up (for an additional $50) by 120MHz and 150MHz on the core and memory clocks, respectively.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

We tested the Origin PC Millennium against our Z270 test bench with a single GTX 1080 Ti inside. We don’t currently have a Z370 test bed, and we don’t have any other directly comparable configurations to pit against Origin PC’s $4,572 monster of a machine. We also didn’t have a second GTX 1080 Ti on hand to put inside our test rig, so the Millennium will undoubtedly top the charts in this particular review. However, using the single-GPU Z270 test data will give us an idea of how Intel’s 6-core 8^th generation flagship i7 processor stacks up against the previous gen quad-core CPU, in addition to how much more performance you’ll get from an SLI setup in GPU-intensive workloads.

Test System Configuration

Our Z270 test bench features an Intel Core i7-7700K cooled by a Deepcool Gammaxx 400 on an ASRock Z270 Gaming i7 motherboard, with 16GB of Kingston HyperX Savage DDR4-2133 memory, a 1TB HyperX Savage SATA SSD, and a 1000W EVGA Supernova G3 power supply. We tested at all-stock settings (CPU, GPU), so we don’t expect it to compete with Origin PC’s 5.0GHz CPU overclock and the boosted graphics setup (+120MHz core clock; +150MHz memory clock). The Millennium’s memory configuration is also superior to our test bed's, with a 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of DDR4-3000 sporting a CAS latency of 16-16-18-35.

3DMark

The Origin PC Millennium starts our test suite off with a bang, easily outpacing our stock-clocked Z270 reference system (with a single GTX 1080 Ti) with its overclocked Core i7-8700K and dual GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in SLI. Examining the Physics portion of the benchmark shows us how much further two more cores (four threads) can take your gaming performance, but it should be noted that synthetic workloads tend to exaggerate real-world performance.

Cinebench R15

The overclocked Core i7-8700K inside the Millennium easily bested the previous-generation Core i7-7700K at stock settings in the Cinebench R15 benchmarks, with single-threaded rendering performance taking a lead over our Z270 test bed, thanks to the much higher clock rate (5GHz). Multi-threaded rendering performance also exceeded our test bed, thanks to the CPU's increased core count, and the OpenGL tests follow suit.

CompuBench

The Origin PC Millennium was, surprisingly, dealt its first loss against our Z270 test rig in the Compubench Video Processing and Bitcoin Mining tests. This is likely due to the fact that CompuBench does not support multi-GPU testing, and we theorize that the system could be lagging slightly due to driver overhead dealing with dual GPUs in a single-GPU test. However, performance didn't lag too far behind, and the Millennium will likely perform much better than our Z270 test rig in video-processing applications that support multiple GPUs. Furthermore, the second GTX 1080 Ti ensures much higher (double) hashrates when mining.

Storage Test

Our storage tests showcase the Millennium's 512GB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD and its incredibly high sequential and random performance. It far exceeded the sequential read and write capabilities of our Z270 test bed's SATA SSD, and the Millennium's random performance also exceeded our reference rig by over 20K IOPs in both read and write speed. Average consumers likely won't notice the difference between a SATA-based SSD and an NVMe drive in real-world applications. But professionals and enthusiasts looking for the absolute best would be sated with Origin PC's choice of storage.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

The Millennium's 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of G.Skill TridentZ RGB DDR4-3000 easily outpaced our Z270 reference system, which was tested with the JEDEC DDR4-2133 memory standard. The extra speed and tight timings push the Millennium's memory bandwidth far past our test bed in the multi-threaded portion of the test, but single-threaded bandwidth performance doesn't offer quite as much of a boost. However, professionals and power users looking for fast (and flashy) RAM need look no further.

PCMark 8

The Origin PC Millennium's overclocked CPU, faster memory, and speedier storage snagged higher scores than our Z270 test bed in the PCMark 8 Adobe Creative and Microsoft Office application tests, leading our reference rig by 804 and 746 points, respectively. These numbers are trivial, with each system performing within milliseconds of each other in each section of the benchmark, but it's hard to deny the productivity prowess of the Millennium.

PCMark 10 Extended

The PCMark 10 Extended benchmark showed us a wider range of the Millennium's productivity chops, with Origin PC's beastly rig squeezing out wins against our Z270 test system in the Essentials, Productivity, and Digital Content Creation portions of the test, thanks to its overclocked CPU and fast memory and storage. The gaming segment of the benchmark (which is a form of 3DMark's Fire Strike test) accentuates the sheer power of two GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in SLI, and a single GPU just can't compete.

VRMark

VRMark gives us much of the same results, with the Millennium making short work of our single-GPU Z270 reference machine. However, it should be noted that there aren't many VR applications that can utilize both GPUs in an SLI configuration, and real-world VR gaming performance will be more in tune with a single-card setup in these types of programs.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

The Origin PC Millennium's overclocked GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards (in SLI) propelled it well beyond our stock-clocked Z270 test rig with a single card, netting triple-digit average framerates at 1920x1080 and 2560x1440. At 4K (where the GPU becomes the bottleneck), the lead against the previous-gen test rig is less pronounced. DX12 multi-GPU support doesn't give as high of a framerate gain as we'd think (remember: the CPU and GPU are overclocked, and our test rig is not), but the Millennium nets well over the target 60 FPS that an enthusiast aims for at 3840x2160.

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite doesn't stress most modern graphics cards (the game is getting on in age), a point made especially obvious with the Millennium's overclocked GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards averaging triple-digit framerates at 4K on the most-demanding settings the game has to offer. However, it's no coincidence that its minimum framerate (which is usually associated with CPU horsepower) is nearly identical and much lower than our Z270 test bench's single GTX 1080 Ti setup. Although an SLI setup gives the Millennium a significant boost in average framerates, the driver overhead seems to hinder the processor just enough to make performance dip lower than half the minimum framerate of the single-card test bed, even if it is just for a second. Still, this hiccup doesn't take anything away from the Millennium's performance, with average framerates around 305, 271, and 180 FPS at 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160, respectively.

DiRT Rally

The Origin PC Millennium provided triple-digit average and minimum framerates in DiRT Rally at 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, making it an ideal pairing for a 120Hz (or even 144Hz at 1080p) display at those resolutions if you want to race around without any blips or dips in framerate. At 3840x2160, the Millennium still netted average and minimum framerates above 60 FPS, proving yet again that this Origin PC rig is equipped for ultimate 4K performance.

Grand Theft Auto V

The Millennium again proved its 4K gaming dominance in the GTA V benchmarks, where it averaged above 60 FPS at the most crushing settings at 3840x2160. At lower resolutions (1920x1080 and 2560x1440), the leads against our single-GPU Z270 test bench were less pronounced, with the CPU horsepower somewhat limiting the graphics potential, evidenced by the small margin of the average framerates between the results at 1080p (around 110 FPS) and 1440p (102 FPS), with a difference of about 8 FPS.

When the bottleneck shifts to the GPUs at 4K, the margin drastically increased (it dropped about 40 FPS average, compared to 1440p), but the overclocked GPUs and impressive SLI scaling still averaged roughly double the framerates of our single-card reference system at 3840x2160.

Hitman

Similar to our Bioshock Infinite results, where SLI driver overhead resulted in lower minimum framerates, the Origin PC Millennium was dealt its first gaming performance loss in the Hitman benchmarks, due to the multi-GPU graphics configuration, which actually hinders performance with Direct3D 12 enabled. Multi-GPU support for this title is less than stellar, accentuated by lower minimum and average framerates at all tested resolutions. Shifting to DirectX 11 would likely resolve that issue, but SLI scaling doesn't do the Millennium any favors in this particular game at these settings.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

The Millennium returned to its regularly scheduled badassery in the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmarks, where it averaged nearly 125, 98, and 53 FPS at 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160, respectively. The game is highly demanding on the hardware with all the details and eye candy turned up to the maximum, but impressive SLI scaling in DX11 pushed the Millennium's average framerate to a more-than-playable average framerate at 4K, whereas the single-GPU Z270 test bed could barely make it to a minimalist 30 FPS at those settings.

The Division

The Division isn't as demanding at 4K as ROTR (evidenced by our Z270 test bed's average framerate being higher in this game), but the Millennium's dual-GPU setup didn't perform much better than our single-card reference rig. This is because The Division is also plagued with shoddy multi-GPU support under DX12, and we had to run the tests with only one graphics card enabled (that is, SLI disabled). The Millennium's lead is due to the overclocked CPU and GPUs, and having an extra graphics card doesn't do you any favors in this particular scenario.

Middle Earth: Shadows of War

The Millennium wrapped up our test suite by driving home both the positive and negative aspects we've expounded on throughout our gaming benchmarks. Multiple GPUs can affect performance in a variety of ways depending on the game, and our Shadows of War results certainly shows that. At 1920x1080, the Origin PC beast takes a loss to our single-card test rig by a 3 FPS average. We first thought that SLI support (which the game has) was actually detrimental to performance (and at this resolution, it is slightly), but raising the resolution shifted the bottleneck to the GPUs (which, it turns out, are actually working in SLI). That pushed the Millennium considerably ahead of our single-GPU Z270 reference machine, with a lead of 16 FPS and 30 FPS at 2560x1440 and 3840x2160, respectively.

This means that the CPU is hamstrung at lower resolutions due to driver overhead, similar to the results from Bioshock Infinite. However, 4K is where the Millennium shines and is meant to play, and it has no issues providing excellent framerates with the most demanding settings the game has to offer.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The Origin PC Millennium is a beautiful gaming desktop, with a custom-designed steel and aluminum chassis that can be configured with multiple orientations (inverted, 90-degree inverted), side panels (solid aluminum or tempered glass, for each side), and colors (interior and exterior) at no extra cost. The front-panel I/O sliding shroud and the front-panel door hide the generous connectivity and hot-swap bay, further adding to the sleek look of the Millennium.

The RGB LED logo and light strips add the bling that makes enthusiast gamers sing at no extra cost, and Origin PC even made the case lighting compatible with motherboard RGB LED software, giving the Millennium a degree of RGB synchronization not often seen in custom-shop PCs. (Many offer RGB LED components, but few set them up to work together.) Users can also control the logo and strip lighting by itself with the remote control (by turning off the LED toggle button), but we’re impressed with the thought Origin PC put into the RGB lighting synchronization among the case, memory, and motherboard, which is often an afterthought in ridiculously powerful custom gaming PCs like this one.

The overclocked Intel Core i7-8700K runs perfectly stable with its 360mm AIO liquid cooler, which is neatly hidden at the top of the chassis. The three 120mm intake fans are quite quiet even at full CPU load, but we were concerned that the radiator would add considerable ambient heat to the interior chassis (especially because the fans are configured as intakes). Our testing confirmed our fears, with the two EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards consistently running hot at 90C when fully loaded. This causes the fans to kick in rather loudly, with the blower-style coolers barely able to keep the GPUs from throttling. However, the overclocked GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards offer best-in-class gaming performance (the Millennium barely dropped below a 60 FPS average at 4K), even if they do run a little hot and loud.

When reviewing these types of high-priced custom-shop PCs, we often acknowledge that in terms of raw componentry, it would be cheaper to build the PC yourself. However, with the state of the current component market (such high prices for memory and graphics cards), this expensive configuration of the Origin PC Millennium actually offers a comparable value to a DIY build with nearly identical components (again, at the current market pricing). At the time of this writing (late January), we loaded up a Newegg cart with the same components (down to the remote-controlled RGB LED strips and five-slot hot-swap drive bay), only changing the GPUs, CPU cooler, and tempered-glass case to reasonably priced and in-stock comparisons, which rang up for $1250 each, $120, and $180, respectively. (To be fair, it would be a hard task to get a case quite like the Millennium for that price.)

The end result: Our Newegg cart totaled around $4,570 before tax and shipping, which is only $2 cheaper than Origin PC’s $4,572 sticker price for this particular configuration of the Millennium, before shipping costs. Although taxes and shipping for the components will vary by location, Origin PC doesn’t charge tax, and Newegg charges tax depending on which state you reside. If shipping and taxes are applicable, the price margin between a DIY system and the Millennium swings in favor of the custom-shop rig. This will obviously change when component pricing returns to its suggested MSRP (and component pricing is surely going to morph before this is published), but right now, the imperiled DIY market makes the Origin PC Millennium an excellent deal. Not the usual state of affairs, but what is, here in the PC-parts world of early 2018?

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Compulab Launches Kickstarter For Its GTX 1080-Powered Fanless Mini-PC

Leon Chan — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 20:00:00 +0000

Compulab is looking to Kickstarter to launch its newest mini-PC, the Airtop2 Inferno. The totally fanless machine is powered by an Intel i7-7700K and the desktop version of Nvidia’s GTX 1080.

We’ve covered Compulab before. Following the release of its Airtop mini-PC in 2016, which we reviewed, the Israel-based company recently launched a successor model fittingly called the Airtop2. Building on its design, which was already impressive enough in its own right, is the even more ludicrous Airtop2 Inferno. Whereas the Airtop2 can squeeze an Intel i7-7700 (65W TDP) and a desktop Nvidia GTX 1060 (120W TDP) into a case that measures 12 x 10 x 4”, the Inferno ups the ante by packing an i7-7700K (95W TDP) and a desktop GTX 1080 (180W TDP) into a package that’s only two inches wider.

All of the Airtop mini-PCs share the same basic layout for their fanless chassis, which rely on their metal side panels to dissipate heat. The GPU is directly attached to the left-side panel and is bridged to the motherboard via a flexible PCI-e cable, while the right-side panel is rigidly fixed to contact the CPU. The side panels use heatpipes to distribute the heat over their surface area efficiently, and they are formed with air channels to harness natural convection. Because the right-side panel can’t be removed without detaching it from the CPU, Airtop PCs are designed so that all of their swappable components can be accessed from the left side.

The Inferno maintains the same design of the series but has significantly thicker side panels to dissipate the added heat of its more powerful components. Those side panels are the reason why the Inferno is two inches wider than the regular Airtop2. Apart from this aspect, the only other externally visible differences that set the Inferno version apart are its red accents and different front I/O layout.

Platform-wise, the Inferno has the same setup as the regular Airtop2. This means that it uses the same custom motherboard based on the C236 chipset, which is basically an enterprise version of the Z170 chipset. The motherboard and case allow for the installation of up to four 2.5” drives, two NVMe SSDs, and four DDR4 memory DIMMs. The motherboard itself provides dual GbE ports and six USB3.0 type-A ports. Audio comes from an ALC1150 audio chip, but only stereo line-out and optical outputs are available. A Wi-Fi add-in card is optional, but the Inferno comes with spots for four antennas. Compared to the regular Airtop2, the Inferno lacks a configurable front panel and has instead been designed with a more consumer-friendly fixed configuration that includes dual USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (Type-A and Type-C).

Because most of the Inferno’s components are shared with the already shipping regular Airtop2, Compulab said there wasn’t much it had to design specifically for the Inferno. In that sense, the company doesn’t see much risk if the Inferno doesn’t perform up to its potential. Still, putting an expensive and niche product into production is a risk that the company didn’t want to take without the confidence of knowing that there is a market for it. Compulab therefore chose to launch Inferno with a Kickstarter campaign. It has no stretch goals, but Compulab says that if the Inferno is successful in the longer term, they may offer GPU adapter kits to give the PC support for newer cards. CPU and motherboard upgrade kits are also on the table.

Those interested have a choice of five configurations for the Inferno: Half Life ($1,699), Skeletal ($2,480), Demonic ($3,170), Diabolic ($3,961), and Doomsday ($7,478). The Half Life configuration is bare-bones, coming only with the motherboard and CPU. Buyers of this configuration will have to source their own GPU from Compulab’s list of compatible products. The Skeletal configuration adds a GTX 1080 but still lacks memory and storage. The Demonic configuration is the cheapest complete system with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SATA SSD. The Diabolic configuration upgrades that to 32GB of RAM while adding a NVMe SSD. Finally, the Doomsday edition just fills the Inferno to the brim with 64GB of RAM, four SATA SSDs, and two NVMe SSDs.

The Compulab Airtop2 Inferno Kickstarter campaign is running until March 25 and is all-or-nothing, which means backers won’t be charged if the project doesn’t reach its goal.

Product	Airtop 2 Inferno
CPU	Intel i7-7700K
Graphics	Intel IntegratedOptional:Nvidia GTX 1080 8GB
Memory	Up to 64GB DDR4 (4 DIMMs)
Storage	Optional:Up to 4 x 2TB Sata SSDUp to 2 x Samsung Evo 960 1TB
Case	Custom
Cooling	Custom
Motherboard	Custom (Intel C236 chipset)
Power Supply	External unit
Networking	2 x Gigabit ethernetOptional:802.11 ac wifi card with BT 4.2
USB Ports	6 x USB 3.0 (rear)1 x USB 3.1 gen 2 type-C (front)1 x USB 3.1 gen 2 (front)1 x USB 3.0 (front)
Video Ports	2 x DisplayPort 1.2 (rear)1 x HDMI 1.4 (rear)
Other
Operating System	Optional:Windows 10 Pro
Dimensions (WxDxH)	15 x 25.5 x 30cm
Price	Starting at $1,699

Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U Barebones Mini PC Review

Derek Forrest — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 14:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

Zotac’s Zbox Magnus mini-PC lineup packs everything from lean muscle machines to world-class weightlifters into its small boxes. The SKUs include Intel processors ranging from Core i3 to i7, and Nvidia graphics starting at GTX 1050 and going all the way up to GTX 1080. Today, we’re taking a look at the midrange, with a barebones offering of the Magnus EN1060K, a Core i5- and GTX 1060-equipped gaming PC that offers VR-ready performance in a small form factor for under $1,000.

Is this barebones box worth the bucks to outfit into a full configuration, or is it the value equivalent of a brick?

Specifications

Exterior

The Zbox Magnus EN1060K is the usual Zotac fare, with a ring embedded in the lid of a small, boxy chassis, measuring in at only 210 x 203 x 62.2 mm. The small form factor (SFF) gaming PC’s black-plastic and metal chassis isn’t much to look at, and an orange LED around the power button is the only major nod to aesthetics on the device.

Vents line the four edges of the bottom panel, allowing fresh air to flow over the components. The top panel has vents on three of the four edges (the front edge is solid), exhausting hot air up and out of the chassis, and a copper heatsink is visible through the vent on the back panel. Cooling is always a significant factor with SFF PCs, and we’ll see if Zotac’s EN1060K can dissipate the heat properly in our benchmarks.

Given its small case, the Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U offers ample USB and display connectivity. On the front panel, you get two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (one Type-A, one Type-C) capable of data transfer speeds up to 10 Gbps, in addition to two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports on the rear. Two DisplayPort 1.3 and two HDMI 2.0 ports give you plenty of options to connect a display (most likely a TV in your living room), and a card reader on the front panel makes it easy to transfer photos off of your camera.

The Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U also sports dual gigabit Ethernet ports powered by a Realtek RTL8168 controller, and a single antenna provides Wi-Fi connectivity via an Intel Wireless AC 3165 NIC.

Interior

As with all barebones PCs, you have to install some of your own components before you can boot the device. Zotac makes this process about as easy as it gets.

The rear edge sports two thumb screws that hold the bottom panel in place, and removing the plastic panel is as simple as sliding it away from the chassis with moderate pressure. There’s even a groove in the plastic into which you can place your thumb so that you can easily get a grip.

Zotac’s interior layout makes component installation a breeze, with the memory SO-DIMM, M.2, and 2.5” SATA drive slots all exposed and accessible without making you use any tools or remove more panels. The aforementioned Wi-Fi module (an Intel Wireless AC 3165) is positioned below the SATA connector, and a fan near the center of the device passes through the visible PCB to push air to the CPU and GPU, which are in the top half of the chassis. End users aren’t meant to toil with the primary components, and the lack of access to the processor and graphics keeps things simple.

Install the memory by lining up the grooves in the module and slot and pushing it in at an angle. Once it’s completely in, just push down toward the PCB, and the module will snap into place. The M.2 slot’s stud and screw are already configured for Type-2280 devices, so you just have to remove the screw, insert the drive at an angle, and tighten it back down to the stud.

The 2.5” drive tray can be removed by loosening the thumbscrew and pulling the plastic away from the PCB. You will attach your drive of choice using the four plastic pegs protruding from the tray’s inner sides, making sure to position the drive with the SATA connectors on the opposite side of the thumb screw hole. Replace the tray, slide the connectors into place, and tighten it back with the thumbscrew. We loaded the EN1060K with our usual barebones components (an M.2 NVMe SSD, an 8GB kit of memory, a 1TB 2.5” SATA HDD) that we’ll detail on the next page.

Software & Accessories

The Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U is a barebones PC, so it doesn’t come with an operating system or any software. However, the company gives you two options to load your drivers: a typical installation DVD, or a thumb drive. This is particularly useful, considering there’s no optical drive.

In addition to needing a Windows license key (about $100), end users of the barebones version will have to purchase their own memory and storage. A minimalistic dual-channel kit of memory will cost you roughly $70; a moderate-capacity M.2 NVMe SSD goes for around $120; and a 2.5” HDD can run you $60 or so for 1TB of space. All said and done, you will spend anywhere from $350 to $600 (if you really go nuts) just to get the EN1060K-U up and running. There are ways to get in the door cheaper (even less RAM, less ambitious storage), but cutting costs will slice performance in ways we wouldn’t recommend.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

We pitted the Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U against our H270 test bed, which is equipped with an Intel Core i5-7500 processor, an Asrock H270 Performance motherboard, 16GB of DDR4-2133, and a Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 6GB mini graphics card. The rig is powered by a 650W EVGA Supernova G3 PSU and housed in a Thermaltake Versa H22 mid-tower case.

Comparison Products

Gigabyte BRIX Gaming VR (Barebones)

MSI G25 Vortex 8RD

Test System Configuration

We also tapped into the data from our reviews of the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD and Gigabyte BRIX Gaming VR barebones PC. The Vortex features an Intel Core i5-8400 processor, 16GB of single-channel DDR4-2400, a 256GB SATA M.2 SSD for primary storage, and a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB MXM graphics card. The BRIX sports a mobile Core i7-7700HQ with a custom GTX 1060 6GB MXM module, but we tested it with the same components that we put inside the EN1060K-U (a 256GB Toshiba RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD, a 1TB 7,200RPM Western Digital hard drive, a two-4GB-stick/8GB kit of G.Skill SO-DIMM DDR4-2133 memory with a CAS latency of 15-15-15-35).

3DMark

The Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U fails to impress in the 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy synthetic gaming tests. The Core i5-7500T under the hood is to blame, as it just can’t compete with higher-clocked CPUs (our test bench and Vortex) with more processing threads (the BRIX). However, the EN1060K-U keeps up with its competition in the Combined tests, which are the best indicators of real-world game performance (it pushes both the CPU and GPU). It also manages a Graphics win against the BRIX in the Time Spy test (helped by exceptional thermals, observed at 69C).

Cinebench R15

Shifting focus to the CPU, the Cinebench R15 results paint a similar picture. The Core i5-7500T inside the EN1060K-U is simply not as powerful as a mobile Core i7 and its higher-clocked counterpart, the -7500 (which resides in our H270 test rig). However, it manages to upend the Gigabyte BRIX Gaming VR in the OpenGL test, falling just behind the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD and portending that the Zbox may make up for its CPU performance with some GPU horsepower.

CompuBench

The Compubench results give us a glimpse of the EN1060K-U's graphics proficiency, with the Zbox narrowly outperforming the Vortex with the GPU-intensive Bitcoin test and trailing it by only 0.05 FPS in the Video Processing benchmark. The Zotac offering also takes a lead on the BRIX, largely due to the thermal performance of each device. The BRIX trails the pack due to higher temperatures. (It topped out at 85C and would throttle slightly.)

PCMark 8

The Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U returns to the bottom of the heap in the PCMark 8 application tests; that is directly attributed to CPU performance. The Core i5-7500T inside the Zotac barebones offering just isn't as fast as the other systems in the field that sport higher-clocked processors. This is especially apparent when compared to the Gigabyte BRIX Gaming VR barebones mini-PC, in which we used the same storage and memory configuration as the Zbox.

PCMark 10 Extended

The PCMark 10 Extended benchmark shows much of the same results as our other synthetic productivity tests, with the EN1060K-U falling behind the pack thanks to its T-series processor. The Zbox comes close to catching up with the H270 test bed in the Productivity segment of the test, but the weaker CPU puts it behind the other systems in the field by several hundred points in all of the other benchmarks.

VRMark

As a VR-ready device, the Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U is able to perform well above the Oculus Rift's minimum requirements in the Orange Room test. However, it still falls slightly behind the rest of the pack due to the CPU. The Blue Room results push all of the GTX 1060-equipped systems to the limit, and none of them could handle VR with ultra-high textures and effects enabled.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Switching to in-game benchmarks, the Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U seems to fare better against its barebones competition, the Gigabyte BRIX Gaming VR. Running the GPU-focused Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation tests exposes the Zbox as contender, and the poor thermal performance of the Gigabyte offering puts the EN1060K-U in a more favorable light with real-world gaming workloads.

Bioshock Infinite

The Bioshock Infinite results tell a similar story, with the EN1060K-U pushing past the BRIX Gaming VR at 1920 x 1080 and 3840 x 2160. The CPU inside the Zbox gives it the lowest minimum framerate in the bunch, but the GPU performance is able to boost its average framerate ahead of its direct barebones competition. Bioshock is also the only game in our suite that is quite playable at 4K with GTX 1060-equipped systems, even with the highest settings enabled.

DiRT Rally

DiRT Rally is another game that doesn't rely much on the CPU for performance, and the EN1060K-U maintains its lead against the Gigabyte BRIX Gaming VR. Using the most-demanding settings at 1080p, the GTX 1060-equipped systems all fall slightly short of the ideal 60FPS average. At 4K, we're met with unplayable average framerates from all of the PCs in the field, but you can get there by reducing the AA, textures, and effects.

Grand Theft Auto V

The Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U takes its familiar position in the GTAV benchmark at 1920 x 1080, besting the Brix and falling behind the Vortex with an average framerate of 36.39 FPS. However, it still fetches the lowest minimum framerate at this resolution by a longshot, and you'll have to reduce the detail settings to get to a target 60 FPS. At 3840 x 2160, a GTX 1060 graphics card is brought to unplayable framerates with the eye candy at max, and the BRIX manages to push a slightly better average framerate than even the Vortex. That is a testament to the EN1060K-U's thermal performance.

Hitman

The Direct3D 12 version of the Hitman benchmark favors CPU performance, and it's because of this we see the Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U fall to the bottom of the chart again. This is particularly noticeable at 1920 x 1080, where the Zbox nets the lowest minimum framerate. However, it still averages above 60 FPS with all of highest detail settings enabled at 1080p. Turning up the resolution to 3840 x 2160 pushes the bottleneck to the GPU, and the Brix's lead over the Zbox is less pronounced. The EN1060K-U also manages to achieve a better minimum framerate than the Gaming VR at 4K.

Middle Earth: Shadows of War

Shadows of War is a great game to weed out GPU performance discrepancies, and the Zbox is shown in a more positive light by netting the same average framerate as the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD at 1920 x 1080 and 3840 x 2160. The Gigabyte BRIX Gaming VR was exhibiting poor thermal performance in our review, and it definitely can't keep up in a GPU performance showdown against the better-cooled Vortex and Zbox. At 1080p, you'll be able to get close to 60 FPS average with all the candy turned up, but if you want to game at 4K, expect to turn down the detail dials to get playable framerates.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

With all of the effects and details at their maximum, the Zotac EN1060K-U makes it past the 30 FPS mark with playable average framerates at 1920 x 1080 in Rise of the Tomb Raider. However, the eye candy cripples all of the GTX 1060-equipped systems in the field at 4K, with all of them achieving less than a 10 FPS average. Decreasing the settings will obviously net better performance, but the Zbox still triumphs over the BRIX with less than a 1 FPS lead.

The Division

The Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U ends our test suite where it started, at the bottom of the chart. The Division favors CPU performance using the DX12 API, and it's no surprise that the Zbox takes a backseat to the systems with better processors. However, the performance difference between the EN1060K-U and its direct competition, the BRIX, is negligible. It trails the Gaming VR by only 0.1 FPS at 1920 x 1080, and the Zbox ties the Brix at 4K.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U is meant for the living room with its trim chassis design, and it’s priced right at $900. It offers excellent 1080p gaming and VR-ready performance for considerably less money than other barebones solutions (see the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR, priced at $1,150). Although you have to purchase your own storage, memory and operating system, the reasonable price of entry can afford you better components (in both speed and capacity) without pushing the total cost too high.

The Zbox isn’t much to look at if tucked away in a niche, but that can make sense for a PC designed for the living room. (Our DVD players don’t light up like a Christmas tree; why should any other device in our entertainment center?)

There’s enough USB connectivity to attach an HTC Vive or an Oculus Rift, but you’ll have to do so from the rear panel due to the lack of an HDMI port on the front panel. This is by no means a deal breaker, but the feature has been making its way to many other SFF gaming PCs bound for the living room, and it seems like it’s the only thing missing from Zotac’s VR-ready GTX 1060-equipped Zbox.

Installing the components took all of three minutes, and we’re impressed with Zotac’s simplistic interior design. Even novices can easily figure out how to get it up and running with tool-less access that makes similar barebones products seem like a nightmare to configure. The USB thumb drive loaded with all the drivers is another small thing that goes a long way for first-time DIY consumers. It would be a tough order to find another SFF gaming PC with as small a footprint and simplistic a setup process as the Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U, and it’s one of the best designs we’ve come across in this segment.

The Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U does have a few drawbacks. The Intel Core i5-7500T processor inside is not the fastest Core i5 on the market, with a base clock of 2.7GHz and a max turbo frequency of 3.3GHz in lightly threaded applications. As such, it falls behind in CPU-intensive workloads against higher-clocked Core i5s (the Vortex and our test bench) and mobile Core i7 (the BRIX) systems. However, it doesn’t severely affect most game tests.

The gaming performance of the EN1060K is on par with the other GTX 1060-equipped systems in our charts, exhibiting exceptional thermal dissipation despite the appearance of having little to cool the components. We observed temperatures of 69C with prolonged usage, which is right behind the Vortex and its impressive cooling system (observed at 61C). The EN1060K-U handily outperforms Gigabyte’s GTX 1060 barebones offering because of its stable thermals, with the BRIX topping out at 85C (and throttling). This is apparent in our game results, where the ZBox upends the BRIX in almost every test.

We may be nit-picking with this factor, but M.2 connectivity is limited in comparison to other barebones PCs we’ve encountered. A single slot appeals to standard users, but it wouldn’t have been difficult to fit another M.2 interface for more advanced consumers. (The PCB certainly appears to have some space for it.) The Zbox has some appeal to enthusiasts (we can’t build it that small and have to install our own components), and more storage connectivity would be a sweet incentive for those on the fence.

The Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1060K-U offers the best bang for your buck that we’ve seen in the SFF barebones PC segment by a landslide, coming in at $900 ($250 less than Gigabyte’s offering with the same GPU). Enthusiasts can always make the argument that you can build something more powerful for less money, but you definitely won’t be able to make it this small. Those same enthusiasts also likely have a powerhouse full tower PC sitting at their desk. Having an exceptionally priced SFF living-room gaming PC with enough power under the hood for excellent 1080p and entry-level VR gaming can give them the satisfaction of doing it themselves. Plus, you'll get better-than-console performance at a smaller cost and size than the competition.

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Gigabyte BRIX Gaming VR Barebones Mini PC Review

Derek Forrest — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 02:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

Our recent Z270 desktop PC reviews put a focus on top-tier gaming machines leveraging the most powerful components available, with several of our review samples exceeding a price tag of $2,500. With the arrival of Intel’s 8^th generation Coffee Lake processors, the Z270 platform has seen its time in the sun. However, until H310 and H370 chipset motherboards arrive, 7^th generation Intel chips are still occupying many OEM product lines in the mid-range price tier.

With that in mind, we decided to take a look at a handful of these sub-$1,500 (and therefore still relevant) gaming rigs, specifically in the form of barebones mini PCs.

We’re familiar with Gigabyte’s BRIX gaming line—we took the Gaming GT for a spin a few months back, and we found the small form factor (SFF) gaming PC to be quite powerful at an exceptional price. Now, Gigabyte has an even smaller VR-ready machine: the BRIX Gaming VR barebones mini PC. Let's see if this Core i7 and GTX 1060-equipped game box can ride alongside its Gaming GT brethren in the halls of PC Valhalla.

Specifications

Exterior

The Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR is worthy of its name with its brick-like compact chassis, which takes form as a tall yet small 8.66 x 4.33 x 4.33-inch box that can easily find its place in your living room entertainment center. The casing is made of black metal and plastic, giving it a sleek look. The top of the device features an LED light that glows white and illuminates the ventilation around it. The bottom of the chassis is also ventilated, acting as an air intake, which forces fresh air to rise over the interior components and out the top.

From the front, the Brix Gaming VR is stoic and unblemished with a black plastic shroud, but the rear of the system sports a variety of connectivity options. There are two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (a Type-C and Type-A) capable of data transfer speeds up to 10 Gb/s and three USB 3.0 ports. This is enough USB connectivity to support both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive VR HMDs, but in the case of the Rift (with Touch), you’ll be left with just one Type-A port to connect any other peripherals. However, you can also connect a keyboard and mouse via Bluetooth if you want to reserve the USB ports for VR devices, as the name of the PC suggests.

For display output, the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR includes two mini DisplayPort 1.3 and two HDM 2.0 interfaces, making the device adept for multiple displays and VR HMDs. An Intel i219LM gigabit Ethernet port or Intel WirelessAC 8265 802.11ac WiFi will get you connected, and the overall design of the Brix Gaming VR makes a strong case for placement in your living room.

The Brix Gaming VR gets its power from a 180W adapter, drawing about as much juice as a laptop with its mobile components.

Interior

Under the hood, the Gigbyte Brix Gaming VR features an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor clocked at 2.8 GHz with a maximum turbo frequency of 3.8 GHz in lightly threaded applications. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB graphics card inside the Brix Gaming VR is an MXM card, and it should provide comparable performance to that of a full-fledged desktop GTX 1060 6GB graphics card.

As a barebones system, memory and storage (and an operating system) aren’t provided, but you can equip the Gaming VR with two DDR4-2133 SO-DIMM modules, up to two M.2 2880 devices (PCIe or SATA), and a 2.5” SATA drive (SSD or HDD). Ideally, a moderate-sized M.2 SSD and high-capacity 2.5” HDD would make for a sweet storage pairing in the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR.

To get to the component slots, you have to remove the four screws at the bottom of the chassis and pop out the plastic part of the bottom panel. Slide the plastic part of the case upwards and away from the metal. With the innards of the Brix Gaming VR exposed, locate the side covered with the metal plate and remove the two screws holding it in place. Lift up and swing the metal panel away from the centrifuge (it has a sort of floating hinge) and carefully unplug the fan and power cables connected between the boards to allow the board to swing fully away from the device and give you access to the M.2 and memory slots.

We equipped the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR with a 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD, a 1TB 2.5” 7,200 RPM HDD and an 8GB (2 x 4GB) kit of DDR4-2133 (we’ll detail the specific parts on the next page), and after freeing the removable board from the tiny chassis, installing the components is a breeze. The M.2 slots, mounting posts, and screws are easily accessible on the same board as the SO-DIMM memory slots, and both are equally easy to install using the instructions Gigabyte provides. Once the M.2 storage and memory are installed, return the board to its original position (making sure to plug in the fan and power cables) and secure it to the chassis with the screws.

The 2.5” drive bay is on the other side of this panel (where the large heatsink is located), and it can be accessed by removing the two screws on either side of it and lifting the tray up and out of the centrifuge. The SATA power and data cable is taped to the nearby heatsink. Secure your 2.5” drive of choice in the metal tray with the provided screws, plug in the SATA connector, and replace the cage to the chassis. Finish up by screwing down the drive bay, sliding the plastic shroud back over the exposed components, and reattaching the bottom panel.

Software And Accessories

The Gigabyte Brix VR doesn’t come with an operating system or any software, with the exception of the driver disk. You’re on your own when it comes to obtaining a Windows installation, and that easily adds at least $100 to the bill. Combine that with a minimalist kit of memory ($70), a moderate capacity M.2 NVMe SSD ($120), and a 2.5” HDD ($60), and you will spend somewhere around an additional $350 just to get the Brix VR up and running. You could equip the device with even less ambitious components (just an HDD, even less RAM), but the cost savings would impact performance significantly.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

We compared Gigabyte's Brix Gaming VR to the recently reviewed MSI G25 Vortex 8RD, which also features a custom MXM GeForce GTX 1060 6GB graphics card and delivers a desirable small form factor. It uses an Intel Core i5-8400 CPU. The Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR also falls into the same sub-$1500 price point as the Vortex (after you add storage, memory, and an operating system). We also made a new H270 platform equipped with an Intel Core i5-7500 and an ASRock H270 Performance motherboard to see how a similarly equipped desktop with a locked CPU would perform against Gigabyte’s sample with a locked mobile CPU. You can see the full specifications of our H270 test platform below.

Comparison Products

Gigabyte BRIX Gaming VR (Barebones)

MSI G25 Vortex 8RD

H270 Test System Configuration

We also tapped into the data from our Z270 test bench, which is equipped with an Intel Core i7-7700K clocked at the default frequencies. We anticipate the Brix Gaming VR should fall in line somewhere between the two reference systems in CPU-intensive tasks. Both of our desktop reference systems were tested with a Zotac GTX 1060 6GB mini graphics card, which sports Nvidia’s stock clock rates. This should provide an adequate baseline to compare with Nvidia’s mobile counterparts.

Z270 Test System Configuration

For these barebones system reviews, we used the same set of storage and memory for testing. This includes an 8GB (2 x 4GB) kit of G.Skill SO-DIMM DDR4-2133 memory with a CAS latency of 15-15-15-35 and a 256GB Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD. Since these components affect a variety of our synthetic benchmarks, we excluded our usual Storage and Memory Bandwidth results, as they will vary based on what the end user ultimately chooses to put in a barebones PC. These parts will also affect productivity workloads where memory bandwidth and storage speed is a factor, but we still chose to include these metrics because we are using the same set of components across all of the barebones PCs we test.

3DMark

The Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR performs in the same ballpark as its similarly equipped desktop competition in the 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks, but it falls noticeably behind its direct competition, the MSI G25 Vortex, in the graphics portions of the tests. This is likely the result of lower peak GPU clock rates, with the Brix throttling back to the base clock rate fairly often thanks to temperatures reaching up to 85°C. However, the Gaming VR manages to net better CPU performance than our H270 test rig (equipped with a Core i5-7500), and it narrowly trails the Vortex's Core i5-8400, showing that Intel's 8th-generation, six-core desktop CPU has better multi-core performance chops than the previous generation's mobile i7 offering.

Cinebench R15

With CPU performance under the microscope in the Cinebench R15 benchmark, the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR performs similarly to what the 3DMark CPU tests laid out, lagging behind the pack in single-threaded and OpenGL workloads. Again, the Gaming VR bests our H270 reference system in the multi-threaded portion of the test, with the hyper-threaded quad-core i7-7700HQ under the hood beating the Core i5-7500's four cores.

CompuBench

The Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR clearly has a slight GPU disadvantage compared to the G25 Vortex, falling behind the MSI-branding competition in the CompuBench Video Processing and Bitcoin Mining tests. Although the margin is small, it continues to point out a performance gap between Gigabyte's MXM GeForce GTX 1060 6GB graphics card and MSI's custom MXM card.

PCMark 8

Performance in the PCMark 8 application benchmarks are a mixed bag of results for the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR. It falls significantly behind the other GTX 1060-equipped PCs in the field in the Adobe Creative test, but it manages to outpace the H270 reference system in the Microsoft Office application workloads. Storage and memory-intensive workload performance (especially Adobe software) will vary depending on what you install in your barebones Brix, but we can confidently say that the Gaming VR performs slightly behind other options.

PCMark 10 Extended

The PCMark 10 Extended results give us a more varied look at specific productivity workload performance, and the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR is able to finally lift itself out of the bottom slot in the chart by outperforming our H270 reference system. The Brix Gaming VR still falls behind the H270 rig (and other GTX 1060-equipped PCs) in the Gaming test, but a close score in the Essentials benchmark, and comfortable leads in the Productivity and Digital Content Creation portion of the test gives the Brix a higher overall score. Again, our particular storage and memory setup has a significant impact on this, and your choice of hardware may prove better or worse in these particular workloads.

VRMark

VRMark tells a similar gaming performance story. The Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR falls behind the desktop GPU-equipped competition and the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD. However, the Brix exceeds the minimum recommended performance for the Oculus Rift in the Orange Room test. Pushing the detail settings higher with the Blue Room test crushes all of the GTX 1060-equipped systems in the field.

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Gaming Benchmarks

For this particular review, we excluded 2560 x 1440 test results. We did this because the mobile GPU would not run this resolution in full screen mode (although we could have run the tests with windowed resolutions), and these systems are meant for the living room, where 1080p and 4K TVs are more common.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

The Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR starts the gaming benchmarks at the bottom of the heap, trailing the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD in average framerates by about 14% in the Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation tests at 1920 x 1080 and 3840 x 2160. This benchmark is known to stress the CPU more than the GPU, but the results indicate that the Brix Gaming VR is behind the pack on both fronts.

Bioshock Infinite

The Bioshock Infinite results are less damning, with the Brix Gaming VR coming in behind the G25 Vortex in average framerate by 4% at 1920 x 1080 and by 3% at 3840 x 2160. Bioshock is also acceptable to play at 4K, with all of the GTX 1060-equipped systems netting above a 30 FPS average with all the settings at maximum.

DiRT Rally

Again, the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR performs just slightly behind the G25 Vortex in the DiRT Rally benchmarks, highlighted by lower minimum framerates at 1920 x 1080 and 3840 x 2160. The desktop CPUs inside the competition simply achieve better peak clock rates, and the Brix Gaming VR is more on par with a similarly equipped laptop (which still isn't too shabby).

Grand Theft Auto V

The slight CPU disadvantage of the Brix Gaming VR once again places it at the bottom of the chart. GTAV is especially taxing with the detail settings at maximum, and all of the GTX 1060-equipped PCs struggle to achieve above a 30 FPS average at 1920 x 1080. It's unreasonable to expect playable framerates at 4K without drastically reducing the eye candy.

Hitman

Similar to Bioshock Infinite, the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR fares better at 1920 x 1080 in the Hitman benchmarks, achieving an average framerate above a desirable 60 FPS (65.6 FPS to be exact). Turning up the resolution to 3840 x 2160 doesn't do any favors for the mobile GPU-equipped PCs in the field. Whereas the desktop samples are able to achieve just under a playable 30 FPS average at 4K with all the settings at maximum, the Vortex and Brix Gaming VR trail them by a few FPS. The Brix only falls behind the Vortex by less than 1 FPS, but both systems require less demanding settings for playable framerates at 4K.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is another hardware-heavy title that brings all of the GTX 1060-equipped systems to single-digit framerates at 4K. However, at 1920 x 1080, the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR is able to average above a playable 30 FPS with all the details and AA and their highest settings. Once again we see the Brix trail the Vortex, but with the GPU clearly being the bottleneck, this disadvantage is much smaller than we've seen in other games.

The Division

We see more of the same results in The Division, with the Brix achieving a 47.2 FPS average framerate at 1920 x 1080 with the highest settings. It again falls behind the Vortex (by 3.5 FPS), and although we see better average framerates in this game at 4K than some of the others we've tested, it's still highly recommended that you turn the detail and AA dials way down if you want to play at 3840 x 2160.

Middle Earth: Shadows of War

Our newest game in the test suite gives a great indication of GPU performance (both of our test rigs with different CPUs achieve the same average framerate), and the Brix Gaming VR again falls behind the Vortex in Middle Earth: Shadows of War. The difference between Gigabyte and MSI's MXM GTX 1060 is small, but the slight GPU memory overclock of the MSI G25 Vortex (along with better observed thermals) puts the Gigabyte a few FPS behind it in the majority of our GPU-intensive tests.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR is one of the smallest gaming PCs we've ever tested. It's about the size of a Google Home or Amazon Echo, and it packs considerable gaming horsepower. The Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor and GeForce GTX 1060 6GB graphics card will get you in the door for VR gaming and will provide excellent framerates in many AAA game titles at 1920 x 1080. However, you may have to back down the details to get the most out of Gigabyte's SFF gaming PC. 4K gaming is not the ideal intent for the Brix Gaming VR (or any other GTX 1060 equipped PC).

Size is the primary consideration factor for the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR. It doesn't get much smaller than this. The tiny chassis can easily find a home in a living room entertainment center, and at full load the sound is comparable to a full-sized desktop PC at idle (it's not noisy). As a barebones PC, there is also an appeal to enthusiast consumers looking for an ultra-compact PC that requires a bit of technical knowledge to use (you have to install your own memory, storage, and operating system).

The chassis is easy to open, but we thought accessing the component interfaces (M.2, SATA, memory SO-DIMMs) was a bit awkward (the included instructions were also of little help). The best advice we can offer is to mind the attached cables when removing the main panel to install RAM and M.2 storage; our review sample's main power cable clip (attached to the removable panel) was broken (presumably from a prior review) from what appeared to be too much pressure on the cable when the board is pulled away to expose the interior. We were able to reattach it and use the device, but it's important to detach all the visible cables as you delicately open the system.

The compact design and quiet fans don't come without drawbacks. There's not much USB connectivity to go around. With only four Type-A ports, you'll have a problem connecting an Oculus Rift with Touch unless you opt for a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Another serious issues is thermal performance. We observed GPU temperatures reaching 85°C (the maximum operating temperature before it throttles), which resulted in lower peak sustained clock rates compared to the direct competition, the MSI G25 Vortex (which also features an MXM GTX 1060). As such, the Brix Gaming VR falls behind the pack ever so slightly in our GPU-intensive benchmarks. That performance drop appears to be the price of ultra-compact PC gaming.

At $1,150, the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR comes in at an attractive price on paper, but you'll spend anywhere from $250 to $600 more to add your own memory, storage, and OS (depending on how crazy you get with your memory and storage performance and capacity). This brings your total cost of ownership more in line with what the competition is asking for its fully assembled SFF PC (the G25 Vortex, priced at $1,500). Consequently, the Gigabyte Brix Gaming VR doesn't have as strong of a price-to-performance ratio as its base pricing may suggest. If performance is your primary deciding factor, there are other options in this price point that offer better thermal (and therefore, GPU) performance.

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Do The Meltdown and Spectre Patches Affect PC Gaming Performance? 10 CPUs Tested

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 14:00:01 +0000

Gaming With Meltdown And Spectre

Imagine that nearly every PC, server, and mobile phone on the planet was suddenly vulnerable to data theft at the hands of nefarious actors. Then, imagine the exploit responsible for this vulnerability couldn't be detected by antivirus software because it merely took advantage of normal CPU operations.

Although this sounds like a bad movie script, it unfortunately became a known truth during the first few days of 2018.

On January 2nd, The Register exposed Intel's then-secret Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities through investigative journalism. But unbeknown to most of the world, Google’s Project Zero researchers, along with two other independent teams, discovered the vulnerabilities 200 days earlier. As a courtesy, the researchers gave Intel, AMD, IBM, Qualcomm, and ARM a grace period to develop mitigations before making their findings public. Those companies, along with developers contributing to Windows and Linux, worked together behind a veil of secrecy for months.

Perhaps understandably, the initial response to The Register's report was chaotic because it preempted that planned group disclosure. What happened after, though, appeared to be a comedy of errors, especially given the amount of time affected companies had to prepare.

Then again, the firms were trying to plug holes that were baked into hardware and software for more than a decade. In fact, nearly every Intel processor since 1995 was found to be vulnerable, so fixing the issues without breaking compatibility proved to be a mind-boggling challenge.

The patches supposedly have performance implications. So now that the industry is a month into cleaning up its mess, we're ready to start assessing the damage. First up: game performance.

The Land Of Patch Confusion

There are two general vulnerabilities in play here, and they're broken up into three categories. Variants 1 and 2 are what we've come to know as Spectre, while Variant 3 is Meltdown. Intel, ARM, and Qualcomm are susceptible to all three, while AMD is only affected by Spectre.

As we can see, Variant 1 and 3 can be patched in the operating system, while the most nefarious bug, Variant 2, requires both motherboard firmware/microcode and operating system patches.

The initial industry scramble resulted in a flurry of immature and buggy updates. Because the patches weren't distributed as drivers, processor vendors couldn't push them out directly. Instead, they filtered out through Microsoft, Linux-based operating systems, OEMs, and motherboard manufacturers. A rapid sequence of patches, re-patches, and un-patches confused enthusiasts in the know. Everyone else had to have been completely lost.

This is how bad it got: Intel released a motherboard firmware/CPU microcode patch that could cause reboots, system instability, and potential data loss/corruption. Its partners pulled the update. Microsoft published a patch of its own for AMD systems that left some of them unbootable. It, too, had to reverse course, blaming improper documentation from AMD. A fix was released several weeks later.

For now, Intel doesn't have an operating system or microcode patch for Spectre Variant 2. AMD has an OS patch for it, but the company does not have a microcode update to offer. And because microcode patches will have the biggest impact on system performance, today's benchmark results are subject to change.

Intel says it will provide patches for CPUs dating back five years and then move on to older models. Many folks speculate that we may never see patches for those legacy products, though. Both Intel and AMD claim they will have silicon-based mitigations in their next-gen processors. Of course, it remains to be seen how each company works around their security holes without compromising performance.

For now, one thing is for sure: today's patches, particularly those for Spectre Variant 2, affect performance in some workloads. Older CPUs are said to be hit the worst. Microsoft predicts that "some" users with Windows 10 on pre-Broadwell architectures will suffer noticeable slow-downs, while "most" users on Windows 7 and 8.1 on comparable systems will notice a decrease in performance.

Measuring the impact hasn’t been an easy task in our labs. The changing nature of these patches complicates matters: we’ve begun testing several times only to have a patch altered or removed. We’re diligently working on the next round of application benchmarks, and are expanding our scope to include older CPUs. For now, let's focus on gaming with a good selection of recent Ryzen, Kaby Lake-, and Coffee Lake-based processors.

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Exploiting The Unexploitable

Meltdown and Spectre are vulnerabilities exploited through side-channel attacks, which are incredibly difficult to block. These occur when an attacker observes the traits of a computer, be it the timing of certain operations or even noise and light patterns, and uses that information to compromise security.

It all starts with data, of course. A CPU loads information from main memory into its registers by requesting the contents of a virtual address, which is in turn mapped to a physical address. While fulfilling this request, the CPU verifies the address' permission bits, indicating whether the process has permission to access the memory address, or if only the kernel can access it. The system approves or denies access accordingly. The industry assumed this technique securely bifurcated memory into protected regions, so operating systems automatically map the entire kernel into the user space memory map's virtual address space. That means the CPU can attempt to access all of the virtual addresses if needed, but it also exposes the entire virtual address map to the user space.

The problem has to do with speculative execution, which is part of out-of-order processing. Pipelined CPU cores process instructions in stages, such as instruction fetch, instruction decode, execute, memory access, and register write-back. Today’s processors break each of these fundamental stages down further, sometimes into 20 or more stages. This helps facilitate higher clock rates.

CPUs employ multiple pipelines to allow for parallelized instruction processing. That's why, in the image below, we see four different colors passing simultaneously through the four stages. Instruction branches can cause the pipeline to switch to another instruction sequence, creating a stall. That means the pipeline doesn’t process data for several clock cycles while it waits for inputs from memory.

To help avoid this, when the processor encounters a branch, its prediction unit tries to guess which instruction sequence the processor will need next. But it makes that determination before processing the instruction. The processor then fetches the predicted branch's instruction and speculatively executes it. This avoids the latency normally incurred if the pipeline stalls (due to the branch), and then fetching the next instruction from memory.

Depending on the address location (L1, L2, L3, RAM), fetching data from memory requires 10s to 100s of nanoseconds. That's slow compared to the sub-nanosecond latency of processor cycles, so having the instruction already in-flight speeds operation tremendously. Most operations are committed because branch predictors often have a 90%+ success rate. The processor simply discards the instruction and flushes its pipeline if the instruction isn't needed (misprediction).

Google's researchers found a sliver of opportunity in how the system handles cached memory access during speculative executions. Normal security checks that keep the user space and kernel memory separate don't happen fast enough during speculative executions that access cached memory. As a result, the processor can momentarily speculatively fetch and execute data from cached memory that it shouldn't be able to access. The system eventually does deny access and the data is discarded, but again, because this doesn't happen fast enough, a window of opportunity for an exploit is opened. Meltdown exploits the branch predictor to run code against the cache, all the while timing this process. That allows it to determine what data is held in the memory, as seen in the short video below.

In the case of Meltdown, an attacker can read passwords, encryption keys, or other data from protected memory. That data could also be used to assume control of the system, rendering all other forms of protection useless. The biggest concern for data centers is that the exploit also allows an application resident in one virtual machine to access the memory of another virtual machine. This means an attacker could rent an instance on a public cloud and collect information from other VMs on the same server.

Attackers can exploit this vulnerability with JavaScript, so you could expose your system simply by visiting a nefarious web site. Browser developers have updated their products to reduce timing granularity. But attackers can also just use normal code delivered via malware or other avenues to execute an attack.

For now, the Meltdown operating system patch involves adding another layer of security checks during memory address accesses. That hampers the latency of system calls, thus slowing performance when applications issue kernel calls. Applications that tend to remain in the user space are less impacted. Intel's post-Broadwell processors have a PCID (Post-Context Identifiers) feature that speeds the process, so they don't experience as much of a slowdown as older models.

The Spectre exploit is much more nefarious because it can exploit a wider range of the speculative execution engine's capabilities to access kernel memory or data from other applications. Some researchers claim that fixing this exploit fully could require a fundamental re-tooling of all processor architectures, so it's possible we'll live with some form of this vulnerability for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, the exploit is extremely hard to pull off, requiring an elevated level of knowledge of the target processor and application. Intel and others have come up with patches for the current Spectre variants, but it is possible that vendors will play whack-a-mole as new Spectre derivatives arrive in the future.

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Test Setup

Our methodology for this story is fairly simple in practice. First, we performed a round of benchmarks on our Windows 10-based systems. Then, we applied the relevant patch and repeated the tests. Although the Variant 2 operating system patch we're using was deactivated via Windows, it should represent worst-case performance for now. We did not use a BIOS with Spectre mitigations because none are currently available (they were pulled). We'll follow up with more comparative testing as firmware updates arrive.

We tested each processor at its stock settings, including representatives from the Core i3, Ryzen 3, Core i5, Ryzen 5, Core i7, Ryzen 7, and Pentium line-ups. Naturally, overclocked systems will fare better. And as always, we disable Enhanced Multi-Core Turbo on our test systems.

In order to avoid variance from GPU Boost as our GeForce GTX 1080 heats up, we use multiple runs from each benchmark in quick succession. We select the median value from the last recordings, so, in many cases, the patched/unpatched results could land higher or lower than each other due to the tight variances you'll see today.

Test System & Configuration

Hardware

Intel LGA 1151 (Z370) @ 2666AMD Socket AM4 @ 2667 Intel LGA 1151 (Z270) @ 2666 All 1TB 1500WWindows 10 Creators Update Version 1703, pre- and post-patch

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

Comparison CPUs

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X

AMD Ryzen 3 1300X

VRMark & 3DMark

We aren't big fans of using synthetic benchmarks to represent real-world game performance, but 3DMark's DX11 and DX12 CPU tests provide useful insight into the amount of horsepower available to game engines.

Futuremark's VRMark test lets you gauge your system's suitability for use with the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, even if you don't currently own an HMD. The Orange Room test is based on the suggested system requirements for current-generation HTC Vive and Oculus Rift HMDs. Futuremark defines a passing score as anything above 109 FPS.

Futuremark specifies a 3% maximum variance between runs if we adhere to normal testing best practices, such as ensuring similar configurations and drivers between systems, allowing the PC to enter an idle state, and conducting tests with the same environmental factors. Of course, there are sub-tests in suites like PCMark 10 that can fall outside the 3% window, at which point we rely upon averages. We didn't encounter those issue with these gaming-focused tests, though.

VRMark reflects a negligible impact from the patches across our entire field of CPUs. At times, the patched operating systems are slightly faster, but these values land within the 3% margin of error. That means those higher results are merely a byproduct of normal run-to-run variability.

The DX11 and DX12 CPU benchmarks respond to core counts and increased parallelism. Frankly, these tests don't show us much of interest. There is some jockeying between patched and unpatched configurations, but the results are uneventful overall.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation scales nicely with the addition of computational horsepower, so graphics aren't limiting us.

We observe minor variations between the patched and unpatched systems. For instance, a patched Core i7-8700K outpaces the vulnerable configuration. But a 1.6% delta is still within our expectations of normal run-to-run variance. We also don't record any extreme changes to the frame time or frame time variance metrics.

Notice that we split our results into two classes due to the sheer number of tests we ran. Be sure to scroll across the album for our comparison of Core i3, Ryzen 3, and Pentium processors.

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Civilization VI Graphics & AI, & Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

The Civilization VI AI test measures CPU performance in a turn-based strategy game, and tends to favor a mixture of physical cores, clock rate, and IPC throughput.

Our results are a mixed bag; half of the processors are slower after the patch, but five turn out to be faster. Our largest variance is 0.15 seconds, though, so its hard to ascribe any significance to the outcome.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

The results of our Civilization VI graphics test aren't any more surprising than what we saw in Ashes of the Singularity. There's little to no observable impact from the patches, and both configurations take turns in the lead. Ryzen 7 1800X encounters the most variance, and that's a mere .8 FPS on average (less than 1%). Even the 99th percentile metrics bounce back and forth between the patched and unpatched configurations.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

Dawn of War doesn't seem to be hampered by the patches either, although we do see our first result exceeding a 1 FPS delta. The patched Ryzen 7 1800X falls behind by 1.1 FPS, yielding a mere 1.2% difference. Again, it's a relatively mundane outcome.

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Far Cry Primal, Grand Theft Auto V & Hitman

Far Cry Primal

Far Cry Primal's Dunia Engine 2 responds well to high clock rates and IPC throughput. However, it also seems to prefer when we turn off simultaneous multi-threading, so you'll notice the Core i5 processors are very competitive.

We do see a bit more frame time variance between certain models, but the lead again shuffles back and forth between patched and unpatched configurations. That means we can chalk these differences up to expected variances.

Typically, our reviews include similarly-priced models, so the floors and ceilings aren't so pronounced. Today's exploration gives us a good opportunity to see how different CPU classes scale. For instance, the average frame rate delta between Intel's Pentium G4560 and Core i7-7700K is 27 FPS.

Grand Theft Auto V

The Grand Theft Auto V benchmark again reveals little variance between configurations, and a negligible impact on frame times.

We do spot several notable outliers from Intel's Core i3-8350K, but those occur whether the CPU is patched or not. We also record a 42 FPS 99th percentile measurement with the patched Core i3-7350K compared to the unpatched configuration's 47 FPS. That's one of the largest deltas reported in today's data.

Hitman (2016)

We're graphics-bound in our Hitman test, so there is little to no variation between the Core i7 and i5 processors.

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Shadow of War, Project CARS 2 & PUBG

Middle-earth: Shadow of War

We swapped out the aging Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor for Shadow of War during this round of tests. We like that its built-in benchmark is very consistent.

Shadow of War isn't as sensitive to clock rate and IPC throughput as its predecessor. We don't see much variance between the Core i5 and i7 models, which are largely graphics-bound. There is, however, more distance between the lower-end models. But there is only a 13.2 FPS delta between the Core i7-8600K and Pentium G4620.

Project CARS 2

We're also swapping out Project CARS for Project CARS 2.

There's a bit more scaling to observe in this title, with the slowest processor lagging the leader by 41 FPS. Regardless, though, there isn't any significant variance attributable to security patches (aside from a 1.7 FPS delta between the Core i3-8350K results).

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG)

This is also our first outing with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

Although we're using a saved game sequence to ensure repeatability, we recently learned that PUBG recordings can lag in-game multiplayer performance by ~4-8 FPS. This is an odd tendency because recorded game sequences usually run faster than actual multiplayer matches. Nevertheless, we recorded a few sessions with our tool and then compared them to in-game results using the same path. Sure enough, the FPS line charts didn't overlap, even though the results indicate similar peaks and valleys. That means the recording is an accurate representation of trends, albeit with slower frame rates.

That doesn't mean the results are any more interesting than they have been, though. The game engine simply doesn't scale well; we only recorded a 5.9 FPS delta between the fastest and slowest processors in our test pool. We probably could amplify this difference by reducing graphics quality. However, we prefer setting the eye candy to maximum for a more enjoyable experience, rather than deliberately creating a synthetic metric.

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Game On...For Now

This first round of Meltdown and Spectre patch testing proved fairly uneventful. There really wasn't much to report across our suite of game benchmarks. But that's partly because the status of patches keeps changing. We originally planned to test with both the operating system and microcode updates for Spectre Variant 2, which are expected to impose a significant performance overhead.

Unfortunately, Intel and its partners pulled the microcode patch during our testing, and AMD still doesn't have a fix of its own. We've been told that Intel's updated update is undergoing rigorous validation, but we don't have a time frame for its release. The same goes for AMD's Variant 2 microcode. Of course, we'll add test results with the new patches once they are available.

For newer processors, it looks like the operating system patch won't affect gaming workloads much, if at all. Most games are confined to the user space and don't make frequent kernel calls, so it's possible that the impact on older CPUs could be minor as well (game testing on those is in-progress).

The current patch does have an impact on storage performance, at least when it's measured with synthetic benchmarks. A laggy hard drive would obviously affect level loading times and the storage subsystem's ability to feed the game engine, possibly resulting in choppy scene transitions. We scrutinized our load times and cut scenes closely, and while entry-level CPUs did take longer and were less smooth, it's hard to chalk that up to a security patch because slower processors are, well, slower. We didn't notice any dramatic changes in performance consistency or frame time variance, so any minor impact would likely be limited to storage-imposed symptoms, at least with the patches as they sit currently.

Most of the vulnerability-oriented storage testing we've seen is happening at high queue depths, or using pure read or write workloads that aren't the best indicator of operating system performance. Most real-world accesses occur at lower queue depths, and radical changes in SSD performance, either for better or worse, don't correspond linearly to application performance.

The Spectre Variant 2 patches still loom large for Intel and AMD. Hopefully, both companies can deliver solid updates with minimal impact. We've heard that some applications can be optimized to minimize overhead. And Intel has mentioned that existing patches will mature into more efficient implementations.

For now we remain vulnerable to Spectre Variant 2, and proof-of-concept code is already popping up in the wild, unfortunately. That leaves us exposed while we wait on Intel and AMD, not to mention the rest of the industry, to correctly patch what could be the greatest vulnerability of our time. At least we can enjoy some gaming while we wait.

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MSI G25 Vortex 8RD Gaming PC Review

Derek Forrest — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 15:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

MSI debuted its new G25 Vortex small form factor (SFF) gaming PC at the end of September 2017, shortly after the arrival of Intel’s 8th-generation Coffee Lake processors. The new desktop defies a few notions about this particular product category. The G25 Vortex is a console-size PC measuring only 2.5L in volume but with some impressive hardware under the hood. Can MSI's $1,499 offering deliver on its promise of being a VR-ready PC-gaming system in the body of a gaming console?

Specifications

Exterior

The MSI G25 Vortex 8RD resembles a laptop (sans display) more than it conjures a desktop. The chassis measures a mere 10.98 x 13.03 x 1.69 inches (roughly 2.5L volume) and weighs only 5.51lbs. The device can be positioned horizontally like a traditional console or vertically with a provided stand. (It fits in the stand only one way, with the vents pointed upward.) Either way, the G25 Vortex won’t take up a lot of space in your living-room entertainment center, which is an ideal target location.

Laying the G25 Vortex flat makes it resemble a sleek gaming console, with smooth black plastic and eye-catching RGB LED bars on the top panel, the panel’s front edge, and the power button. The bottom is less polished, with multiple air vents illuminated by static red LED lights and rubber feet meant to hold it in place. The most aesthetically pleasing part of the bottom panel (aside from the lighting) is an etched MSI dragon logo, which is also where the device’s VESA mounting bracket is located. Setting the G25 Vortex upright (with the included stand) makes the vents less restricted from airflow, with the underside becoming fully exposed and the exhaust vents (on the left side, horizontally) located at the top of the chassis.

The front of the G25 Vortex features a USB 3.0 Type-C port and two USB 3.0 ports, in addition to audio jacks and an HDMI 2.0 port to connect your virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD). Unlike many SFF cases with a front-panel HDMI port, this is not a pass-through, and there is no extra wire required in the rear of the device to make the port work.

The back of the device sports two more USB 3.0 ports, another HDMI 2.0 interface, and a USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-C port. A gigabit Ethernet port (powered by a Qualcomm AR8171 NIC) or the onboard Intel WirelessAC 3168 will get you online, and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity can free up some USB ports if you're using wireless peripherals. With limited USB connectivity (only four Type-A ports), some Type-C to Type-A adapters may be required for those who want to connect more than just a VR HMD and a wired keyboard and mouse.

Interior

We found it incredibly easy to access the primary components inside the G25 Vortex, despite its compact size. Four thumbscrews are located in the corners of the "bottom" (the left side, looked at vertically) of the chassis; all we had to do was loosen them and pull the top and bottom panels away from the center to gain access to the parts under the hood.

MSI loaded the G25 Vortex 8RD with an Intel Core i5-8400 six-core processor, which is seated in a custom MSI Z370 motherboard and cooled with the company’s patented Silent Storm Cooling Pro 3. This consists of a series of copper heat pipes (four for the CPU, three over the GPU, and one for its VRMs) that run into a set of dissipation fins. These are cooled by two fans that pull in air from the bottom (left, when upright) of the chassis and exhaust the heat out the left side (top, when upright). The cooling resembles that of a laptop more than a desktop, but we don’t see much risk of thermal throttling; the interior of the chassis is spacious and has plenty of airflow.

The GeForce GTX 1060 6GB graphics card is an MXM module, surprisingly. Many SFF OEMs opt for chip-down (soldered) solutions, but MSI has higher-priced models of the G25 Vortex available with more powerful graphics, and the use of MXM likely makes the manufacturing process easier. It also makes it so that end users can upgrade the graphics down the line (after the factory warranty is expired; accessing the GPU will void it), so long as they can keep the new GPU in the same power envelope (150W). However, the downside is that MXM cards usually add a hefty premium to the total bill (at least more than a chip-down setup) due to the increased production cost for the OEM.

The G25 Vortex 8RD is equipped with 16GB of DDR4-2400 with a CAS latency of 17-17-17-39, but it comes in the form of a single SO-DIMM module, cutting out dual-channel operation and likely hamstringing the memory subsystem on bandwidth-intensive workloads. However, users will find it easy enough to access the memory DIMM slots (there are four of them, two on each side of the device) and upgrade the RAM configuration to something more suitable, if they so desire. Average consumers won’t notice the lack of dual-channel memory, but an enthusiast eye knows that two modules are always better than one, and it’s somewhat disappointing to see MSI intentionally nerf a perfectly good Z370 platform with single-channel memory operation.

The storage is accessible behind the smooth side panel (top horizontally, right side vertically), which hides two of the four SO-DIMM memory slots in addition to two M.2 interfaces and a 2.5” 1TB 7,200RPM HDD. One of the M.2 slots is occupied with a 256GB Samsung PM871a M.2 SATA 6GB/s SSD. This client model ships to OEMs and is rated for up to 540MB/s and 520MB/s sequential read/write speeds, as well as up to 97K and 79K random read/write IOPS, respectively. If you crave more storage speed, the M.2 slots also support PCIe 3.0 x 4 SSDs that you can purchase and install yourself.

Software And Accessories

MSI didn’t pre-install any trial version software (bloatware), but the G25 Vortex does come loaded with Nahmic audio software and the company’s custom overclocking and monitoring software, Dragon Center. The app gives users the ability to monitor CPU and GPU usage and temperatures, in addition to one-click overclocking and fan speed settings. The CPU is not overclockable, but you can boost the GPU core and memory clocks if you don’t mind increased fan noise from higher temperatures.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

MSI’s G25 Vortex 8RD is one of the first systems we’ve tested that features Intel Coffee Lake processors, so our comparison factors are mostly comprised of previous-generation systems. We happened to have an Intel H270 platform with a Core i5-7500 (the Core i5-8400’s predecessor) on hand, so we set it up and collected data to pit against MSI’s next-gen contender.

The H270 test platform sports a Core i5-7500 on an ASRock H270 Performance motherboard. We used the same memory from our Z270 platform, and Kingston shipped us a 512GB Savage SATA 6 Gb/s SSD to use in the reference bench. EVGA also hooked us up with a 650W version of the Supernova G3 power supply for the new test rig. Zotac provided us with a stock-clocked GTX 1060 6GB graphics card, and we used it in both the Z270 and H270 rigs. The full specifications of our comparison systems are listed below.

Test System Configurations

Z270 TEST BED

H270 TEST BED

We tested the MSI G25 Vortex using the presets in its Dragon Center software, with the performance mode set to Sport and the fan curve on Auto (this was how it was originally shipped). Our Z270 and H270 tests systems were both tested with stock CPU and GPU clock speeds and operation, with memory set to DDR4-2133 and a CAS latency of 15-15-15-35.

We also made some changes to our Productivity test suite, adding VRMark and PCMark 10 Extended to our usual list of benchmarks.

3DMark

The MSI G25 Vortex doesn’t fare too well against its similarly-equipped desktop brethren, netting lower overall, Graphics, and Combined scores across the gamut of 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy tests. The main cause of this is the mobile GTX 1060 under the hood; it performs—as we'd expect—slightly behind a desktop version of the graphics card (at stock frequencies). However, the Vortex takes the second place with its Physics and CPU scores throughout the entirety of the tests, with the Core i5-8400 performing better than our Core i5-7500-equipped test rig and just behind the quad-core (8-thread) Core i7-7700K in our Z270 reference machine.

Cinebench R15

With the CPU in the spotlight, the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD takes a more favorable position in the stack, besting our H270 machine (with the previous-gen i5-7500 inside) and falling slightly behind the previous Intel flagship CPU (the i7-7700K). Single-threaded tests put the Vortex only slightly ahead of our H270 rig, but the Core i5-8400 shines with multi-threaded workloads, putting the Vortex within arm's reach of our Z270 (i7-7700K) test bench.

CompuBench

The MSI G25 Vortex returns to the bottom of the pile in the Compubench test results. Although the Vortex manages to (barely) outpace the H270 test rig in the Video Processing test, its weaker mobile GPU loses a little over 20 MHash/s compared to the desktop counterpart inside the H270 machine.

Storage Test

MSI’s use of an M.2 SSD with a SATA controller may seem to be an odd choice, the 256GB Samsung PM871a SATA 6 Gb/s SSD inside the Vortex performs well, achieving just under its rated sequential read speed (of 540 MB/s) at 539.14 MB/s. However, the sequential read and random read and write IOPS performance falls short of the advertised speeds for the drive. Despite this, the SSD performs admirably (it even bests our reference SATA storage in write IOPS), and average consumers will appreciate the speedy primary storage.

Our reference rigs both feature the same brand of SSD, although in different capacities. However, while testing the new H270 machine (with a 512GB HyperX Savage SSD), our storage test results only varied from our Z270 test bench (with a 1TB HyperX Savage SSD) by less than 1%. Because of this, we simply used our data from the Z270 test rig to represent both reference platforms, since the storage is virtually identical in performance, despite the difference in capacity.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

Predictably, the MSI Vortex falls behind the dual-channel desktop PCs in the field during the Sandra memory bandwidth test. This is due to the Vortex’s single 16GB module of DDR4-2400 SO-DIMM memory, which sports a high CAS latency of 17-17-17-39 (which also doesn’t help its bandwidth performance). Because of this, the MSI G25 Vortex will lag behind systems with dual-channel memory operation in workloads that are bandwidth intensive.

PCMark 8

The Vortex’s speedy storage and processor give it an edge over our H270 reference rig in the PCMark 8 application tests. The Vortex also trails the Z270 platform by a small margin in the Microsoft Office application benchmark, but its Core i5-8400 can’t compete with the higher thread count and clock speeds of our Z270 rig’s i7-7700K in the Adobe Creative application tests.

PCMark 10 Extended

We added the PCMark 10 Extended benchmark to our suite to get a better idea of specific productivity performance across a broad range of application types. The MSI G25 Vortex takes its familiar second-place position over our H270 rig and just behind our Z270 platform, but the Vortex still finishes last in the gaming portion of the test, which uses a version of 3DMark Fire Strike to test the system’s gaming acumen.

VRMark

VRMark tells a similar story: the MSI G25 Vortex falls behind the desktop GPU-equipped competition, despite the differences in CPU horsepower. However, the Orange Room test shows that the Vortex exceeds the minimum recommended performance for the Oculus Rift, but pushing the details higher with the Blue Room test brings all three of the systems in the field to their knees.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Similar to our productivity tests, we made some changes to our game test suite by removing some older titles and adding some brand-spanking-new ones. We stopped using Alien: Isolation, GRID Autosport, Metro: Last Light Redux, and Thief, and in their places we added Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (to replace the previous Ashes benchmark) and Middle Earth: Shadows of War. As usual, we tested all games with the maximum settings, which for Ashes: Escalation is the DX12 Crazy Preset with MSAA x8. For Shadows of War, we didn’t pre-load the MIPS and disabled Dynamic Resolution and set the game to Ultra with FXAA only.

For this particular review, we also excluded 2560 x 1440 resolution test results. This is partially because the mobile GPU would not run that resolution at full screen (although we could have run the tests with windowed resolutions), but also because these types of devices are typically meant for the living room, where 1080p and 4K TVs rule the roost. (Note: you will see that a GTX 1060 GPU, in either mobile or desktop form, is not exactly adequate for 4K gaming, especially at these high settings.)

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

The MSI Vortex’s mobile GPU is going to be a thorn in its side throughout our gaming benchmarks when compared to a system with a desktop graphics card, and it starts testing off with the expected ~10% performance gap from the next closest reference system with a stock-clocked desktop GPU. Although there is only difference of roughly 5 FPS between our Z270 reference rig and the Vortex, the Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation results show that a GTX 1060 isn’t going to bode well at Ultra settings with demanding modern AAA games. Scaling back the detail levels and anti-aliasing will vastly improve your frame rates in a game such as this.

Bioshock Infinite

The MSI G25 Vortex 8RD provides excellent frame rates at 1920 x 1080 in Bioshock Infinite, netting an average of 113.05 FPS. This is still behind our reference systems with a desktop GPU, but this game isn’t particularly taxing until you crank up the resolution. However, even at 4K, the Vortex puts out an average of 37.28 FPS, which is playable (and easily improved without turning down too many settings).

DiRT Rally

The MSI G25 Vortex 8RD once again trails the desktop GPU-equipped comparison systems. At 1920 x 1080, the Vortex falls behind our H270 reference rig by 1.24 FPS. Cranking the resolution up to 3840 x 2160 makes the margin even slimmer, with only a 0.62 average FPS difference between the Vortex and the Core i5-7500-equipped H270 test system. You won’t be able to get playable frame rates at 4K without some significant reductions to the detail and AA settings, but all of the GTX 1060-equipped systems are able to provide close to a 60 FPS average with the maximum detail settings at 1080p.

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA V gives the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD its only second-place finish in the game benchmarks at 3840 x 2160, where the six-core i5-8400 gives it a slight edge over the previous-gen i5-7500 in our H270 reference machine. However, at 1920 x 1080, the Vortex remains at the bottom of the chart, behind the H270 test rig by 3.45 FPS average.

Hitman

The MSI G25 Vortex 8RD nets impressive average frame rates in the Hitman benchmarks at 1920 x 1080, but it still remains behind the desktop GPU-equipped comparison systems. At 4K, the reference PCs are able to almost achieve a playable 30 FPS at the most punishing settings, but the Vortex falls painfully short of the 30 FPS mark with its mobile GPU by 3.57 FPS. However, reducing the detail and AA settings will get you playable frame rates at 3840 x 2160.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the most punishing games in our test suite, and the Vortex puts out an average frame rate of 34.72 FPS at 1920 x 1080 with all the bells and whistles turned on. Reducing the AA will drastically improve performance, but gaming at 3840 x 2160 will be a tough task without reducing the texture details to their minimums. At max settings, none of the GTX 1060-equipped systems is able to reach double-digit average frame rates.

The Division

The Division is another hardware-intensive game with all the eye candy at maximum, and the Vortex again finds the bottom of the pile with an average frame rate of 50.7 FPS at 1920 x 1080. Dialing up the resolution to 3840 x 2160 again proves to be a tough order; not a single system in the field reaches beyond 20 FPS. Reducing settings will help, but it’s starting to become apparent that the G25 Vortex 8RD is more limited to 1080p TVs/displays, at least at maxed-out settings.

Middle Earth: Shadows of War

The newest game in our test suite is extremely GPU-focused using its Ultra preset, evidenced by the identical average frame rates of our Z270 and H270 test systems. (We used the same GPU in each platform.) As such, the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD trails the desktop GPU-equipped systems at a reasonably expected margin (9-11%) at 1920 x 1080 and 3840 x 2160. Once again, the Vortex demonstrates enthusiast-level frame rates at 1080p, but it fails to impress at 4K with the detail settings at max. You'll have to upgrade the graphics card for that.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The MSI G25 Vortex 8RD is a Core i5-8400 and GTX 1060-equipped, console-size gaming PC that was designed specifically for the living room. The hardware under the hood is VR-ready, and it’s easy to connect an HMD with the front HDMI port. There’s no abundance of USB connectivity (you get only four Type-A ports), and if an Oculus Rift with Touch (which requires three USB Type-A ports at minimum) is to be paired with the Vortex, you’ll have to either settle for one Type-A port or some Type-C to Type-A adapters to connect your peripherals, or use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

The look of the Vortex screams “gamer,” with RGB LED bars on the center and front edge of the smooth panel and in the power button, in addition to red LEDs illuminating the air vents on the bottom side (or left, vertically). The edgy design is subjective, but we think it’s fair to say that consumers in the 11-24 demographic will find it aesthetically pleasing.

The G25 Vortex is easy to upgrade, and it’s a good thing. The memory and storage that ship with the Vortex 8RD are mere starting points for enthusiast gamers. MSI disappointed us with the use of single-channel memory (a dual-channel kit would have provided better bandwidth performance), and although 16GB of RAM is more than enough for the latest AAA game titles, the speed and CAS latency are less than fantastic. The SATA 6 Gb/s M.2 SSD provides fast load times, but the capacity is somewhat minimal at 256GB. The 1TB HDD is also minimalist, and anyone with an extensive AAA game library would outgrow the device’s storage space fairly quickly. However, the storage is a good starting point for a new PC gamer (especially compared to the storage of a gaming console), and that’s the target customer MSI is clearly looking for with the G25 Vortex.

The use of an MXM GPU also gives the G25 Vortex a degree of longevity over other OEM SFF gaming PCs that use chip-down graphics; the end user could hypothetically upgrade the graphics card down the line (say, when Nvidia releases mobile Volta-based GPUs) if more performance is needed.

We knew that the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD would be a tough sell in a performance battle against DIY systems equipped with GTX 1060 6GB desktop graphics cards. Nvidia said we’d see about a 10% performance variance from the desktop version compared to the mobile GPUs when the mobile 10-series launched, and that’s roughly what we see from the Vortex across the range of gaming benchmarks in our suite. It doesn’t quite live up to the expectations of a 4K gaming machine, but no GTX 1060-equipped PC really is. However, if your living room sports a 1080p display, the G25 Vortex 8RD will provide excellent frame rates at High and Ultra settings in most modern AAA game titles.

The Vortex also excels in multi-threaded workloads against our Core i5-7500-equipped H270 reference system, thanks to its 8th-generation Core i5-8400 six-core processor. The higher core count improves performance in most of the productivity benchmarks, with the Vortex placing below our i7-7700K-equipped Z270 test rig and above the H270 system in CPU-intensive workloads.

At $1,499, the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD is not a value play for the hardware inside. (You could configure a comparable DIY system with a similar form factor for around $1,200 or less, with an OS included.) But the markup isn’t as considerable as some other custom-shop SFF options we’ve seen. For uninitiated consumers, we can see the Vortex as a viable option if they are seeking a powerful, console-size VR-ready gaming machine for their living room entertainment center.

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But Can It Run Crysis? 10 Years Later

Chris Angelini — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 14:00:01 +0000

A Decade Of GPUs, Benchmarked

“But can it run Crysis?” It’s a question that’s still asked jokingly when new graphics cards are introduced, even if the answer nowadays is almost always affirmative. But exactly 10 years ago, experiencing Crysis in its full glory simply wasn’t possible. Resolutions as low as 1680x1050 were enough to overwhelm the likes of Radeon HD 3870 and the once-mighty GeForce 8800 GTX. Let that sink in. The fastest graphics cards available were too slow for the game’s most taxing settings on relatively mainstream monitors.

Subsequent GPUs continued struggling for playable frame rates, and it took years before the averages approached what most of us would consider acceptable. By the time Tom’s Hardware stopped testing with Crysis, we were well into 2010, GeForce GTX 480 was taking on Radeon HD 5870, and not a single card averaged more than 30 FPS at 2560x1600 in this game.

Why emphasize Crysis’ top quality presets? Because, the game still looks gorgeous when you lock its options to Very High. Let’s compare:

Low/Medium

Selecting the Low preset destroys texture quality, disables procedurally-drawn vegetation, eliminates shadows, handicaps the physics engine, applies a static sky, imposes unrealistic water, dials back effects quality to a minimum, and disables depth of field. This isn’t how we’d want to play Crysis, for sure.

As you can see, just one step up from Low to Medium changes Crysis' ambiance completely.

Medium/High

Perhaps the most dramatic difference between Medium and High quality is the former’s lack of motion blur. The effect is especially apparent in this captured frame, where that rock in the ocean and the trees behind it pan left to right quickly. HDR lighting is missing from the Medium quality screenshot, creating a universally brighter and less authentic scene.

Memory use jumps more going from Medium to High quality than any other transition available in Crysis’ settings.

High/Very High

The Very High preset has a subtler effect on quality than going from Low to Medium or Medium to High. However, a side-by-side comparison reveals clear differences in lighting, shadows, water rendering, foliage density, and texture quality.

DX9/DX10

And how about the difference between DirectX 9 and DirectX 10? You’d probably have a hard time distinguishing one from the other without the in-game info. And the performance delta that once existed between modes is far less prevalent after the work Crytek did to patch Crysis in the months following its introduction.

All of the benchmarks we’re running today invoke DirectX 10 in a 64-bit environment.

How We Tested Crysis

We threw around a number of different ideas for the 10-year anniversary of Crysis, and over the next few of days, you’re going to see us benchmark the game in a couple of ways. To start, though, we’re taking flagship graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia spanning the last decade, and comparing their performance.

On the AMD side, this gives us:

Radeon HD 3870
Radeon HD 4870
Radeon HD 5870
Radeon HD 6970
Radeon HD 7970
Radeon R9 290X
Radeon R9 Fury X
Radeon RX 580
Radeon RX Vega 64

We had most of these cards in our library. The couple we lacked were quickly snatched up from eBay auctions.

Next, we gathered up a gaggle of GeForces:

GeForce 8800 GTX
GeForce 9800 GTX
GeForce GTX 280
GeForce GTX 480
GeForce GTX 580
GeForce GTX 680
GeForce GTX 780 Ti
GeForce GTX 980 Ti
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

Again, we had most of these. Gaps in our line-up were graciously filled by Nvidia, which pulled from its own library of cards.

While we debated pairing each GPU to its era-appropriate platform, that would have over-complicated our little exhibition, simultaneously adding variables to our graphics benchmarks. So, we dropped all of these cards onto our MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard, which was recently upgraded to host a Core i7-7700K CPU. The processor is complemented by G.Skill’s F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ memory kit. Crucial’s MX200 SSD remains, as does the Corsair H110i cooler and be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W power supply.

MSI Z270 Gaming Pro CarbonView Deal

Intel Core i7-7700KView Deal

G.Skill F4-3200C14Q-32GTZView Deal

Crucial MX200 1TBView Deal

Corsair H110iView Deal

be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850WView Deal

This platform runs the latest version of Windows 10 with all of its updates and patches installed. And that’s a bit of an issue when you’re trying to test graphics cards that stopped receiving driver updates more than four years ago, before Windows 10’s time. Nevertheless, we used a bit of creative engineering to get as many AMD and Nvidia cards as possible working under the latest drivers.

From there, we improvised by forcing AMD’s older boards to accept known-good driver packages. For instance, Catalyst 13.4 can be pushed through the Device Manager, even if the installer won’t allow you past a certain point. Nvidia’s support for legacy products is far superior. GeForce 342.01 adds official Windows 10 support for Tesla-based cards, including our GeForce 8800 GTX, 9800 GTX, and GTX 280.

We would have loved to use the old Crysis Benchmarking Tool for faster testing, but a desire for results at 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160 forced us to control each run by editing the benchmark_gpu.cfg file and running Crytek's built-in GPU metric. Why pick that test, specifically, when other timedemos yield such different results? Even with a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti installed, the most taxing CPU test pulled frame rates into single digits at times, making it clear that we wouldn’t be isolating graphics. Fly-bys are rarely representative benchmarks. But in this case, the Island GPU benchmark was commonly utilized during Crysis’ heyday, so we'll stick with it for comparing graphics cards to each other.

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1920x1080 Results

AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64 is more than eight times faster than its 10-year-old Radeon HD 3870 at 1920x1080.

Clearly, though, Crysis isn’t graphics-bound at these settings (nor is it host processing- or memory-bound—we checked). Instead, the game scales up aggressively through Radeon R9 290X, yielding a ~7.5x speed-up in the six years between Radeon HD 3870 and R9 290X. Impressive!

The biggest jump happens between Radeon HD 6970 and 7970, when AMD switched from its VLIW4-based TeraScale 3 architecture to the RISC single instruction, multiple thread Graphics Core Next design. The 7970’s Tahiti GPU boasts about 1.63x the number of transistors as 6970’s Cayman, boosting performance by roughly 1.65x in the process. Alright, so Tahiti also enjoyed the advantage of 28nm manufacturing. But it nevertheless went down in history as a big step forward for the company, despite stiff competition from Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 600-series cards back in 2012.

Although we’re not necessarily pitting AMD against Nvidia in today’s little exhibition, so many historical battles are repeated with the charts next to each other. Radeon HD 7970 and GeForce GTX 680 are at each other’s throats…again. GeForce GTX 580 has the edge over Radeon HD 6970, just as it did seven years ago. Radeon HD 4870 even trails GeForce GTX 280 by a hair, mirroring our findings from 2008!

Nvidia’s top-end cards are bottlenecked at 1920x1080, just like AMD’s. However, the ceiling is higher.

From the 2006-era 8800 GTX to the 2015 flagship 980 Ti, GeForce cards speed up ~7.4x.

Not that we had any doubt, but at 1920x1080, both AMD and Nvidia offer several generations of graphics cards that make Crysis playable at its lushest quality settings. Does the same apply after dialing in 8x anti-aliasing? Let’s check…

8x Anti-Aliasing Results

Switching on anti-aliasing (four samples per pixel, quality mode eight) does little to brutalize AMD’s many generations of flagships, cutting a few frames per second, on average, from our results. Lower-end cards maintain 90% of their performance with anti-aliasing applied, while Vega 64 achieves 96% of its original frame rate. You’re still looking at playable averages all the way down to Radeon HD 7970.

Despite a similar 8x anti-aliasing setting, Nvidia cards take a much bigger hit.

Then again, it’s hard to know exactly what technology is being used on the jaggies in this sequence; Crytek's settings aren't explicit on the matter. For the purposes of our exhibition, we’ll simply refrain from drawing comparisons between AMD and Nvidia. In a newer game, we’d perform a deeper analysis of output quality to ensure both companies are delivering similar fidelity. But it's kind of a moot point with Crysis.

Lower frame rates aside, GeForce GTX 1080 Ti remains bottlenecked at this relatively low resolution. A more taxing workload extends the difference between GeForce GTX 780 Ti and 980 Ti, though. Without AA, the 980 Ti was just 11% faster. Enabling anti-aliasing grows GM200’s advantage to almost 34%.

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2560x1440 Results

At 1920x1080, the four fastest AMD graphics cards were bunched into a <10 FPS group. But 2560x1440 is taxing enough to spread the field.

Radeon RX Vega 64 is about 14% faster than R9 Fury X, which is almost 30% faster than R9 290X. In turn, the Hawaii-based card is more than 31% faster than Tahiti. AMD’s first GCN-based board establishes an astounding 68% lead over Cayman. That kind of generational scaling is typically unheard of.

Similarly unbelievable is the fact that, 10 years after Crysis’ release, AMD’s fastest graphics card (with 18.7x as many transistors as the RV670 XT available in 2007) cannot break an average frame rate of 100 FPS at 2560x1440. It's about 11x faster than Radeon HD 3870, if that's any consolation.

A higher resolution has the same effect on Nvidia’s line-up. GeForce GTX 1080 Ti approaches a 20% lead over 980 Ti, which is 34% faster than 780 Ti. That card’s almost-47%-higher average than GTX 680 gets us back to 2012—and perhaps the slowest card you’d want to use for playable frame rates using Crysis’ Very High quality preset.

Now that we’re beyond platform/software bottlenecks, let’s see what anti-aliasing does to performance at 2560x1440.

8x Anti-Aliasing Results

It takes a Radeon R9 290X to average ~60 FPS in Crysis at 2560x1440 with 8xAA. And that’s an ~11% hit compared to the frame rates we recorded without anti-aliasing.

But the most interesting event, by far, is Radeon HD 7970’s victory over 6970. That shift from TeraScale 3 to GCN had major implications for AMD. GeForce GTX 680 might have absorbed some of the Tahiti GPU’s limelight at the time. But in retrospect, it was architectural milestone.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti maintains an average in excess of 110 FPS with 8xAA applied, hardly skipping a beat compared to its result without anti-aliasing.

Lower-end cards take a more pronounced hit: GeForce GTX 980 Ti achieves roughly 83% of its AA-free performance, while the 780 Ti manages ~77% of its average frame rate compared to 2560x1440 with no anti-aliasing. The loss is even worse for GeForce GTX 680, which slows down so much that you wouldn’t even want to run at these settings.

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3840x2160 Results

Ten years ago, we benchmarked the Radeon HD 3870 at a maximum resolution of 1600x1200, rendering 1.9 million pixels per frame at an average of ~15 FPS. Call that ~30 million pixels per second. Today, we have to manually configure Crysis to run at a resolution of 3840x2160, or 8.2 million pixels per frame. And AMD’s Radeon RX Vega does this at almost 50 FPS (~404 million pixels per second). Dang.

Beyond a certain point, AMD’s display controllers simply won’t work with our 4K monitor, so we’re happy to draw the line at Radeon HD 7970. That first-gen GCN-based board isn’t playable anyway, at just under half the frame rate of Radeon RX Vega 64.

Even fewer of Nvidia’s cards cooperated with our 4K screen, so we pulled the plug at GeForce GTX 780 Ti. It was for the best, perhaps, as that 2013-era card averaged just over 30 FPS.

The real news, however, is GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, averaging nearly 80 FPS at 4K in Crysis. Ten years on, and there’s exactly one gaming graphics card (we’re not counting Titan cards here) able to do this. Everything else from AMD and Nvidia fails to break the symbolic 60 FPS mark.

8x Anti-Aliasing Results

We include 4K anti-aliased results for the sake of completeness, but even AMD’s fastest graphics card fails to break the 40 FPS mark. Fortunately, frame time variance is low at this resolution, so our unevenness index indicates acceptable smoothness. Radeon R9 Fury X isn’t far behind either, beating Radeon R9 290X by nearly 34%.

But that’s nothing compared to GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which trounces Nvidia’s 980 Ti by more than 82%. It doesn’t even drop below 60 FPS through our benchmark sequence.

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Final Analysis

Our benchmark analysis makes it seem like we’re dealing with a modern game challenging the latest graphics cards. There’s just one GPU able to average more than 60 FPS at 3840x2160? Seriously?

Yeah, that’s Crysis for you. Talk about a load of cool data, though.

On the AMD side, it was interesting to track the evolution from TeraScale 1 (Radeon HD 3870 and 4870) to TeraScale 2 (Radeon HD 5870), TeraScale 3 (Radeon HD 6970), and ultimately the various iterations of Graphics Core Next. Specifically, the jump from a VLIW-based architecture to a scalar SIMT one showed through in every one of our benchmark charts. AMD’s Southern Islands ISA whitepaper from 2012 made it clear that GCN set forth to improve resource utilization, calling out stable and predictable performance in particular. The scaling we observed from Radeon HD 7970 and up bears this out.

Nvidia’s architectural evolution appears better-paced. From Tesla (GeForce 8, 9, and 200) to Fermi (GeForce 400 and 500), Kepler (GeForce 600 and 700), Maxwell (GeForce 900), and Pascal (GeForce 10), the gains are fairly consistent. Further, while high-end AMD and Nvidia cards are similarly bottlenecked at 1920x1080, the GeForce boards enjoy a ~10%-higher ceiling than the Radeons. Whether this is due to Crytek’s CryEngine 2, a lack of driver optimizations for 10-year-old games, or some other platform constraint isn’t clear.

We don’t often get the opportunity to chart several generations of graphics flagships against each other, so we came up with the idea to plot GPU transistor count over frame rate.

By tracking from left to right (frame rate), it’s easy to compare competing generations of graphics hardware. For instance, we can see how Radeon HD 3870 landed behind GeForce 8800 GTX (true to what we observed 10 years ago). Similarly, Radeon HD 4870 debuted at a disadvantage to GeForce GTX 280. But it used a less complex processor, too. In 2010, Nvidia introduced GeForce GTX 480 with performance that actually trailed Radeon HD 5870—doubly problematic since the 250W card’s GF100 GPU incorporated ~39% more transistors. Nvidia ironed out its issues with GeForce GTX 580, and AMD’s answer back, Radeon HD 6970, underwhelmed. The following two generations saw AMD and Nvidia trading blows. More recently, in 2015, AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X came pretty close to matching GeForce GTX 980 Ti’s performance in our launch story. But older games tend to favor Nvidia’s architecture, which is why you see GM200 and its eight billion transistors so far ahead of the more complex Fiji chip. It’s the last data point that hurts most, though: Vega 64 adds a ton of transistors, but lands quite a way behind GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

Assigning a launch price to each card yields a very different picture when we plot them over performance. In this context, Radeon RX Vega 64 doesn’t look all that bad in Crysis. And while you cannot find Radeon RX 580s for the $200 AMD originally advertised, it’s kind of cool to see Polaris serving up better performance than Radeon R9 290X for half the price just four years later.

We hope you enjoyed our little jaunt back in time with a game that, 10 years later, still looks amazing as it hammers modern graphics cards at high resolutions. If you still have a copy of Crysis it may be time to dust it off and take this title for another spin.

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Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB Review: Vega In The Crosshairs

Chris Angelini — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Meet GeForce GTX 1070 Ti

Did you think Nvidia was done launching GPUs based on its Pascal architecture? Despite a fairly comprehensive line-up of GeForce GTX 10-series cards, the company isn’t ready to give AMD the last word in high-end graphics. And so, it’s wedging a new model between the GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080. This one is designed to shine against Radeon RX Vega 56 where GTX 1070 faltered.

To prepare the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti for its mission, Nvidia channels a lot of GTX 1080’s DNA, including vapor chamber cooling and a five-phase power supply. Although the 1070 Ti’s GP104 processor has one of its SMs disabled, performance from the remaining 19 is so good that Nvidia forces board partners to standardize their operating frequencies. Otherwise, overclocked models would beat entry-level GeForce GTX 1080s out of the box.

A $450 price tag really doesn’t leave much room between existing 1070s and 1080s, so there will still be overlap above and below new 1070 Tis. Neat segmentation doesn’t seem to be the point, though. This card appears purpose-built to take Radeon RX Vega 56 out at the kneecaps.

Meet GeForce GTX 1070 Ti

GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is based on the same GP104 processor we introduced you to last May in our Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Pascal Review. The 7.2-billion transistor chip is a product of TSMC’s 16nm FinFET Plus manufacturing.

As you know, GeForce GTX 1080 utilizes GP104 in its entirety, exposing 2560 CUDA cores through 20 Streaming Multiprocessors. GTX 1070 was realized by lopping off five of those SMs, leaving 1920 active CUDA cores. Meanwhile, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti sports 19 SMs. Given 128 single-precision CUDA cores and eight texture units per SM, that adds up to 2432 CUDA cores and 152 texture units. Already, the 1070 Ti looks more like 1080 than its namesake.

GPU	GeForce GTX 1080 (GP104)	GeForce GTX 1070 Ti (GP104)	GeForce GTX 1070 (GP104)
SMs	20	19	15
CUDA Cores	2560	2432	1920
Base Clock	1607 MHz	1607 MHz	1506 MHz
GPU Boost Clock	1733 MHz	1683 MHz	1683 MHz
GFLOPs (Base Clock)	8228	7816	5783
Texture Units	160	152	120
Texel Fill Rate	277.3 GT/s	244.3 GT/s	201.9 GT/s
Memory Data Rate	10 Gb/s	8 Gb/s	8 Gb/s
Memory Bandwidth	320 GB/s	256 GB/s	256 GB/s
ROPs	64	64	64
L2 Cache	2MB	2MB	2MB
TDP	180W	180W	150W
Transistors	7.2 billion	7.2 billion	7.2 billion
Die Size	314 mm²	314 mm²	314 mm²
Process Node	16nm	16nm	16nm

Going a step further, Nvidia gives 1070 Ti a 1607 MHz base clock, exactly matching the 1080’s floor under taxing workloads. A 1683 MHz GPU Boost rating isn’t as aggressive, but again, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti’s plumbing is very 1080-like, so we might anticipate more overclocking headroom than, say, a vanilla 1070 and its heat pipe-based cooler. This is reinforced by a 180W thermal design power specification. Again, that’s GTX 1080 territory compared to 1070’s 150W target.

GP104’s back-end remains intact, including an aggregate 256-bit memory bus, 64 ROPs, and 2MB of shared L2 cache. But whereas GeForce GTX 1080 employs 8GB of 10 Gb/s GDDR5X memory, driving up to 320 GB/s of bandwidth, the 1070 Ti uses 8 Gb/s GDDR5, just like GeForce GTX 1070. If you were hoping this card would serve up superior Ethereum mining performance, that memory spec may be disappointing. Good news for gamers though, right?

Swinging At A Fastball

Architecturally, there’s not much more to say. You can see how GeForce GTX 1070 Ti leans more heavily 1080 than 1070, deliberately going as far as necessary to counter Radeon RX Vega 56. Nvidia really has no excuse if it misses its target here.

Had Nvidia gone much further, it would have eclipsed GTX 1080’s performance. In fact, the company required board partners to cap their operating frequencies to keep overclocked models from beating certain GeForce GTX 1080 SKUs. That won’t stop enthusiasts from overclocking 1070 Ti with popular tools like MSI Afterburner.

It will, however, limit what board partners can charge for GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, since they’re only able to offer bigger coolers and flashier features, rather than guaranteed clock rates. Prior to launch, models available for pre-sale all fell between $450 and $500—a mere $50 spread. In comparison, GTX 1080s ranged from $490 to $720, a $230 difference.

The samples we have in our U.S. and German labs top 2 GHz without much trouble. No doubt, it seems like Nvidia is giving gamers the wink and knowing nod by beefing up 1070 Ti and then shipping clock rates that protect its pricier model. Let’s get into some testing to see if Nvidia’s newest addition can earn a place between two well-established stalwarts in the company’s portfolio.

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A Closer Look At Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE

Nvidia's Founders Edition card sports a familiar industrial design. It satisfyingly well-built: the shroud doesn't just look like metal, it's actually made of aluminum.

Specifications

Exterior

The cooler's injection-molded aluminum cover is painted silver and black, similar to GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080. This does make its matte surfaces susceptible to scratches.

A metal fan shroud helps convey this card's exceptional build quality, but it also adds a lot of weight: the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE exceeds 1kg. It's very similar to GeForce GTX 1080 FE, though. The new card is just under 10g lighter.

A two-part backplate hides this card's PCB. But it's an esthetic add-on that doesn't improve thermal performance in any way. If you need space for a second card in SLI, or simply want better ventilation, remove both sections without fear of negative consequences.

The centered GeForce GTX logo, which lights up in green, dominates the top of Nvidia's 1070 Ti Founders Edition. One eight-pin auxiliary power connector is tucked into the metal frame.

This design is very mechanical, with lots of angles. All of those facets may not be to everyone's tastes. But they certainly make a statement.

Peeking into the end gives you a glimpse of the cooling fins and retention frame. That gap doubles as an air intake.

As with Nvidia's other Founders Edition cards, you get access to five display outputs through the I/O bracket, four of which can be used simultaneously in multi-monitor configurations. There's a dual-link DVI-D port, an HDMI 2.0 interface, and three DisplayPort 1.4-capable connectors. The remaining space back there is cut up into openings for exhausting hot air.

Say Hello To GeForce GTX 1080's Thermal Solution

GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE gets a significant upgrade from Nvidia's 1070 FE card in the form of a vapor chamber cooler, the same one found on GeForce GTX 1080 FE. The compact module is fastened to the PCB right next to the GPU package using four screws.

We now have 51 individual components on the table in front of us, and if you remove the cooler completely, you end up with 12 more.

The radial fan sucks air in from your chassis, blows it through the cooling fins, and exhausts it from the I/O bracket. Nvidia's retention frame serves double duty, adding rigidity to the board and cooling the VRM/memory modules.

Thermal Solution
Type of Cooler	Air Cooling, Direct Heat Exhaust (DHE)
Heat Sink	Large Hybrid Vapor Chamber
Cooling Fins	Aluminum, Horizontal Orientation, Tight Grouping
Heat Pipes	None
VRM Cooling	Via Cooling Frame
RAM Cooling	Via Cooling Frame
Fan	Radial Fan
Backplate	Aluminum, Painted BlackNo Cooling Function

Power Supply & Components

Nvidia borrows from its GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition parts bin for the 1070 Ti's PCB. Although GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE employs five power phases, an empty emplacement indicates room for one more.

The 5+1-phase design is enabled by uPI Semiconductor's uP9511 eight-phase buck controller. It cannot address the voltage converter phases directly, so TI 53603A solid gate drivers are used to control the ON Semiconductor 4C85Ns. These are durable dual N-channel MOSFETs with sufficient reserves in the DC/DC voltage converter category.

GPU Power Supply
PWM Controller	uP9511uPI SemiconductorEight-Phase PWM Controller

Gate Driver53603Texas InstrumentsOne per Phase

VRM4C85NON SemiconductorPower MOSFETDual N-ChannelHigh- and Low-Side

CoilsEncapsulated Ferrite Choke

Memory & Memory Power SupplyModulesMT51J256M32HF-80MicronGDDR5, 8 Gb/s8 Gigabit (32x 256Mb)Eight Modules

PWM Controller1 PhaseSingle Buck ConverterGeneric

VRM4C85NON SemiconductorPower MOSFETDual N-ChannelHigh- and Low-Side

CoilsEncapsulated Ferrite Choke33nH

Other ComponentsMonitoringINA3221Monitoring ChipCurrents, Voltages

BIOSWinbond 25Q40Kynix SemiconductorEEPROMBIOS

Shunts & Filter1x Coil (Smoothing) & Shunt behind PCIe Connector (12V Input Voltage)

Other FeaturesSpecial Features- 1x Eight-Pin Auxiliary Power Connector- Filter Choke at Entry

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A Closer Look At MSI's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G

All of hardware in MSI's Titanium line-up follow the same general design principles. Most obviously, they're dominated by matte silver surfaces. Aesthetically similar motherboards are already available, and now we have a matching graphics card to go with them.

We have to wonder: does the GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X's cooler work just as well for the lower-end 1070 Ti, or is its thermal performance overkill for a 180W TDP?

Specifications

Exterior

As you can see, the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G's exterior is smattered with silver metallic accents instead of MSI's signature red splashes. Otherwise, the TwinFrozr VI cooler’s cover might as well be part of the Gaming X family. Two 10cm fans with 14 blades dominate the card’s front shroud.

The backplate’s only function is to look good. That printed dragon logo is sure to catch eyes inside a windowed chassis.

MSI arms its Titanium 8G board with eight- and six-pin auxiliary power connectors. They're rotated 180° to avoid interfering with the cooler. Also visible from the top, MSI's logo is back-lit and configurable through bundled software.

Fortunately, the cooling fins are oriented horizontally, which helps direct some exhaust out the back of your case instead of blowing it down across your motherboard.

Axial fan-based coolers typically achieve better thermal performance and make less noise than radial designs. But they recirculate hot air inside of your case, and that's a problem in small form factor PCs.

MSI exposes five display outputs through its I/O bracket, four of which can be used simultaneously in multi-monitor configurations. There's a dual-link DVI-D port, an HDMI 2.0 interface, and three DisplayPort 1.4-capable connectors. Although the remaining space back there is cut up into openings for exhausting hot air, this card doesn't rely on them to the same extent as Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Founders Edition.

Cooling Solution & Backplate

The backplate sure looks nice. It also plays a part in securing the two cooling elements up front. However, the backplate doesn't help with passive cooling.

What makes this thermal solution special is its use of a shortened sandwich-like design. A cooling and retention frame sits between the PCB and heat sink's body. In addition, GPU and memory VRMs have their own separate sink.

The power circuitry's cooler is made more potent through the use of fins across the frame, adding quite a bit of surface area. These fins definitely benefit from the horizontal airflow moving through the main heat sink right above them.

A large number of pads between the chokes/caps and main cooler's fins helps draw heat away from those components. Speaking of the main sink, it delivers the same great performance we've seen from other MSI cards. A nickel-plated heat sink covers the GP104 processor, while five 6mm heat pipes and one 8mm one spread heat through the cooler's body.

Thermal Solution
Type of Cooler	Air Cooling
Heat Sink	Nickel-plated GPU Heat Sink
Cooling Fins	Aluminum, Horizontally-Oriented, Tight Grouping
Heat Pipes	1x 8mm, 5x 6mm, Nickel-plated
VRM Cooling	Separate VRM Cooler with Cooling FinsOnly MOSFETs are Cooled
RAM Cooling	Via Retention Frame
Fan	2x 10cm Fan (9.7cm Fan Diameter)14 BladesSemi-Passive Control
Backplate	Aluminum, Painted Silver-MetallicNo Cooling Function, Foil on the Inside

Power Supply & Components

MSI places its two memory voltage converters above eight for the GPU (giving the processor four real power phases, doubled). Because the VRMs are all lined up, the memory's VRMs end up fairly far away from the modules themselves. As a result, the hot-spot we complained about in our MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11G Review is no longer an issue.

Like Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE, this 4+2-phase design leans on uPI Semiconductor's up9511 eight-phase buck controller. It cannot address the voltage converter phases directly, so F6A4 gate drivers are used to control the UBIQ M3816Ns. These are durable dual N-channel MOSFETs with sufficient reserves in the DC/DC voltage converter category.

GPU Power Supply
PWM Controller	uP9511uPI SemiconductorEight-Phase PWM Controller

Gate DriverF6A4Phase Doubler& Gate Driver

VRMM3816NUBIQ (uPI Semiconductor)Power MOSFETDual N-ChannelHigh- and Low-Side

CoilsSFCSuper Ferrite ChokeLianzhen Electronics

Memory & Memory Power SupplyModulesMT51J256M32HF-80MicronGDDR5, 8 Gb/s8 Gigabit (32x 256Mb)Eight Modules

PWM ControlleruP1641uPI SemiconductorTwo-Phase Buck Converter

VRMBSC0923NDIInfineon CloneDual N-Channel MOSFETHigh- and Low-Side

CoilsSFCSuper Ferrite ChokeLianzhen Electronics

Other ComponentsMonitoringINA3221Monitoring ChipCurrents, Voltages

BIOSWinbond 25Q40Kynix SemiconductorEEPROMBIOS

Shunts & Filter1x Coil (Smoothing) & Shunt per PCIe Connector (12V Input Voltage)

Other FeaturesSpecial Features- 1x Eight-Pin + 1x Six-Pin Auxiliary Power Connector- Filter Chokes at Entry

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How We Tested GeForce GTX 1070 Ti

Nvidia’s latest and greatest will no doubt be found in high-end platforms. Some of these may include Broadwell-E-based systems. However, our U.S. lab is sticking with its MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard, which was recently upgraded to host a Core i7-7700K CPU, for performance measurements. The new processor is complemented by G.Skill’s F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ memory kit. Intel’s Kaby Lake architecture remains one of the company’s most effective per clock cycle, and a stock 4.2 GHz frequency is higher than the models with more cores. Crucial’s MX200 SSD remains, as does the Corsair H110i cooler and be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W power supply.

As far as competition goes, the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is rivaled most closely by Radeon RX Vega 56. Of course, we imagine that gamers also want to know how 1070 Ti fares against the faster/pricier GeForce GTX 1080 and 1080 Ti, so we include them in our benchmark results. Similarly, we add GeForce GTX 1070 to bookend the Pascal architecture-based hardware. AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64 is the other relevant entry in this class; it’s present and accounted for, too.

The 1070 Ti card used for our game testing is MSI’s GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G. Its performance should be representative of Nvidia’s Founders Edition board or any other partner card, since they all operate at similar frequencies.

Comparison Products

MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8GB

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FE

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 FE

Leading up to today's review, we completely revamped the software side of our platform. Installing the Windows 10 Creators Update caused all sorts of problems with PresentMon, OCAT, and our own custom front-end, but we thought it important to get our operating systems current. As such, we used a combination of OCAT 1.1.0 and PMG 0.9.21 to collect data, along with a fresh build of our log file interpreter to get that information into Excel. All of the Nvidia cards were benchmarked using driver versions 388.00 and 388.09, while AMD's cards were tested with Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.3.

Our conventional gaming selection now includes Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, Battlefield 1, Destiny 2, Doom, Metro: Last Light Redux, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, The Witcher 3, and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III.

The test methodology we use for the other games in our suite comes from PresentMon: Performance In DirectX, OpenGL, And Vulkan. In short, all of these games are evaluated using a combination of OCAT and our own in-house GUI for PresentMon, with logging via AIDA64. If you want to know more about our charts (particularly the unevenness index), we recommend reading that story.

Test Systems

We introduced our new test system and methodology in How We Test Graphics Cards. If you'd like more detail about our general approach, check that piece out.

In this case, only the CPU, RAM, motherboard, and cooling system are different.

Test System and Configuration
Hardware	Germany Intel Core i7-6900K @ 4.3 GHzMSI X99S XPower Gaming TitaniumCorsair Vengeance DDR3-32001x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming Pro CarbonG.Skill F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ1x 500GB Crucial MX200be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK
PC Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Extension Kit and Mods Configurations: Open Benchtable, Closed Case
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

Right out of the gate, MSI’s GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G impresses with an average frame rate slightly higher than GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition. How is that even possible, given the 1080’s extra Streaming Multiprocessor, similar base clock rate, and higher GPU Boost frequency?

Well, if we look at clock rate through our 150-second benchmark sequence, the MSI card does a much better job of maintaining performance. In the end, that’s enough to match the more resource-rich 1080…and the Radeon RX Vega 64.

3840x2160 Results

Our unevenness index is split into three groups: GeForce GTX 1080 Ti delivering the smoothest performance; RX Vega 64, GTX 1080, and GTX 1070 Ti serving up acceptably fluid performance; and the RX Vega 56 and GTX 1070 edging lower.

Nvidia doesn’t claim its GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is a 4K-class card. However, by dialing Ashes of the Singularity back to its High-quality preset, we can generate better performance than the previous set of tests at 2560x1440.

Radeon RX Vega 64 enjoys a big theoretical advantage in memory bandwidth, which undoubtedly helps it carve out a small lead over GTX 1070 Ti and 1080 at 3840x2160. Meanwhile, those two Nvidia cards, with their identical memory subsystems, continue serving up similar frame rates.

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Battlefield 1 (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

Radeon RX Vega 56 beat GeForce GTX 1070 by ~14% in our launch coverage of AMD’s card in this DirectX 12-based title. MSI’s implementation of the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti rectifies this by essentially tying Vega 56.

GeForce GTX 1080 maintains more of an advantage than it did in Ashes, beating the 1070 Ti by almost 12% to pull up even with Radeon RX Vega 64.

3840x2160 Results

That dominance continues through our 4K test, where GTX 1080 averages 11%-higher frame rates than GeForce GTX 1070 Ti.

Still, the results achieve Nvidia’s desired goal: 1070’s loss to Radeon RX Vega 56 is transmuted into a tie. And when you consider that, up until a few hours ago, Vega 56 cards sold for $470+, the two value stories sync up in Battlefield. That’s not ideal for a new GeForce, but it’s better than usual in a game decidedly friendly to the GCN architecture.

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Destiny 2 (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

Although Destiny 2 is a DirectX 11-based game, many of which favor GeForce cards, AMD’s Radeon RX Vega cards perform admirably against their GeForce competition. Vega 64 is 13% faster than GTX 1080, while Vega 56 beats GTX 1070 Ti by ~7% using the Highest quality preset at 2560x1440. In turn, our MSI GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G is 13% quicker than the vanilla GTX 1070.

Radeon RX Vega 56 does, however, exhibit more frame time spikes than any other card in our line-up, resulting in quantifiably higher frame time variance. Smoothness doesn’t seem to be affected much, though; the GTX 1070 appears less fluid, according to our unevenness index.

3840x2160 Results

Early benchmarks of the Destiny 2 beta showed AMD’s fastest cards trailing GeForce GTX 1070, so it’s surprising to see them do so well at 2560x1440 using the game’s Highest quality preset. But 4K isn’t as forgiving to Radeon RX Vega, even though we drop a quality level to High.

In this series of benchmarks, GeForce GTX 1070 beats the Radeon RX Vega 56. GTX 1070 Ti only exacerbates the difference. It cannot help that Vega 56 continues to suffer higher frame time variance than the rest of the field, either.

GeForce GTX 1080 similarly ends up ahead of Vega 64 by more than 12%, whereas it lost to AMD’s flagship at 2560x1440.

Despite its losses at 3840x2160, AMD clearly put a lot of effort into optimizing its driver since beta. We’re keenly aware that performance in Destiny 2 is heavily dependent on the settings you choose. Conceivably, at this point, it’d be possible to alter individual options to put AMD or Nvidia on top.

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Doom (Vulkan)

2560x1440 Results

Doom is another bastion for AMD; its Radeon RX Vega 64 is 12% faster than GeForce GTX 1080, while Vega 56 posts a 13%-higher average frame rate than the GTX 1070.

GeForce GTX 1070 Ti upsets that sweep with an 8% lead over Vega 56, though. It’s a token win when you’re comparing 130 FPS to 121. But Nvidia wants as many of those victories as possible now that Vega 56 prices are sliding closer to where they were supposed to be at launch.

3840x2160 Results

Frame rates at 1440p were high enough to justify using the Ultra quality preset at 3840x2160, too.

As in Ashes of the Singularity, our MSI GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G ties the GeForce GTX 1080 FE. Once again, this is attributable to a higher sustained clock rate enabled by that big Twin Frozr VI thermal solution. You’ll pay an extra $40 for it compared to a GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE card, approaching the price of a GeForce GTX 1080. In some cases, however, the premium conveys real value.

In this case, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is almost 24% quicker than a GTX 1070 FE. That’s significant enough to make Doom playable at its most taxing settings.

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Metro: Last Light Redux (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

Radeon RX Vega 56 is slightly faster than the GeForce GTX 1070 in Metro: Last Light Redux. But it cannot hold off MSI’s 1070 Ti card, which situates itself between Vega 56 and GeForce GTX 1080.

3840x2160 Results

Sagging performance under the Very High preset with SSAA enabled at 2560x1440 compelled us to specify High quality without anti-aliasing at 3840x2160. The result is smoother frame rates. Again, though, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti lands ahead of Vega 56.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

Shadow of War yields one more example of Radeon RX Vega 56 beating GeForce GTX 1070, yet succumbing to GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, if only barely.

Meanwhile, Radeon RX Vega 64 bests the GeForce GTX 1080.

3840x2160 Results

Relaxing quality to the Medium preset allows us to achieve playable performance at 3840x2160. There, GTX 1070 Ti and Vega 56 essentially tie. One day ago, AMD’s second-fastest card was still selling for $50 more than its launch price, resulting in similar value stories in Middle-earth. Aware of Nvidia's impending introduction, though, AMD found a way to get Vega 56 down to ~$420 (at least temporarily), making GeForce GTX 1070 Ti look overpriced in comparison.

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Rise of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

GeForce GTX 1070 Ti tells a more compelling story in Rise of the Tomb Raider, beating Radeon RX Vega 56 by 13% and GeForce GTX 1070 by almost 18%.

3840x2160 Results

Switching from 2x SSAA to SMAA softens the blow of running at 3840x2160. Most of these cards average around 40 FPS and lower, though. It’d be prudent to dial graphics quality down a notch or two, even if our unevenness index suggests fairly fluid performance.

A relative comparison shows GeForce GTX 1070 Ti still between Radeon RX Vega 64 and 56. Its 12%+ advantage over GTX 1070 is certainly welcome, though stepping up another $50 to a GeForce GTX 1080 buys an extra ~12% performance.

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Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

GeForce GTX 1070 and Radeon RX Vega 56 trade blows in Ghost Recon Wildlands, so it’s hardly a surprise that GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is ~14% faster than AMD’s card. Although we’re testing with new drivers from both manufacturers, these results largely mirror what we were seeing a couple of months back.

3840x2160 Results

Dialing graphics quality back to Medium is the only way to get “playable” frame rates out of most high-end cards at 3840x2160. Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is the sole single-GPU solution with enough horsepower to land in a different performance class altogether.

We certainly don’t enjoy sacrificing visual fidelity just to play at a higher resolution. If you aspire to play the latest AAA titles at 4K, we recommend saving up for the 1080 Ti.

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Tom Clancy’s The Division (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

Focused optimization from AMD means Radeon RX Vega 56 smokes the GTX 1070 by 15%. It’s all Nvidia can do to keep pace using GeForce GTX 1070 Ti at this game’s Ultra quality preset.

3840x2160 Results

We’re forced down to Medium details at 3840x2160. Absolute performance aside, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti again ties the Radeon RX Vega 56.

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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

Dialing in Warhammer’s highest detail settings imposes a substantial performance penalty. Its own tooltips claim that the High Anti-Aliasing option (which supplements FXAA by rendering to a higher-res off-screen buffer) can reduce frame rates by 50 to 100%.

These cards are all fast enough to power through Dawn of War III’s most demanding options at 2560x1440, though.

A tie between GeForce GTX 1070 Ti and Radeon RX Vega 56 puts both cards on even footing in our value calculations, given the comparable price tags we were seeing in the hours before 1070 Ti's launch. Of course, a last-minute move by AMD cut Vega 56 to as low as $400. We'll see if that discount sticks, though.

3840x2160 Results

GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is 15% faster than the GTX 1070 at 3840x2160 using Dawn of War III’s High detail setting. But that’s only enough of a boost to pull up even with Radeon RX Vega 56.

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The Witcher 3 (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

Whatever strangeness we saw in our Radeon RX Vega 56 review is fixed after re-testing with the latest drivers: Vega 64 now scales beyond Vega 56’s frame rate, as it should. That means AMD’s flagship outperforms GeForce GTX 1080 by a hair.

Meanwhile, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is about 11% faster than AMD’s Vega 56, landing just behind the GTX 1080. This is a great performance level for playing at 1440p using Ultra detail settings.

3840x2160 Results

The jump to 3840x2160 forces us to dial back quality to High. Even then, the frame rate isn’t as smooth. A higher resolution does allow the GTX 1070 Ti to catch Radeon RX Vega 64, beating the Vega 56 by about 13%.

Really, though, only Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is fast enough at 4K to earn our endorsement.

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Power Consumption

GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE’s power consumption lands where we'd expect, given its power target. That means it operates at the same level as the slightly larger GeForce GTX 1080 FE.

At stock settings, MSI's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G behaves in a similarly boring fashion, ending up just a tad above its 180W power target. The tiny sliver above this card's TDP is almost certainly attributable to those 10cm fans and a somewhat more involved circuit layout.

What really makes a difference is a power target ceiling of 133% (compared to Nvidia's default 120%). Using the highest possible overclock, MSI’s card maxes out at 233W, just under its 239W ceiling. At that point, voltage becomes the limiting factor. Not to spoil our overclocking findings, but it really doesn't matter if you dial in a 100% fan speed and 2.1 GHz or the standard fan curve and 2050 MHz.

The 290W peak that we observed isn’t a problem in practice. Today’s PSUs employ secondary sides with low-impedance capacitors that can easily compensate for or smooth over brief spikes like these. Let this be a warning if you're still using an old power supply, though: make sure it can handle modern graphics cards before upgrading.

Nvidia and, by extension, MSI have taken so much of the load off of the motherboard’s PCIe slot that it's now pointless to look at each rail's load to make sure it's in-compliance. Needless to say, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti passes with flying colors.

Extra Data: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE Measurement Reports

Click on a graph to view a larger version:

Extra Data: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G Measurement Reports

Click on a graph to view a larger version:

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Temperature & Clock Rates

Comparing the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G’s gaming frequencies to those of Nvidia’s Founders Edition card yields an interesting finding: the latter achieves a slightly higher GPU Boost clock rate in spite of significantly higher temperatures. Did we get a bad sample from MSI or a great one from Nvidia? A comparison using boards from Zotac, Gigabyte, Colorful, and Gainward suggests that we really hit the jackpot with our Founders Edition card, similar to previous launches.

Otherwise, the two boards act as you'd expect them to. Subjected to rising temperatures, Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE drops from its initial 1911 MHz to alternating numbers just above the 1800 MHz mark, whereas MSI's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium settles right below the Founders Edition’s range.

The stress test results paint a similar picture. Running the MSI card in an open or closed case doesn’t really seem to make much of a difference.

Our voltage measurements shed some light on those clock rate results. The Founders Edition card hosts a gem of a GPU. Its slightly higher voltages allow it to hit more aggressive frequencies. What are the chances we'd see two stellar samples? In fact, our U.S. and German labs both scored real winners, so maybe someone who pre-ordered a card from geforce.com could chime in with their experience using the comments section.

More Data: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE Infrared Pictures

The GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE exhausts all of its waste heat out the I/O bracket, so there's no point in taking measurements using an open test bench. Bottom line: Nvidia’s design is great for cooling, regardless of your case.

More Data: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium Infrared Pictures

MSI’s Twin Frozr VI thermal solution does its job well, and is almost inaudible to boot. Small changes to the GTX 1080 Gaming X’s cooler clearly have some noticeable effects. Most important, the memory hot-spot we complained about previously is gone. Some credit for this goes to Nvidia's use of GDDR5, rather than hotter GDDR5X.

The memory’s maximum temperature of 95° is never reached during our stress test, either. These are great temperatures to report.

More Data: Cool Down Process Infrared Pictures

These pictures illustrate the cold spots we get from MSI's and Nvidia's coolers. The GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE cools down uniformly across its surface, whereas MSI's Titanium 8G board has a much cooler spot above its GPU package.

Thermal performance is lost due to the lack of contact between MSI's VRM sink and the main cooler.

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Overclocking

Here’s the part that Nvidia doesn’t allow its board partners to pursue, but still offers up to gamers through utilities like MSI Afterburner: manual overclocking.

There is one slider you don't get access to, though. Voltage manipulation is locked out entirely. Other Pascal-based graphics cards can be tuned through small voltage increases. However, to protect GeForce GTX 1080, the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is deliberately handicapped in this one area.

MSI's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium has a theoretical power limit of 239W. Our goal is to see how far the default fan curve takes us without making the noise level intolerable. Conversely, we also want to figure out how high the GPU Boost clock goes if we let the fan spin as fast as it can.

All of the board partner cards our German lab received overclock similarly. However, the cards with a maximum power limit of 120% are at a significant disadvantage because 2050 MHz requires their fans to spin as fast as they'll go.

Graphics Card	Power Target	Fan	GPU Boost Frequency(After 30 Minutes)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE	120%	100%	2063 MHz
MSI GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G	133%	Auto	2050 MHz
MSI GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G	133%	100%	2101 MHz
Gigabyte GTX 1070 Ti G1 Gaming	120%	100%	2063 MHz
Gainward GTX 1070 Ti Phoenix GS	120%	100%	2050 MHz
iGame GTX 1070 Ti Vulcan X Top	134%	Auto	2063 MHz
iGame GTX 1070 Ti Vulcan X Top	134%	100%	2114 MHz

The resulting curves show how GPU Boost frequencies drop as temperatures rise.

The corresponding voltages show us that GeForce GTX 1070 Ti isn't held back by its power limit. In fact, an additional 6 to 8W wouldn’t have been a problem. Instead, voltage is the limiting factor.

Ultimately, an almost constant 1.05V pushes GP104 to an impressive 2126 MHz for a short period of time with the fan speed set to 100% (and while the GPU’s temperature is below 42°C). This is exactly one step below Nvidia’s maximum voltage of 1.062V.

Infrared Picture Analysis

We also want to know how MSI deals with the waste heat generated by an additional 50W of thermal energy. To this end, we compare the card’s stock fan curve to its operation at 100% duty cycle.

Even when those 10cm fans turn as fast as possible, our equipment only registers ~43 dB(A). That's less noise than many graphics cards under load in their stock configurations.

At 2050 MHz, we measure 68°C, which won’t be a problem for the board’s longevity. An 85°C reading from the memory is 10°C below Micron's specified maximum, while a 95°C peak above the VRMs is merely acceptable. In the long run, that number shouldn't go up any further.

Pushing the fans to their limit has a significant impact on thermal readings. Long-term operation at 2.1 GHz shouldn’t be a problem, since temperatures won’t be an obstacle.

The Pitfalls of Overclocking

So, what about some performance data? In short, it's not consistent enough for us to graph.

Our German and U.S. labs deliberately compared the same models and found that chip quality was dramatically different between them. Dialing in a 133% Power Target and +220 MHz GPU offset caused crashes on one board and not the other. In the end, our less impressive sample only allowed a +150 MHz offset, resulting in a ~2 GHz GPU Boost frequency with the fans running at 100%. This delta is large enough to cast doubt on any attempt at universal benchmark results.

Memory can bottleneck overclocking results too, even with a +150 MHz increase. Depending on the game and resolution, you might see 8%-higher frame rates at 2050 MHz, while in other situations you realize gains between 2-5%.

We simply need more samples before judging the overclocking qualities of GeForce GTX 1070 Ti with blanket statements. Some of you will get lucky, while others strike out. We're trying to manage expectations after running into our own inconsistencies.

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Fan Speed & Noise

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE

Direct comparisons between the temperature and fan speed curves allows us to examine their relationship.

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE doesn’t employ semi-passive cooling. Consequently, there’s always a minimum fan speed, though it’s not bothersome in any way.

GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE’s noise profile is similar to the GeForce GTX 1080 FE’s. Whatever differences we observe are probably attributable to a higher-quality GPU and its cooler operation through our test run.

The most audible aspects of this card's noise profile are characterized as airflow and the somewhat growling noise made by the radial fan’s motor. Lower frequencies produced by the bearings are barely measurable, and any noise produced by the voltage converters doesn't show up at all on the spectrum.

MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium

Semi-passive operation is implemented perfectly on MSI's card, with an ideal start-up pulse and balance. The barely audible fans are turned on well above 60°C, and the curve shows clearly that airflow increases continuously while the temperature remains constant.

The GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G’s noise level is even lower than its larger predecessor’s.

A frequency spectrum analysis reveals that the fans are quiet. Electrical noises that weren’t measurable using the Founders Edition card now make themselves known. This is because MSI's cooler barely makes any noise. Although we pick up on the voltage converters now, they are barely audible in practice.

Both thermal solutions have their advantages. Nvidia's Founders Edition exhausts heat out of your case, keeping other components inside cooler. Meanwhile, MSI improved on its already-great Twin Frozr technology.

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Conclusion

For more than one year, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 enjoyed uncontested dominance atop the high-end graphics market.

Although Radeon RX Vega 64 and 56 challenged both incumbents a couple of months ago, scarce availability and opportunistic pricing kept AMD’s solutions from generating enthusiasm commensurate with the company’s overplayed marketing.

Slowly but surely, though, both Vega cards are sliding closer to the prices AMD promised at launch: up until a day ago, Vega 64 sold for somewhere between $550 and $600, while Vega 56 was largely between $450 and $470. AMD managed some last-minute adjustments to try shifting favor in its direction, and gamers who were waiting for Vega to become more affordable should appreciate them. However, such a heavy-handed move is almost certain to be temporary.

To its credit, Radeon RX Vega 56 debuted with better performance than its principal competition, GeForce GTX 1070. And with the vanilla 1070 mostly available between $400 and $500, Vega 56 is earning deserved attention. Nvidia doesn’t want this. In fact, it’s willing to put pressure on GTX 1070 and 1080 with an in-between model to get gamers talking ahead of the holidays. GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, starting at $450, is intended as a hit on Radeon RX Vega 56.

We’d call it more of a glancing blow, though.

In roughly half of our benchmarks, the 1070 Ti does successfully land in front of Vega 56. In several others, the two cards trade jabs. Destiny 2 at 2560x1440 is AMD’s only real victory, and it’s a mere single-digit-percentage win. But rather than edge out the Radeon at a more attractive price, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti costs almost the same as Vega 56.

Granted, the GeForce enjoys big advantages in power, noise, and overclockability. But slightly better stock performance than Vega 56 at a similar cost doesn’t get our blood pumping like GTX 1080/1070 when it launched, or GTX 1080 Ti more recently. The real coup would have been nudging GeForce GTX 1070 Ti closer to $400, then moving the vanilla 1070 down to fill an almost-$150 hole between the 1070 and GeForce GTX 1060 6GB. After all, Nvidia’s partners were supposed to be selling 1070s starting at $380 back in mid-’16. It sounds like that would have required a less 1080-like approach, though. Vapor chamber-based coolers aren't cheap.

One aspect of this launch that we do applaud is Nvidia’s decision to sell its GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Founders Edition card through geforce.com for $450, leaving none of the pricing ambiguity that dogged Radeon RX Vega (damaging AMD’s credibility in the process). We may not love the 1070 Ti’s positioning, but at least enthusiasts can grab one without getting gouged if their opinions differ.

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Eurocom Tornado F5 Gaming Laptop Review

Alexander Quejado — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

When shopping for a gaming laptop, it’s easy get lost among the offerings from big-name vendors like Asus, Gigabyte, Alienware, and MSI. But you can find companies like Eurocom unveiling interesting and powerful offerings, like the Tornado F5. Equipped with a desktop Intel Core i7-7700K processor and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, the Tornado hopes to—ahem—blow away the high-end laptop competition.

Specifications

Packaging

Eurocom initially sent us a Tornado F5 unit a few months ago. The packaging was rather generic, and we found cosmetic damage on the unit during our initial inspection. The source of the damage wasn't clear, but it could have been that the original packaging's restrictive dimensions. The Tornado F5 is quite thick, and it didn't seem like the box it arrived in was the right one.

We notified Eurocom about this issue, and the company responded by sending us an unscathed unit with updated packaging. The new packaging is still rather plain, but it's much thicker and the interior foam lining is much more robust. If this is the final packaging, we doubt you'll have any issues. The box has a plastic handle for easy carrying. Inside, you'll find the unit wrapped in plastic lining and four foam slabs. You'll also find a separate accessories box containing the driver disc, quick start guide, and thermal pads on the top, an AC power cord on the right, and the 330W power adapter on the left. In the middle, you'll find two slabs of foam that appear to be placeholders for different accessories.

Exterior

The top cover of the Tornado F5 features a black brushed-metal finish that will inevitably attract fingerprints, smudges, oils, and all sorts of debris unless you keep it clean. On the lip of the lid, the metal surface is interrupted by plastic bar. Otherwise, the cover is blank. There’s nothing wrong with this, but the lack of embellishments enhance the blemishes.

The brushed-metal surface finds its way inside, surrounding the area around the input devices, where the smudge issue is exacerbated. This is the trade-off. The surface is aesthetically appealing. The metal is also cool and crisp to the touch, which only entices you to touch it more. On the top right-hand corner there are three Quick Launch buttons that maximize the fan levels, turn the display off, and adjust the keyboard backlighting. To the right of the Quick Launch buttons you’ll find the power button.

Next to the four buttons are a group of small perforations cut across the brushed-metal surface, creating a speaker grille. The placement of these speakers is optimal, because the audio faces directly toward you, unobstructed. Many manufacturers place laptop speakers on the front lip, which gets blocked by your hands while typing or using the trackpad. We hope to see more laptop makers place speakers above the keyboard in the future.

The bezel is plastic and measures 1.875" thick on the sides, 1.0625" thick on the top, and 1.125" thick on the bottom. Rubber feet on each side of the bezel prevent the display from making contact with the rest of the laptop (two on the sides, two on the bottom, and four on the top). In the center of the top bezel is a 2MP webcam, the camera’s LED indicator, and a built-in microphone. Finally, the company logo is painted in white on the bottom of the bezel.

The edges of the Tornado employ a different kind of plastic construction compared to the bezel. The front and side edges curve inward to make the Tornado appear thinner when viewed from the top. The side edges don’t have much in the way of aesthetics, whereas the front and rear edges are more ornate. In the front, you’ll find the status indicator LEDs in the center. Several ridges are indented forward on the left and right; in between these indentations is a contrasting smooth surface. On the back, you’ll find two large exhaust ports bearing the traditional gamer aesthetic, although the Tornado F5’s all-black coloration makes this more subtle than its more ostentatious contemporaries.

The edge surface is grainier, and upon initial inspection feels just as sturdy as the metal surfaces on the lid and surrounding the input devices. The damage we initially found was a large crack on the rear edge, right on top of the exhaust port, but considering how sturdy the construction feels, we believe that this may have been a fault in the packaging. Eurocom remedied this with updated packaging.

The hinge assembly is also made of plastic, but the surface is smooth, similar to the bezel. There are two small hinges, one on each side of the laptop, which provide the display with nearly 180° of motion, which is impressive for a laptop this large; typically, we would find this level of flexibility on thin-and-light laptops. The hinge does a decent job of keeping the display steady against bumps and shaking.

The bottom panel bears a similar aesthetic to the rear exhaust ports. It has just enough gamer flare to breathe much-needed life into the bland background, but it doesn’t do so in ridiculous fashion. A large grille is cut throughout the bottom to intake cold air. Six feet keep the Tornado F5 stable: four rubber feet on each of the corners, one rubber foot near the rear edge, and one plastic foot in the middle of the intake grille. On the left, you'll find a grille for the subwoofer, which complements the Tornado F5's already excellent speakers.

The construction is the same as the edges, meaning it features the same grainy surface. A moderate amount of pressure will flex the bottom panel. Perhaps if there weren’t as many intake grilles, or if the grilles were more spread out, the bottom panel’s rigidity wouldn’t be at risk, but the trade-off in rigidity would compromise cooling, so we'll call this a win.

On the left side, you’ll find inputs for headphone, microphone, S/PDIF, and line-in, as well as a lone Kensington lock on the far left. On the right side, you’ll find three USB 3.0 ports and a 6-in-1 card reader. Finally, the rear ports include an RJ-45 LAN port, Thunderbolt 3 over Type-C, HDMI 2.0, Mini DisplayPort 1.2, and a the DC power in. The Tornado F5 is “VR Ready,” meaning it has all the ports necessary to support either an HTC Vive or an Oculus Rift.

Display

Our configuration of the Eurcom Tornado F5 features a 15.6" Full HD (1920x1080) matte IPS display running at 60 Hz. The GeForce GTX 1080 seems like overkill at FHD, although we also found the same with MSI's GT73VR Titan Pro, which also uses a GTX 1080. Other variants include a UHD (3840x2160) 60 Hz IPS display and a FHD 120 Hz TN display. Additional displays can be connected via Thunderbolt 3, HDMI 2.0, and DisplayPort 1.2.

Input Devices

Several of the function row keys have predetermined functions: F2 shows screen options, F3 locks the trackpad, F4 and F7 open user defined programs, F5 will cycle through different power saving profiles, F6 toggles the webcam, F10 activates airplane mode, and F12 puts the system to sleep. There are additional functions on the bottom row and number pad: Up and Down keys adjust brightness, Left and Right adjust volume, 0 mutes the speakers, and “-” and “+” adjust backlighting intensity.

The keys feature three levels of brightness. Lighting can be adjusted over three zones: left, middle, and right. Using the Quick Launch backlighting button will either turn off the middle and right zone, or turn the lighting off completely. The keys feature RGB lighting, which can be adjusted using the downloadable KLM software.

On the other hand, the trackpad leaves much to be desired. Tracking is fairly accurate, but the matte texture has a slight amount of surface drag when making fine movements. You’re better off using a gaming mouse. The trackpad isn’t clickable, and instead employs separate left and right click buttons below it. The buttons have a crisp, tactile response, but they don’t make up for the trackpad’s performance.

Interior

Accessing the interior is as easy as removing six screws and detaching the bottom panel. Immediately, you'll see the Tornado F5's hefty cooling solution, which takes up the entire back half of the system, and then some. If you want to access the i7-7700K and replace it with another Kaby Lake CPU, you can do so by removing the cooling solution. This requires removing three screws from each of the exhaust fans, four screws from the GPU heat sink, three from the heat pipes, and unfastening four large screws from the CPU heat sink (these screws cannot be totally removed). Thermal pads are attached to the CPU heat sink to cool the inductors and MOSFETs. Additionally, you can access the GPU by removing a hex-head screw.

Once the cooling solution is out of the way, you get a better view of the internals. There are two memory slots to the right of the CPU holding 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory. Below, you'll find the Killer Wireless AC-1535, which is responsible for the Tornado F5's networking capabilities. On the top right corner is the M.2 SSD slot, and on the top left corner is a 2.5" SATA slot, occupied by an HDD. Beneath the SATA slot is the 75.24Wh, 8-cell lithium ion battery.

Software

To take advantage of the keyboard and Quick Launch functionality, you’ll have to visit Eurocom’s website and download the Hotkey folder under the driver page. Inside the folder, you’ll find various applications that will let you use the function keys and Quick Launch buttons. If these applications look familiar to you, it’s because they’re the same applications used on MSI’s gaming systems.

Included in the folder is the SCM (System Control Manager), and as you might’ve guessed, it functions as a central hub for the Tornado F5. From here you can adjust network settings, brightness and volume, ECO power profiles, and the display. There's a Shortcut Manager that lets you create and cycle through keyboard shortcut profiles. Sizing Options adjusts the size of objects and text on your screen. Silent Option adjusts the fan profile.

For cosmetic changes, you’ll need to install the KLM software. With it, you can choose your preferred RGB lighting setup from the following effects: Breathing slowly pulses the lights on and off; Audio makes the lights dance to whatever audio you’re playing; Wave adjusts the color from left to right in a wave effect; Gaming turns off the right side of the keyboard; Dual Color creates a breathe-like effect with lights pulsating between two different colors; Normal keeps the lights static. You can even set the keyboard to either Wave or Breathing when the Tornado F5 is asleep.

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Synthetic Benchmarks

The Eurocom Tornado F5 features the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, the strongest GPU available for a laptop. It also boasts a desktop processor, the Intel Core i7-7700K. That's a powerful combination on paper. These are buffeted by 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory, a 250GB M.2 SSD, and a 1TB 7200RPM HDD for additional storage. You get a 15.6" Full HD (1920x1080) IPS display with a matte coating.

Aorus X7 DT v7

MSI GE63VR Raider

MSI GT73VR Titan SLI 4K

For comparison purposes, the Tornado F5’s main contender is the Aorus X7 DT v7, which also comes equipped with a GTX 1080. The main difference between the two will be the X7’s mobile i7-7820HK, which is overclockable, but doesn’t have the computational power of the i7-7700K. The rest of its components are fairly standard: 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory, a 256GB M.2 SSD, and a 1TB 7200RPM HDD. What makes the Aorus unique is its 17.3” Quad HD (2560x1440) display with a 120Hz refresh rate and G-Sync support.

There’s only so much performance you can squeeze out of a single GPU, so the next logical step is two GPUs. The MSI GT73VR Titan SLI features two GTX 1070s. It also contains an i7-7820HK, 32GB of DDR4-2400 memory, two 256GB M.2 SSDs running RAID 0, and a 1TB 7200RPM HDD for additional storage. It has a 17.3” Ultra HD (3840x2160) matte IPS display with G-Sync. The Titan SLI will highlight the benefits of a second GPU as well as the drawbacks.

What’s better than two GTX 1070s? Two GTX 1080s, of course! The Origin PC EON17-SLX delivers just that, along with a desktop i7-7700K CPU, 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory, a 512GB M.2 SSD, and a 1TB 7200RPM HDD. Similar to the Titan, the EON17-SLX features a 17.3” UHD IPS display with G-Sync technology.

Finally, we’ve thrown the MSI GE63VR Raider into the fray. The Raider is packing an i7-7700HQ CPU, a GTX 1070, 32GB of DDR4-2400 memory, a 512GB M.2 SSD, and an additional 1TB 7200RPM HDD. Like the Eurocom, it has a 15.6” FHD display, but the similarities end there. The Raider’s display has a 120Hz refresh rate and it doesn’t use an IPS panel. Performance-wise, this should be the least powerful system in our comparisons. We're including this just for comparison purposes, as we typically do, so that you can gauge exactly where the upgraded components of our system under review come into play and where they are potentially not worth the extra cost.

3DMark

3DMark lets us approximate a gaming laptop’s graphical performance. The Eurocom Tornado F5 delivers a higher combined score in the standard Fire Strike benchmark. However, higher resolutions benefit from additional GPU horsepower, so the MSI GT73VR Titan SLI surpasses the Tornado F5 in Fire Strike Extreme, Fire Strike Ultra, and Time Spy. Still, the Eurocom’s more powerful CPU helps it maintain a steady victory over the Aorus X7 DT v7.

Cinebench R15

Cinebench features three tests. The single and multi-core tests are, as you might’ve guessed, CPU based. The OpenGL shading test leans on the GPU. (Note: There's no SLI support in Cinebench.) The Tornado F5’s single and multi-core scores far exceed the mobile processor-based competition (20-23% faster single core performance and 16-17% faster multi-core performance compared with laptops sporting 7820HKs). The Eurocom’s greatest competition in Cinebench is the Origin PC EON17-SLX, which provides similar scores thanks to its i7-7700K.

CompuBench

The CompuBench Bitcoin Mining test is more GPU-dependent, so the Eurocom unit doesn’t outperform the X7 by nearly as much as it does in Cinebench. The Tornado F5 performs about 8% better in Video Processing, but only about 3% better in Bitcoin Mining. CompuBench tests don’t support multi-GPU setups. As a result, the Eurocom laptop performs better than the Origin PC, whose second GTX 1080 essentially goes to waste.

IOMeter

We perform an IOmeter test on each laptop’s primary drive to measure random and sequential speeds. The Tornado F5 features a 250GB Samsung 960 EVO SSD, the X7 features a 512GB Samsung SM951, the EON17-SLX contains a 512GB Samsung 960 Pro, the Titan SLI has two 256GB Samsung SM951s running in RAID 0, and the Raider contains a Samsung PM871. This is yet another battle of the Samsung SSDs.

The Eurocom’s 960 EVO just about matches the Titan SLI’s RAID 0 array in 4K random speeds, with slightly lower read speeds and slightly higher write speeds. The Origin PC’s 960 Pro delivers similar 4K random speeds, while the Aorus’ SM951 falls behind slightly. Rest assured, all of these laptops are ideal for handling application-based tasks. However, the 960 EVO of the Tornado F5 doesn’t quite stack up in 128K sequential speeds, so you might notice a small delay when accessing large files. This still isn’t as bad as the Raider’s meek PM871.

PCMark 8

PCMark 8 features workloads that use the Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative suites to gauge a system’s performance more accurately than Futuremark’s standard home, office, and creative workloads. These tests are best handled by a powerful CPU, so the Eurocom delivers splendid performance in both suites, and only definitely loses to the EON17-SLX. While the scores paint a favorable picture for the Eurocom laptop, you shouldn’t experience a noticeable performance problem with any of the laptops in this comparison set.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Alien: Isolation

At Full HD, just about any high-end system can run Alien: Isolation with frame rates in the 100s, and the Eurocom Tornado F5 is no exception. It sits at third place, beating the Aorus X7 DT v7 by a few frames and falling behind the MSI GT73VR Titan SLI 4K by nearly the same margin. The less powerful, but still formidable MSI GE63VR Raider comes close to 200 FPS.

Alien: Isolation is an ideal candidate for 4K gaming. At UHD, both the Tornado’s and X7’s frame rates drop into the 70s. Unfortunately, the Tornado is restricted to a FHD display, so you’ll need an external monitor to enjoy smooth 4K gaming.

Ashes of the Singularity

[NOTE: We didn't test the MSI GT73VR Titan SLI with multi-GPU support in Ashes of the Singularity, so its score is omitted from the results.]

Unfortunately, Ashes of the Singularity imposes stricter requirements. Still, the Eurocom’s desktop processor pulls the Tornado’s frame rate a tad over 60 FPS, whereas the X7’s mobile processor delivers 6% less performance. Meanwhile, the Raider trails behind by nearly 23%, so you'll need to reduce more settings to surpass 60 FPS in this game.

At UHD, the i7-7700K makes an inconsequential difference. And even the GTX 1080 doesn’t provide enough performance to reach 60 FPS here. Running a dual GPU setup like the Origin PC EON17-SLX brings you much closer, but you’ll still need to reduce your settings to break that 60 FPS threshold.

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite is relatively easy to run at FHD, so you’ll find performance bottlenecked (if at all) by the CPU rather than the GPU. The Eurocom delivers outstanding performance at 170 FPS, while the X7 trails behind by 4%.

The next logical step is to raise the resolution, and even at UHD the Eurocom enjoys well over 60 FPS. Only the EON17-SLX delivers enough to drive a 120 Hz display, however.

DiRT Rally

In DiRT Rally, the Eurocom laptop takes a back seat yet again to the dual GPU laptops, whose frame rates easily break 100. The desktop i7-7700K processor affords the Tornado F5 roughly 10% additional performance over the Aorus and its i7-7820HK. The GE63VR Raider doesn’t deliver nearly as much performance, but still surpasses 60+ FPS. If pure value is your main concern, then you’re overshooting with the Eurocom.

When we run the benchmark at UHD, the impressive frame rate drops to the low 30s, or just above playable levels. Unfortunately, the Tornado F5’s desktop processor provides no tangible performance benefit at UHD.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V has a variety of benchmark scenes, some of which are relatively easy to render, and others that stress systems that don’t have adequate GPU power. The desktop processor of the Tornado F5 offers a 4% improvement over the Aorus, which in most cases amounts to less than a handful of frames. Almost across the board, the Eurocom and Aorus deliver more than 60 FPS, except during the Vinewood Sign scene.

It’s best not to delve into higher resolutions in this system-punishing game; the frame rate falls well below 30 FPS in all test scenes, and even a multi-GPU laptop like the Titan SLI has trouble maintaining 30 FPS consistently. You’ll need at least two GTX 1080s to seriously consider 4K in GTA V.

GRID Autosport

Performance in GRID Autosport is mostly platform-based, so the Tornado F5 enjoys a high frame rate, surpassing that of the Titan SLI, despite the latter’s dual GTX 1070s. The Eurocom even gives the EON17-SLX a run for its money, performing just 8% slower (the Origin also sports a desktop-class CPU). Also, the GE63VR Raider still delivers respectable performance.

Raising the resolution to UHD only imposes a 27% frame rate tax on the Eurocom, so you can maximize GRID Autosport’s settings without worry. However, GPU strength is better appreciated at higher resolutions, so the Titan SLI surpasses the Tornado F5 with an 11% lead.

Hitman

Hitman is Eurocom’s chance to shine because the game doesn’t support multi-GPU configurations, so the MSI and Origin PC laptops are effectively left with a single card in this benchmark. The Tornado F5 defeats the Titan SLI by 19% and matches the EON17-SLX’s performance.

At UHD, both the Tornado F5 and EON17-SLX frame rates are halved to just over 60 FPS. Their desktop processors make all the difference at this resolution. By comparison, the Aorus outputs just 2 FPS shy of the 60 FPS mark.

Metro: Last Light Redux

Metro: Last Light Redux is GPU-bound, so whatever gains the i7-7700K has to offer are lost. As such, both the Eurocom and Aorus deliver virtually identical performance. Despite being a graphics-bound title, Metro: Last Lightis relatively easy to run, and even the MSI Raider maintains over 60 FPS. However, if you’re aiming to game smoothly on a 120Hz display, you’ll need at least two GTX 1070s.

Metro’s UHD tax is quite steep, so the Eurocom laptop's performance falls by over 75%, well into slideshow territory. Even the Titan SLI struggles to maintain 30 FPS, and stepping up to a dual GTX 1080 system only improves matters by about 6 FPS.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is another game that demands ample GPU horsepower above all. Thus, despite Eurocom's desktop-class processor, it only outperforms the Aorus X7 laptop by less than a frame. Both outclass the GTX 1070-equipped MSI Raider.

You're best off playing RoTR at FHD, however, because UHD (at our max settings) will drive both the Tornado and the Aorus well below 30 FPS.

The Division

The Division is another GPU-heavy title, although it isn't as demanding as Rise of the Tomb Raider. You won't see a major performance difference between systems with matching GPUs. In fact, the i7-7700K-based Eurocom falls behind the i7-7820K-based Aorus by about 4%. You'll finder greater gains by upgrading to a stronger GPU; the Eurocom outscores Raider by more than 15%.

At UHD, the GTX 1080-based laptops are at least capable of playable frame rates, and performance can be improved considerably by reducing anti-aliasing.

Thief

To conclude our gaming benchmarks, we have Thief, which isn’t incredibly demanding, and taxes the overall platform. As such, our Tornado F5 outperforms the Titan SLI by a sliver due to the latter’s weaker processor. Interestingly, the MSI Raider only scores 18% lower than the Eurocom, so if you don’t plan on playing games much more demanding than Thief, you can save a few bucks.

If you want to raise the resolution, however, even a desktop-like configuration such as the Eurocom won’t cut it at maximum settings; you either need to drop your settings or step up to a dual-graphics configuration.

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Battery, Thermal & Display Testing

Battery Test - Tomb Raider 2013 Battery Rundown

To test battery life, we set each laptop’s battery profile to Balanced while running Tomb Raider’s built-in benchmark at the lowest detail preset. The frame rate is locked at 30 FPS through GeForce Experience’s Battery Boost to limit the strain on the battery. Meanwhile, a script running in the background monitors and time stamps the system’s battery percentage. The laptops are set to hibernate once battery levels reach 5%. We test the battery life at 200 nits.

In the past, we’ve found that high-powered systems such as the Origin PC EON17-SLX have less than stellar battery life. Unfortunately, this is the case with Eurocom Tornado F5, whose hefty configuration comes at the expense of its longevity. At a full charge, the Tornado F5 barely delivers an hour of game time, making it the lowest scoring single GPU laptop in terms of battery life.

Perhaps this has more to do with the battery capacity than the components. The Tornado F5 has an 8-cell 75.24Wh, while the EON17-SLX has an 89Wh battery. Normally, these batteries would offer adequate power for a standard gaming laptop, but they’re not enough for laptops with desktop processors and powerful GPUs. The MSI GT73VR Titan SLI suffers the same fate, providing power to two GTX 1070s with a 74.25Wh battery. For comparison, the Aorus X7 DT v7 contains a 94.24Wh battery. We wonder why other manufacturers don't go this route.

Thermal Testing

We used our Optris PI 640 infrared camera to measure the laptop’s thermals. For more information about how we test, be sure to check out our Measurement Science article.

Heat dissipation is a major concern in gaming laptops, especially ones with high-end components. At idle, the Tornado F5's cooling solution hovers between 33°C and 43°C; comparatively, we usually see idle temperatures a bit higher. After running a 15 minute Furmark Torture test, the temperature rises to 77.5°C at its highest on the CPU heat sink, but never above that. Our AIDA64 GPU log depicts a maximum temperature of 70°C, which is well within the acceptable range for a laptop.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Titan SLI, Tornado F5, and EON17-SLX receive top marks in thermals thanks to their bulky builds and robust cooling solutions. Meanwhile, the X7 and Raider run a bit hotter because of their size constrictions. The GTX 1080 is incredibly powerful, and therefore generates more heat, and although the X7 doesn’t have to struggle with a desktop processor, its cooling solution is packed into a smaller chassis.

Display Testing

We used the SpectraCal C6 Colorimeter to measure the Eurocom Tornado F5's display. Be sure to check out our Display Testing Explained article for a full description of our test methodology.

At minimum brightness, the Eurocom’s display exhibits a decently low black luminance, but the white luminance needs to be brighter. As a result, the minimum contrast ratio sits at 869.3:1, which isn’t bad, but images can look a little flat. At maximum brightness, white luminance is adequately high, but the black luminance is also too high, again resulting in a decent contrast ratio of 882.4. Again, images are a bit flatter than those of the competition.

RGB levels are similar to what we find on many other laptop displays; the levels begin balanced, but that changes as brightness is raised. In particular, red levels rise while green and blue drop. At maximum brightness, however, the blue level spikes above the optimal value, and with the high red level that creates a purple-ish tint.

Gamma levels fluctuate wildly, starting balanced and quickly rising past 2.4 between 15% and 30% brightness. Meanwhile, the gamma drops below 2.2 at 40% brightness and only recovers at 100% brightness. You’ll deal with a bit of oversaturation at low brightness and undersaturation at high brightness. Despite this, the gamma average comes close to 2.2

Inaccuracies in grayscale are virtually unnoticeable until 70% brightness, where they increase dramatically. The resulting grayscale DeltaE 2000 is 3.5546, which is decent and will only bother the most discerning eyes.

The display's overall average color error sits at 3.9477, which isn't bad. The ideal target dE 2000 is 3. At just under 4, we begin to see a bit of discoloration, particularly in greens, yellows, and cyans. Still, only the most critical viewers will be annoyed. Once again, the Eurocom lands in the middle of the road; the laptops it beats—the Titan SLI and the EON17-SLX—are notoriously inaccurate. The ones it loses to—the Raider and the X7—are some of the best we've seen.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The Eurocom Tornado F5 is the second laptop we've reviewed that features a desktop processor. Our expectations were high, and sure enough, the Tornado F5 performed splendidly, especially during CPU-based benchmarks, like 3DMark Physics, Cinebench, and PCMark. On the storage front, the Tornado F5's Samsung 960 EVO held second place 4K random speeds, although it didn't quite match the EON17-SLX's 512GB Samsung 960 Pro in 128K sequential speeds.

The Tornado F5 is no slouch on gaming, either. Pairing the Tornado F5's GTX 1080 GPU with an i7-7700K provides a formidable portable gaming system. The Tornado particularly stood out in titles like Bioshock Infinite, GRID Autosport, Hitman, and Thief, and did well in punishing titles like Rise of the Tomb Raider.

As powerful as the desktop processor is, it's also power-hungry, so don't expect the Tornado F5's battery to last very long. In fact, it barely delivered an hour during our Tomb Raider battery rundown, only ranking it above the multi-GPU laptops. Obviously, this limits its true portability.

Meanwhile, we were pleased to find that the Eurocom Tornado F5 didn't experience any cooling problems and actually maintained decent temperatures under load. However, at maximum load the fans create much more noise than you would find in a desktop. Maybe that's why it's called Tornado.

The Tornado F5's display is good all around, but it lacks the wow factor that some displays have, such as those in the Aorus X7 or MSI Raider.

At first glance, the Eurocom doesn't appear to have weak spots structurally, but our first delivery of the laptop arrived with large cracks in the chassis, specifically on the hinge and one of the rear exhaust grilles. This didn't impede our testing. We don't think you'll have to worry about daily wear and tear, but a bad fall might damage the chassis in a similar manner. The brushed metal surfaces offer a good amount of rigidity, but the numerous vents on the bottom cover weaken things a bit.

At $3,100, the Eurocom Tornado F5 is the most affordable high end (read: GTX 1080-based) laptops we've tested. Still, $3,100 is quite the price tag for a laptop. The closest competitor we've tested is the Aorus X7, which costs $2,900. The extra $200 (for the Tornado F5) gets you desktop-class performance and a lightning-fast Samsung 960 EVO. For $300 more, you can get the MSI Titan SLI.

If the bottom line is desktop performance in a mobile package, and you value performance more than extraneous bells and whistles, the Eurocom Tornado F5 will serve you handsomely. We're withholding an overall recommendation, however, primarily because of its poor battery life. At this price, we expect a bit more.

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Core i7-8700K Review: Coffee Lake Brews A Great Gaming CPU

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 13:01:00 +0000

Intel Brings More Cores

Intel’s Core 2 Quad processors debuted with four cores in 2006. Although six-core models landed four years later in the high-end desktop space, the company’s most accessible chips topped out in quad-core configurations for more than a decade. The Coffee Lake era begins with Intel upending its mainstream line-up by adding two more cores to Core i7, i5, and i3 families. Call this a much-needed improvement, cleverly timed to stave off AMD's core-laden Ryzen assault.

Of course, while Intel's accelerated Coffee Lake-S launch makes it look today's unveiling is a direct response to heated competition, in reality, the long incubation period for new processors means it’s more likely the result of 10nm manufacturing delays.

Just last year, Intel announced a new process-architecture-optimize cadence designed to deliver smaller transistors every third generation. That's a profound departure from the glory days of Intel’s tick-tock model. The latest 14nm++ process is the fourth outing of the 14nm node, which originally debuted with Broadwell back in 2014. So, it appears that PAO is already falling by the wayside. In the days of tick-tock, we'd also be talking about a new architecture right now. But Coffee Lake employs the same Skylake design as Kaby Lake before it. We also get the same fundamental integrated graphics engine found in the previous generation. To be sure, Coffee Lake is another iterative update.

But there’s nothing mundane about adding more cores. Intel claims Coffee Lake offers up to 25% more gaming performance and up to 45% more “mega-tasking” performance. Given similar price points versus Kaby Lake, we're almost certainly looking at a huge step forward in value.

This is obviously a busy year for Intel. But as if the company's product stack wasn't already confusing, its eighth-generation portfolio draws from three separate architectures, including 14nm+ Kaby Lake-R (refresh), 14nm++ Coffee Lake, and 10nm Cannon Lake, which should land next year.

Intel Core i7-8700K

Core i7-8700K serves as this generation's flagship, sporting six Hyper-Threaded cores. Already, that's a big increase from Kaby Lake's 4C/8T maximum. It features the company's highest clock rates, accelerating up to 4.7 GHz via Turbo Boost. The -8700K does sacrifice some base frequency in exchange for a higher core count, though. Its 3.7 GHz specification is 500 MHz lower than the -7700K, offsetting the increased power consumption and heat generated by a 6C/12T configuration.

The -8700K's Coffee Lake design utilizes a 14nm++ process, which Intel claims offers 26% more performance and 52% less leakage power than first-generation 14nm manufacturing. Those advances enable the higher Turbo Boost bins and reduce consumption enough to carve out room for extra cores. A more complex die does necessitate a TDP rating of up to 95W. But that's only 4% higher than Core i7-7700K. And as we've seen before, Turbo Boost allows the CPU to operate beyond its rated TDP as long as current, power, and temperature fall below specified limits. As you might imagine, then, the impact of two additional cores is felt under load.

The top 4.7 GHz Turbo Boost bin should help improve performance in lightly-threaded applications. But Core i7-8700K also includes aggressive multi-core bins to help chew through threaded workloads. Because these CPUs employ Intel's Skylake architecture, we aren't expecting any speed-ups attributable to IPC throughput. All gains come from core count and clock rate alone. Intel isn't officially disclosing a die size or transistor count, but early delidding efforts indicate a ~151mm² area. That's naturally larger than Kaby Lake's ~122mm², reflecting the additional execution and cache resources. Intel confirms that Coffee Lake continues to employ its ring bus, rather than Skylake-X's mesh topology.

Active Cores	1	2	4	6
Intel Core i7-8700K	4.7 GHz	4.6 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.3 GHz
Intel Core i7-7700K	4.5 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.4 GHz	-

Intel also adds 50% more cores to its Core i5 family, and doubles Core i3's core count. But it pulls Hyper-Threading support from Core i3 in the process. Nevertheless, we expect gamers to realize palpable gains moving from dual-core Hyper-Threaded platforms to inexpensive quad-core setups.

Core i5 and i7 also support speedier DDR4-2666 transfer rates, up from Kaby Lake's DDR4-2400 spec. Core i3 remains limited to DDR4-2400, though. This could just be Intel's attempt to segment its line-up, or perhaps the Core i3s are really just quad-core Kaby Lake designs transplanted onto a 14nm++ process.

	Intel Corei7-8700K	Intel Corei7-8700	Intel Core i5-8600K	Intel Core i5-8400	Intel Core i3-8350K	Intel Core i3-8100
Socket	LGA 1151	LGA 1151	LGA 1151	LGA 1151	LGA 1151	LGA 1151
Cores/Threads	6 / 12	6 / 12	6 / 6	6 / 6	4 / 4	4 / 4
Base Frequency	3.7 GHz	3.2 GHz	3.6 GHz	2.8 GHz	4.0 GHz	3.6 GHz
Boost Frequency	4.7 GHz	4.6 GHz	4.3 GHz	4.0 GHz	N/A	N/A
Memory Speed	DDR4-2666	DDR4-2666	DDR4-2666	DDR4-2666	DDR4-2400	DDR4-2400
Memory Controller	Dual-Channel	Dual-Channel	Dual-Channel	Dual-Channel	Dual-Channel	Dual-Channel
Unlocked Multiplier	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
PCIe Lanes	x16 Gen3	x16 Gen3	x16 Gen3	x16 Gen3	x16 Gen3	x16 Gen3
Integrated Graphics	Intel UHD Graphics 630 (up to 1200 MHz)	Intel UHD Graphics 630 (up to 1200 MHz)	Intel UHD Graphics 630 (up to 1150 MHz)	Intel UHD Graphics 630 (up to 1150 MHz)	Intel UHD Graphics 630 (up to 1150 MHz)	Intel UHD Graphics 630 (up to 1150 MHz)
Cache (L2+L3)	13.5MB	13.5MB	10.5MB	10.5MB	9MB	7MB
Architecture	Coffee Lake	Coffee Lake	Coffee Lake	Coffee Lake	Coffee Lake	Coffee Lake
Process	14nm++	14nm++	14nm++	14nm++	14nm++	14nm++
TDP	95W	65W	95W	65W	91W	65W
Price (per 1K Unit)	$359	$303	$257	$182	$168	$117

Unfortunately, Intel still doesn't enable Turbo Boost on its Core i3 CPUs. So, we could see a performance dip in lightly threaded workloads due to Coffee Lake's lower base frequencies. You do get 100% more cores in exchange, though. Physical cores are always preferable to logical ones, so the new implementation of Core i3 should come out ahead in most of our benchmarks.

As expected, most models continue to wield 2MB of L3 and 256KB of L2 cache per core. As a side effect of its higher core counts, then, Coffee Lake processors enjoy the benefits of more cache. Core i3-8100 is the lone exception with only 6MB of L3 cache.

PCIe connectivity remains unchanged; you get 16 lanes of third-gen PCIe from the CPU's controller. Intel reminds us, though, that it offers up to 40 lanes when we add the platform controller hub's 24.

You'll need a Z370-based motherboard for Coffee Lake processors. The 200-series chipsets are not compatible. And in a clear indication that Intel really hurried its launch schedule, less expensive B- or H-series chipsets won't be ready until next year. Paying a premium for Z-class core logic isn't much of a surprise for enthusiasts, who need the higher-end chipset to support unlocked multipliers. But it's a little bit overkill for everyone else.

Coffee Lake	Intel Corei7-8700K	Intel Corei7-8700	Intel Core i5-8600K	Intel Core i5-8400	Intel Core i3-8350K	Intel Core i3-8100
Cost Per Core/Thread	$59.83 / $29.92	$50.50 / $25.25	$42.83 / $42.83	$30.33 / $30.33	$42 / $42	$29.95 / $29.95
Kaby Lake	Intel Core i7-7700K	Intel Core i7-7700	Intel Core i5-7600K	Intel Core i5-7400	Intel i3-7350K	Intel i3-7100
Cost Per Core/Thread	$84.75 / $42.38	$75.75 / $37.88	$60.50 / $60.50	$45.50 / $45.50	$84 / $42	$58.50 / $29.95
Ryzen	Ryzen 71700X	Ryzen 71700	Ryzen 51600X	Ryzen 51500X	Ryzen 51400	Ryzen 31300X
Cost Per Core/Thread	$49.88 / $24.94	$41.13 / $20.56	$41.50 / $20.75	$47.50 / $23.75	$42.25 / $21.12	$32.50 / $32.50

We're using Intel's 1K unit pricing for comparisons to the Kaby Lake models and AMD's MSRP for price-equivalent Ryzen chips. We may see higher prices on Intel's CPUs at retail, while AMD models routinely sell below MSRP.

Intel adds a ~$20 premium to its K-series SKUs compared to their Kaby Lake equivalents. Overall, though, you pay less per core. Again, Intel removed Hyper-Threading from its Core i3s, so their price per thread remains unchanged. With the exception of Ryzen 3, AMD maintains a price advantage across its portfolio, due in part to SMT on the Ryzen 5 family. The benchmarks will give us a better idea of performance-per-dollar compared to Kaby Lake and Ryzen, though.

Overclocking headroom was one of Kaby Lake's biggest advantages due to Ryzen's limited scaling. Intel adds per-core overclocking support to this generation, but doesn't provide per-core voltage and P-state controls. It also enables live memory timing adjustments (without rebooting), along with memory multipliers up to 8400 MT/s, so you don't have to adjust the BCLK frequency to chase bleeding-edge transfer rates. Finally, enhanced GT and Ring PLL Trim controls add more granular control.

Intel makes some power optimizations to its interface that promise to extend the advantage while overclocking. However, the company continues to insist on using thermal paste between its die and IHS, rather than solder. Like all unlocked Intel models, the Core i7-8700K doesn't include a stock cooler.

Nevertheless, we have to give the big company credit for staying on its toes this year. It already introduced Kaby Lake, Skylake-X, and Kaby Lake-Refresh. Next year, we'll have new Pentium and Celeron line-ups headed our way. But for now, we're looking forward to testing what Intel claims is its best gaming chip yet.

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The Z370 Chipset & Graphics

The Z370 Chipset

Much to the dismay of enthusiasts everywhere, you can't buy a Coffee Lake-based CPU and drop it into the fancy Z270 motherboard you may have purchased a few months ago. Instead, you'll have to pony up for a 300-series motherboard. You also can't bring your Skylake or Kaby Lake processor over to a Z370-based platform, even though both sides employ LGA 1151 interfaces.

Intel makes more money selling CPUs than chipsets, so creating an upgrade path would have made sense. But the company tells us that it needed optimized memory trace routing to support DDR4-2666, and it also improved power delivery to support six-core models. It also beefed up package power delivery for overclocking.

According to Intel's specification sheet, the increased package power delivery consists of 18 pins repurposed to VCC (previously designated as reserve pins). There are also changes to the socket that reassign behaviors to some pins, such as swapping Normal Open (NO) and Normal Closed (NC) settings. Intel also improved power delivery to the graphics engine, and although the specific changes there remain undefined, that might improve HD Graphics overclocking.

The changes mean upgrading to Z370 is a technical necessity, rather than planned obsolescence. Regardless, though, AMD's planned support for Socket AM4 through 2020 makes Intel's Z370 chipset requirement appear all the more painful.

CPU-based I/O remains unchanged from Kaby Lake; you still get 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0. Again, though, the whole platform supports up to 40 lanes. The extra 24 originate from the PCH, stuck behind a four-lane DMI 3.0 connection that links the core logic and CPU. As you might imagine, this PCIe-like interconnect can become a bottleneck if enough devices (like M.2 SSDs) are working behind it.

The 22nm Z370 chipset is rated at 6W, and is mostly identical to Z270. It offers up to 10 USB 2.0, 14 USB 3.0, and six SATA 6Gb/s ports. Intel added support for Thunderbolt 3, but hasn't provided much detail on the implementation. Z370 also retains support for Intel Optane Memory. Even the ME version 11 is listed similarly on Intel's ARK, though we do know that Z370's Management Engine doesn't allow Kaby Lake processors to boot on the platform. Two memory channels support up to two DIMMs per channel and a maximum of 64GB. Intel does not support ECC on any of its models (compared to AMD, which does allow motherboard vendors to enable ECC support).

Intel offers a few unique benefits to enthusiasts, such as the XTU (Extreme Tuning Utility) and support for XMP 2.0. The Performance Tuning Protection Plan is also available, which covers damage from overclocking. The price for the warranty plan varies per SKU, and Intel hasn't provided a detailed breakdown for Coffee Lake yet. We aren't aware of any AMD-equivalent coverage.

Intel UHD Graphics 630

Intel will have an optimized graphics driver soon after launch, but we don't see any significant improvements (beyond HDCP 2.2 support for DP 1.2a) to the Gen 9 LP (Low Power) engine. We still get subslices with eight EUs each (totaling 24 EUs in a GT2 configuration), accelerated slightly by a 50 MHz maximum frequency increase across the board.

The biggest change comes from Intel's marketing department, which "upgraded" the High Definition (HD) Graphics 630 brand to Ultra High Definition (UHD) Graphics 630. Apparently, that means the company supports the same legacy VP8 and AVC codecs, HEVC 10-bit decode/encode, VP9 8/10-bit decode, VP9 8-bit encode (no support for VP9 10-bit encode), HDR, and Wide Color Gamut features. The processors now come in 6+2 (i5 and i7) and 4+2 (i3) configurations.

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How We Test

The MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC

MSI continues its Z-series Gaming Pro motherboards, giving the latest implementation similar features as previous models. Pricing should also end up similar. The exact board details and specifications can be found on the manufacturer's website.

Comparison Products

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X

Intel Core i7-7800X

Test Systems

We introduced our new test system and methodology in How We Test Graphics Cards. If you'd like more detail about our general approach, check that piece out.

In this case, only the hardware configuration with CPU, RAM, mainboard, as well as the new cooling system are different, so the summary in table form gives a quick overview of the systems used:

Test System and Configuration
Hardware	Germany Intel Socket 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i7-8700KMSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2666Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i7-7800XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 4GB G.Skill RipJaws IV DDR4-2600AMD Socket AM4 WorkstationAMD Ryzen 7 1800X, Ryzen 5 1600XMSI X370 Tomahawk4x 8GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 @ 2667 and 3200 Intel LGA 1151 (Z270)Intel Core i7-7700K, Core i5-7600KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2400 and 3200All SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition (Gaming)Nvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)USIntel Socket 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i7-8700KMSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i7-7800XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 AMD Socket AM4 AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, Ryzen 5 1600XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium2x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2667 and 3200 Intel LGA 1151 (Z270) Intel Core i7-7700K, Core i5-7600K MSI Z270 Gaming M72x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK
PC Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Extension Kit and Mods Configurations: Open Benchtable, Closed Case
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

Test Notes

We generated some odd performance results with Intel's Core i7-8700. Despite more conservative specifications and a lower price, it outperformed the flagship Core i7-8700K in some of our gaming benchmarks. We verified our numbers on motherboards from different vendors, and those vendors confirmed that they're seeing what we see.

Initially, our attention turned to Turbo Boost, based on observations from Core i9-7980XE and its unpredictable behavior. But after careful analysis with multiple utilities, we believe the Turbo Boost algorithms are working correctly for both processors.

After recording higher package and core power consumption on the 65W Core i7-8700 compared to Intel's 95W -8700K in certain situations, we also reached out to Intel for comment. Once we have some answers, you can be sure we'll post our findings.

VRMark & 3DMark

We aren't big fans of using synthetic benchmarks to measure game performance, but 3DMark's DX11 and DX12 CPU tests provide useful insight into the amount of horsepower available to game engines.

VRMark plays well to Intel's frequency and IPC throughput advantages, and despite Core i7-8700K's lower base clock rate, its higher Turbo Boost frequency helps secure a victory over Core i7-7700K. Locking both processors to the same overclocked settings yields a practical tie.

Synthetics that favor more cores, such as the DX12 Time Spy and DX11 Fire Strike benchmarks, highlight the possibly explosive performance gains we could see from Intel's six-core Coffee Lake models in heavily-threaded games. The -8700K handily dispatches its predecessor. It even beats the high-end Core i7-7800X on an expensive X299 motherboard.

The eight-core Ryzen 7 1800X proves to be a formidable match. Still, we record a smaller delta between the tuned Coffee Lake and Ryzen processors than expected, given AMD's two-core advantage. It looks like Intel's higher clock rates and superior per-clock performance help in this case.

The impressive Ryzen 5 1600X easily beats Intel's Core i5-7600K, which languishes at the bottom of the chart due to its now-stingy quad-core design. The new Coffee Lake-based i5s, wielding 50% more cores, should make that price point more interesting.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity is a heavily-threaded title that favors the Core i7-8700K's extra cores compared to Core i7-7700K.

Intel's latest outstrips the competition at both stock and overclocked settings, beating Core i7-7700K by a considerable margin in both configurations. Unfortunately, performance in most games doesn't scale linearly, so the -8700K's 50%-higher core count only adds up to a 14% lead out of the box. Nevertheless, that jump is enough for Core i7-8700K to snatch the lead away from Ryzen 7 1800X.

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Civilization VI, Battlefield 1 & Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

Our Civilization VI AI test measures performance in a turn-based strategy game, and it tends to favor high frequencies and physical cores.

The -8700K's Turbo Boost frequencies yield surprisingly good results. At stock settings, the processor essentially ties Core i7-7700K, but leads a little more definitively after tuning.

Core i5-7600K fares respectably in Civilization VI at its stock settings. But after a 5 GHz overclock, it yields a 15.1-second result (not pictured) that even beats Intel's fastest CPUs.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

The Ryzen processors are much more competitive during Civilization VI's graphics test, but Intel's overclocking headroom proves insurmountable. Compared to Core i7-7700K, the -8700K offers 3.9% more performance in stock form, and a 3% advantage after tuning. Those slim leads mean there is still good value in a Kaby Lake-based platform, particularly in light of the higher price on Coffee Lake K-series SKUs.

Battlefield 1 (DX11)

A graphics bottleneck limits the frame rates of our Battlefield 1 benchmark, so with the exception of Ryzen 5 1600X and Core i5-7600K, the differences between models are slight.

Intel's Core i7 processors lead. More specifically, though, the -8700K does beat its predecessor.

It’s easy to see the workload's more threaded nature during its opening phase, where a quad-core Core i5-7600K trails the test pool.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

Dawn of War III scales well on CPUs with more execution resources. Naturally, then, the Core i7-8700K dominates in stock and overclocked trim.

The Core i7-7800X posts another surprisingly low score. Considering the costs associated with Intel's premium X299 platform, Skylake-X generally doesn't make much sense for gaming.

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Grand Theft Auto V, Hitman & Shadow of Mordor

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V continues to favor Intel architectures and, more generally, multi-core designs. The Core i7-8700K offers 7.6% more performance than the -7700K at stock settings. This grows to a 11.5% lead after some tuning.

Kaby Lake- and Coffee Lake-based Core i7 processors set themselves apart from the pack during our benchmark, specifically offering a 16-25% performance advantage over the Ryzen models at stock settings.

Hitman (2016)

Core i7-7800X finally shows up in the top half of our chart thanks to its effective architecture and 6C/12T configuration. It's still no match for the -8700K, though, probably due to its more conservative 4 GHz Turbo Boost ceiling.

The new -8700K offers the best performance in stock form, demonstrating a 9 FPS advantage over its nearest competitor. Meanwhile, Core i7-7700K turns the tables with a slight lead after overclocking. Given their similar architectures and manually-defined frequencies, a little variance there is expected. Consider the chips to be tied after tuning.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

The Core i7-8700K surprisingly falls behind its predecessor at stock settings. We examined each chip's Turbo Boost behavior and discovered that the -8700K ran through at a higher frequency. But, like the -7700K, it doesn’t reach peak frequencies. Rather, it drops to lower clock rates throughout our run.

As mentioned at the outset of our performance testing, we saw higher benchmark numbers from the lower-end Core i7-8700 in several games. Coffee Lake and its Z370 platform are new, so perhaps firmware tuning will iron out some of these issues over time.

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Project CARS, Far Cry Primal & Rise of the Tomb Raider

Project CARS

There's a solid scaling trend from Intel's disappointing Core i7-7800X up through its impressive -8700K.

Core i7-8700K does offer better performance than -7700K out of the box, but as you get more graphics-bound, the two increasingly converge. That means enthusiasts specifically focused on gaming will see little benefit from upgrading, particularly if they own lower-end graphics cards.

Far Cry Primal

Far Cry Primal is another title that doesn't respond as well to Core i7-8700K as we would expect. Again, lower performance than the -7700K at stock settings implies that we just aren't getting the full benefit of Coffee Lake yet. It does gain some ground when we lock both CPUs at 4.9 GHz, but -8700K fails to completely overtake Kaby Lake.

The Ryzen processors obviously trail Intel's offerings in this game and many others. But they're still solid value plays benefiting from lower prices and more affordable platforms. One of Ryzen's greatest advantages is higher performance in threaded workloads like rendering. Coffee Lake challenges this with more cores, so our content creation benchmarks could upset the narrative we've been telling since Ryzen's launch.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Core i7-7700K and -8700K offer strong, but similar performance in Rise of the Tomb Raider. The Core i5-7600K bests them both at stock settings, though.

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DTP, Office, Multimedia & Compression Performance

Although we usually don’t run our application benchmarks on overclocked processors, we're including the two Coffee Lake CPUs at stock and overclocked frequencies this time, since we wanted to know how Intel's architecture scales in different scenarios.

To be fair, we also added a (reasonably) overclocked AMD Ryzen 7 1800X to our results. This makes for an interesting comparison. We also included Intel’s Core i7-7800X, which represents another 6C/12T contender from Intel using its X299 platform. Skylake-X didn't seem to add anything in our gaming benchmarks; can it beat Coffee Lake in productivity applications?

DTP & Presentation

Adobe’s Creative Cloud gives us a look at real-world single- and multi-core performance. As such, it beats synthetic benchmarks as a productivity test.

After Effects CC is a classic when it comes to parallelized tasks, with the number of cores easily being more important than frequency. Core i7-8700K dominates in this one, of course.

Otherwise, in lightly-threaded benchmarks, Coffee Lake only beats its competition thanks to its slightly higher clock rate.

Strangely, Intel’s Core i5-7600K reliably beats the stock Core i7 CPUs in Adobe’s InDesign CC. We have no idea why this might be the case.

Encoding & Multimedia

Intel’s new Core i7-8700K dominates our default HandBrake benchmarks. The Core i7-7800X can’t compete.

The finishing order shifts around a bit under our more demanding high-quality test. Due to its higher core count, AMD’s Ryzen 7 1800X finishes ahead of Core i7-8700K, which, in turn, beats the Skylake-X-based Core i7-7800X.

Compression & Decompression

Core i7-8700K’s six cores, coupled with high clock rates, allow Coffee Lake to leave its competition in the dust. Again, the Core i7-7800X doesn’t even come close.

Things don’t get any better for the competition once it's compared to Core i7-8700K in our decompression metric. Core i7-7800X fares especially badly, demonstrating that the X299 platform isn't universally better just because it's more expensive.

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2D & 3D Workstation Performance

2D Workstation Performance

Our GDI/GDI+ tests are used to test two different output methods that can be found in older applications and printing tasks. Today, they, or at least a modified version of them, are commonly used to display the graphical user interface (GUI). They are also great benchmarks for direct device write throughput and memory performance when handling gigantic device-independent bitmap (DIB) files.

Synthetic 2D Benchmarks

We take a look at direct device write throughput first. The graphics driver uses the CPU heavily for this task, but doesn’t employ many threads.

There hasn’t been true 2D hardware acceleration since the introduction of the unified shader architecture, after all. Microsoft's Windows driver model provides a huge obstacle for 2D hardware acceleration as well.

We up the ante by introducing memory to the mix. This is done with the help of the only remaining 2D hardware function: generating the graphics output in memory and then copying it to the output device all at once. The benchmark’s the same as before. We just plot a bitmap in memory, as opposed to sending the information directly to the monitor. The bitmap’s copied to it only once it’s complete. This pushes the CPUs, since they’re no longer platform-bound. The results prove interesting: frequency rules, AMD can keep up, and Skylake-X brings up the rear.

AutoCAD 2016 (2D)

Even though AutoCAD does use DirectX, ultimately it just duplicates every single draw function in software. The results are exactly as expected, and IPC throughput is emphasized due to AutoCAD’s limited scaling with additional cores.

3D Workstation Performance

Most professional development applications have been optimized and compiled with Intel CPUs in mind. This is reflected in their performance numbers. Still, we include them in order to motivate developers to focus their efforts on AMD’s Ryzen processors as well. This would give users more than one choice. The same goes for an emphasis on multi-core processors, at least where that’s feasible and makes sense.

AutoCAD 2016 (3D)

Clock rate trumps core count. Intel’s Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake land fairly close to each other, with clock rate determining the winner. AutoCAD’s performance turns out to be close to that of older games, since it uses DirectX and isn’t really optimized to take advantage of multiple cores.

Cinebench R15 OpenGL

Frequency is (almost) everything in the Cinebench R15 OpenGL benchmark. However, Intel’s Core i7-7800X does better than usual.

Our overclocked Ryzen 7 1800X lands behind the stock configuration, regardless of how many times we re-run the benchmark, and we don't have a good explanation as to why.

SolidWorks 2015

SolidWorks 2015 also emphasizes clock rate. At the same frequency, Coffee Lake and its predecessor end up in the same place. This doesn’t come as a surprise though, since SolidWorks 2015 typically doesn’t use more than four cores. The exceptions are a few very specific tasks, which we’ll see tested when we get to the CPU composite score on the next page.

Creo 3.0

Creo 3.0 paints a similar picture; a high core count just doesn’t provide any benefits when it comes to drafting using real-time 3D graphics output.

Blender & 3ds Max (Real-time 3D Preview)

The Blender and 3ds Max real-time 3D previews yield similar results: frequency is everything. Of course, final rendering is a different story, and we'll get to that shortly.

The 3ds Max results aren’t based on time to completion. Rather, this benchmark generates a composite index based on CPU performance during a set time period.

Catia V6 R2012

This is one of the graphics benchmarks that has been optimized time and again (it’s part of the free SPECviewperf 12 suite). However, it still provides a fairly good measure of CPU performance, with an emphasis on clock rate. Based on the previous benchmark results, you can guess how this story ends.

Maya 2013

At the risk of beating a dead horse, our chart paints a picture we've seen several times already. The real-time 3D output numbers don’t tell a complete story, though. As we're about to see, core count reigns supreme when it comes to final rendering.

What we can say is that two additional cores don't hurt Intel's Coffee Lake-based flagship. That's good news for a six-core chip trying to prove itself against a smaller quad-core design. The test results should only get better from here.

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CPU Computing & Rendering Performance

CPU Workstation Performance

The 3D graphics performance we just measured isn’t all that matters to professional rendering software. Applications run many other tasks (like simulations, compute jobs, preview rendering) on the CPU simultaneously. The full picture’s only achievable by looking at both of them together.

Many modern suites include modules that are based exclusively on computing and simulations. This means we need to go beyond just 3D workstation performance to form our opinion of these high-end CPUs. However, software packages like SolidWorks don’t scale perfectly based on core/thread count. Consequently, even quad-core processors keep up if they run at high-enough frequencies and support SMT. We'll illustrate this by comparing Core i7-8700K to the Core i7-7700K.

Frequency is all that counts in Creo 3.0, so long as you have at least eight threads to throw at the application. As a result, Intel’s new Core i7-8700K doesn't really benefit from its two additional cores.

Clock rate and core count both matter in 3ds Max 2015, allowing Intel’s Core i7-8700K to pull ahead of the -7700K by a larger margin.

Separately, the Core i7-7800X is beaten soundly due to a combination of older architecture and lower clock rate.

The CPU composite score includes rendering, which is broken out into its own section below. There, AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X does really well. It even beats the overclocked Core i7-8700K in stock form.

CPU Performance: Photorealistic Rendering

Final rendering doesn’t require a CPU that's good at everything. Rather, this task wants efficiency and fast parallel computation.

We know big, expensive workstation-class CPUs like Ryzen Threadripper tear these benchmarks to bits. But in the -8700K's more desktop-friendly price range, it goes head-to-head with Ryzen 7 1800X in stock form. Core count matters more than frequency, as you can see comparing -8700K to -7700K.

The console version of LuxRender affirms what we saw in 3ds Max; Core i7-8700K does battle with AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X. Though it trails, remember that we're talking about six cores against eight.

Last, but not least, we take a look at Blender. The usual workload (with a sample size of 200 pixels) confirms what we saw in the preceding benchmarks. Intel’s Core i7-8700K and AMD’s Ryzen 7 1800X finish at the top of our chart. Ultimately, the winner is the CPU with more cores, though Coffee Lake keeps up by virtue of its effective architecture and high clock rate. Meanwhile, our Kaby Lake-based chips trail even the Ryzen 5 sample.

The results obtained from SPECwpc’s Blender loop look similar, even though this benchmark presents a somewhat different task consisting of more than just rendering.

With the workload's rendering portion easing up, a stock Core i7-8700K suddenly becomes more competitive.

This trend intensifies as our benchmark begins incorporating tasks other than photorealistic rendering. Core count isn't the sole determiner of performance; IPC throughput factors in as well. That's why you see older quad-core models with SMT rise through the ranks.

Now Coffee Lake enjoys a definite lead. Core count is a factor, to be sure (Ryzen 7 and Skylake-X beat Kaby Lake), but clock rate is also important.

Intel’s Core i7-8700K offers acceptable performance in semi-professional applications; it's not just a gaming CPU. Depending on the application and how it utilizes host processing resources, you'll either get modest results or a stellar experience. There's no such thing as bad.

We didn't expect such strong numbers from Coffee Lake in these benchmarks, particularly compared to Core i7-7800X. It's hard to imagine why anyone would spend $380 on that CPU and a hefty premium on an X299 motherboard.

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Scientific & Engineering Computations, & HPC Performance

For these tests, we’re using the SPECwpc benchmark suite for workstations with its wide variety of tasks. It tests a number of very different mathematical computations optimized for parallelization. They typically make heavy use of available memory bandwidth and cache, plus expose issues with latency.

Rodinia

The pre-Euler3D CFD test (Computational Fluid Dynamics benchmark) runs very well on AMD's CPUs, suggesting scaling based predominantly on core count. Intel's overclocked CPUs do pick up some performance compared to the stock configurations, but they can't keep up with Ryzen 7 1800X.

Convolution

In this benchmark, a mathematical operation is performed on two functions (convolution), which results in a third function. Performance scales according to core count. Clock rate has far less impact.

CalculiX

This test is based on the finite element method for three-dimensional structural computations. Intel’s higher frequencies help Core i7-8700K beat out Ryzen 7 1800X, though core count clearly matters as well.

Poisson's Equation

Poisson's Equation is a second-order partial differential equation widely used in physics for boundary value problems.

Intel’s new six-core processors fare well. Higher clock rates don't appear to help much, given our overclocked results.

Sequential Reweighted Message Passing (SRMP)

These are algorithms for discrete energy minimization. The workload benefits from core count, clock rate, and architectural improvements, it appears. For some reason, though, AMD's Ryzen 7 and 5 just don't show well, even though our logs show them to be fully utilized.

Kirchhoff Migration

This benchmark and its underlying computations turn out to be a great fit for AMD. Intel's Core i7-8700K only takes the top spot after aggressive overclocking, and that wouldn't be practical for everyday use. Ultimately, AMD’s Ryzen 7 1800X wins in stock trim.

In the end, Core i7-8700K performs well in almost every scenario, especially when the workload scales according to core count and clock rate. Higher frequencies help Intel fend off AMD's eight-core competition, though Coffee Lake represents a compromise in certain tasks.

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Overclocking, Cooling & Temperature

Overclocking

First, we established the Core i7-8700K’s limits by cooling the chip's IHS to a constant 20°C, side-stepping potential thermal bottlenecks imposed by Intel's unfortunate use of thermal paste between the die and heat spreader. We made it all the way to 5.0 GHz without any problems. This didn't surprise us, given our experiences with Kaby Lake. At 5.1 GHz, we booted into Windows and ran a couple of games, but the processor called it quits when we tried to run Cinebench.

We’d like to point out the possibilities enabled by manual load-line calibration. Depending on the motherboard, different levels and presets are available, or the voltages can be manually adjusted for some experimentation. In this way, the core voltage can be reduced significantly without losing a whole lot of performance (so long as your chip plays along). For the motherboard we tested, the effective voltage was between 1.18V and a maximum of 1.28V when running Prime95 at stock frequencies. This lowered the package’s temperature by almost 8°C.

Unfortunately, many memory kits run into trouble if the load-line calibration is set too low; the result is general instability. CPU quality plays a key role as well. In our particular case, this affected our 5.0 GHz overclock, which didn’t hold up over time. All of the games and some of the workstation applications ran for hours without any problems, but Creo 3.0 and some of the HPC tests crashed after a few minutes.

The 5+ GHz overclocking stories are exciting, to be sure. But remember that most of them aren't validated for long-term reliability. We'd rather drop the clock rate by 100 MHz and not have to deal with intermittent crashes.

Looking at our power consumption and performance graph, we see a bend at ~4.8 GHz. Power use continues increasing with higher clock rates, but the Cinebench score levels off. A failure to continue scaling at 5.0 GHz is a good indicator that our CPU is throttling. It simply cannot dissipate heat quickly enough.

Power Consumption

At idle, the differences in power consumption are fairly marginal. All of the processors end up just about where we'd expect based on previous reviews. AMD's Ryzen processors draw significantly more power than the Intel competition because their idle clock rate is a bit too high.

The new Intel CPU’s average power consumption in applications that combine 2D and 3D loads (like AutoCAD) is in line with the performance we observed.

The processor ends up in almost the same place during our gaming loop.

The finishing order changes dramatically once we fire up an AVX stress test with all cores running at their top Turbo Boost bins. During rendering, we were seeing the -8700K's stock power consumption at 110W, climbing to 133W under a 5 GHz overclock.

AVX without offset pushes the result as high as 170W. The Core i7-8700K at 4.9 GHz even throttles due to its package temperature. And that's in spite of our compressor cooler's efforts! Thermal paste under the IHS does us no favors.

Temperatures

Here’s the good news: unless you render or run Prime95 for hours on end, a good air cooler can theoretically handle 4.8 GHz in a well-ventilated case. Intel’s thermal interface material isn't desirable, but it shouldn't stop you from achieving a decent overclock.

The above graph shows that a closed-loop liquid cooler is able to keep an overclocked Core i7-8700K from throttling after 20 minutes of warming up. A good heat sink and fan combination should perform almost as well, again, given ample airflow.

Under our stress test, the overclocked processor gets uncomfortably hot, even under our compressor cooler.

While we're only measuring an average of 170W, thermal throttling keeps the 180W+ peaks from becoming our average power consumption result. At that point, even the most powerful coolers have to throw in the towel.

To be sure, it's surprising just how much power such a tiny processor can consume once it’s pushed to its limits. Nevertheless, Intel’s Core i7-8700K is relatively easy to cool, even on air. You'll just want to stay away from taxing rendering sessions and AVX-optimized workloads. At that point, you're best off with an all-in-one closed-loop liquid cooler.

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Conclusion

AMD’s competitive architecture, disruptive pricing, and class-leading core counts continues to turn heads. Intel responded to the Threadripper family by introducing Skylake-X-based CPUs for less money per core than we've ever seen before. Up until now, though, it showed no interest in affecting that metric with its mainstream desktop chips. This changes with Coffee Lake, which employs the same underlying architecture as Kaby Lake, but adds execution cores and cache. Improved Turbo Boost bins also help maintain performance in lightly-threaded tasks.

Intel says that its Core i7-8700K is the company's best gaming processor ever. So, we use a geometric mean of 99th percentile frame times, a good indicator of smoothness, converted into an FPS measurement, to gauge the veracity of this bold claim across our suite. Five of the games we test were released in 2016, and five are older (2014/2015). Extra cores could enable more performance as software evolves, so we also include a chart with newer games that thoroughly utilize available host processing resources. We also have price-to-performance charts that get split up to include both the price of the processor and extra platform costs. For the models that don't come with a bundled cooler, we add an extra $25 for a basic heat sink. We also add $20 if overclocking requires a more expensive motherboard (as is the case for Z370).

Despite a few missteps, Core i7-8700K lives up to Intel’s claims. While it doesn't beat the -7700K by a massive margin, the Coffee Lake flagship does deliver better performance in stock and overclocked form. Of course, adding a Z370 motherboard and competent cooler knocks you over the $400 mark, so be ready to pay for that privilege.

Value-seekers have to be asking if Core i7-8700K's price tag is even worth paying, then. After all, you can get Ryzen 7 1800X-class performance out of an overclocked Ryzen 7 1700 for $300 or less. But based on our matrix, Coffee Lake gives you the best performance (furthest to the right) without getting too crazy on price. We're naturally wondering how Core i5-8600K will fare. For now, though, Core i7-8700K is the gaming CPU to own.

Whereas Kaby Lake tends to fall behind Ryzen once we jump out of the games and start looking at rendering/encoding workloads, Coffee Lake's extra cores, higher clock rates, and overclocking headroom help close that gap. Applications previously notorious for going AMD's way are now more hotly contested.

Unfortunately, you will have to buy a new Z370-based motherboard to support Core i7-8700K. Coffee Lake necessarily breaks compatibility with the not-altogether-old Z270 chipset for higher memory data rates and improved power to the CPU's package. And of course, the Z-series platform controller hub is a requisite if you want access to unlocked ratio multipliers. Lower-end B- and H-series chipsets are coming, but not until next year.

We're also disappointed that Core i7-8700K still utilizes thermal paste between its die and heat spreader. Whereas this was a significant issue during our Skylake-X evaluation, though, it's not as problematic on a 95W CPU. You can easily stave off throttling with a heat sink and fan, or dial in a respectable overclock under a closed-loop liquid cooler.

Intel has its 10nm Cannon Lake processors coming in the second half of 2018, and AMD has a Ryzen refresh cycle coming next year. Knowing this, should you upgrade now or wait for the next wave of hardware? Due to the iterative nature of most updates, we rarely recommend jumping forward one, or even two generations. However, if you routinely find yourself running productivity workloads that might be served well by Core i7-8700K's extra cores, we could see replacing a quad-core chip with six cores. Gamers interested in maximum performance or streaming also stand to benefit, though in a world of single-GPU graphics configurations, you'd be hard-pressed to bottleneck an overclocked -7700K with even a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (particularly at the high resolutions it's meant to drive).

It's an exciting year to be an enthusiast. Intel obviously planned to beef up its line-up years back, but we can thank AMD for the accelerated timeline and competitive pricing. Competition truly is a wonderful thing.

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Origin PC Chronos Desktop Review

Derek Forrest — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 01:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

Intel’s 8^th-generation desktop processors are upon us, but we’re taking a final look at the (still quite relevant) Z270 chipset and its top-tier Core i7-7700K in Origin PC’s Chronos, a small form factor (SFF) custom gaming rig with a GTX 1080 Ti, CPU liquid cooling, and an eye-catching red and windowed chassis. Origin PC packs in memory and storage capacities, with 32GB of DDR4-2666, a 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD, and a 6TB HDD. This is decidedly above par for most budget gamers, but Origin is clearly aiming this $3,000+ model at the performance-obsessed set.

Specifications

Exterior

The Origin PC Chronos features a matte red finish and LED lighting emanating from its windowed side panel, giving it a definitive wow factor (we’re also partial to the *cough, Tom’s Hardware, cough* tone of red). The window shows off the GTX 1080 Ti and has ventilation holes directly over the GPU’s blower intake, guaranteeing fresh (cool) air for the powerful graphics card. Another vent closer to the front of the chassis allows more air into the case by the front of the GPU, and the CPU’s 120mm radiator is mounted to the same panel (you won’t be able to tear it away freely without removing the CPU cooler entirely).

The opposite side of the windowed panel is solid (you can’t open it) with a single air vent for the SFX power supply, which takes cool air in and expels the heat out the side. The chassis can be oriented horizontally or vertically, and the front Origin PC logo can be turned whichever way your preferred orientation requires.

The rear panel is stingy on USB connectivity (like most mini-ITX motherboards), with two USB 3.1 Gen 2 interfaces (Type-A and Type-C), two USB 3.1 (Gen 1) ports, and two USB 2.0 ports. There’s also a PS/2 connector for legacy peripherals or game controllers. Internet connectivity is provided by an Intel i219V gigabit Ethernet port and integrated Intel Wireless-AC 8265. The front panel sports two USB 3.0 ports and audio connectors (headphone-out and mic-in jacks).

You can connect to a display using the GPU’s HDMI 2.0 or three DisplayPort 1.4 interfaces. There’s also a DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4 connections on the motherboard, but you won’t use those unless you’re hooking up more than four screens.

Interior

Removing the windowed side panel reveals that you can’t pull the panel too far away; the 120mm Asetek CPU liquid cooler’s radiator is mounted to the panel. A 120mm slim-profile fan is mounted to the radiator, and the hoses tuck between either side of the pump/CPU mount when the panel is put back in. There’s also an 80mm intake fan on the front of the case, which gets its air from vents on the top and bottom (or left and right, if positioned horizontally) of the chassis' front panel.

A 32GB (2 x16GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2666 is seated in the motherboard’s only two DIMM slots. The 512GB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD and the 6TB Western Digital Red HDD are difficult to see when you remove the Chronos’ only panel; the M.2 slot is located on the underside of the motherboard (you’ll have to take our word that it’s there; we didn’t see the need to disassemble the entire PC in order to photograph it), and the 3.5” HDD resides behind the graphics card (we used a cell phone with a good camera to capture the picture in the album above).

The primary SSD’s capacity is par for serious gamers, but the 6TB HDD is a lot more extra space compared to most of the custom shop Z270 PCs we’ve recently tested, and the extra storage comes with a sizable premium. Surprisingly, there’s still room for more storage, with an empty 3.5” bay mounted above the 600W Silverstone SFX power supply (which is also hidden from view without significantly disassembling the system).

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition GPU is mounted upright with the use of a riser platform and a flexible PCIe x16 cable. The graphics card gets extra support from a beam in the chassis that is attached to the front of the GPU, and it lines up perfectly with the windowed panel’s vents. If the cooling design proves effective (on paper, it looks promising), the custom overclocked GTX 1080 Ti should provide top-tier gaming performance.

The cables are all neatly tucked with precision. Nothing looks messy (aside from one stray cable across the motherboard PCH that cannot be helped), there aren’t any bundles of extra cables crudely stuffed into an empty crevasse of the case, and everything seems to have a place despite the small form factor.

Software And Accessories

The Origin PC Chronos comes with an Origin t-shirt and a box filled with all of the component manuals and extra parts (including your power cable and Wifi antennas). The red LED light is a neat aesthetic bonus that adds another $20 to the total bill, but you could save a few bucks if lights aren't preferred. The system was shipped in a premium wooden crate, an add-on that can be purchased for an additional $42.

The Chronos doesn’t come with any pre-loaded software (trial or full version), but the company did install EVGA Precision X for overclocking the graphics card (for an added $50). Origin PC pushed the Founder’s Edition GTX 1080 Ti’s core and memory clocks by 120 MHz each, and the power and thermal limits have been maxed out. This should provide a quantifiable boost in performance, and the service ensures that you’ll squeeze out every drop of power from the hardware inside the Chronos.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

For comparison purposes, we've included data from our Z270 reference system, which also features an Intel Core i7-7700K (clocked at its stock 4.2 GHz with a 4.5 GHz max turbo frequency in lightly threaded applications) in an ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming i7 ATX motherboard. A 16GB (2 x8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX Savage DDR4-2133 memory runs at the standard CAS latency of 15-15-15-36, and EVGA provided us with a set of Founder’s Edition graphics cards (a GTX 1080 Ti, 1080, and 1070) and a 1000W PSU. We used data from the GTX 1080 Ti for this review, and we run the GPU at its respective default base and boost clock frequencies. You can check out the full specifications of our test rig below.

Comparison Products

AVADirect Avatar 2017

Steiger Dynamics Era Reference

Test System Configuration

We also included data from our recent reviews of the Steiger Dynamics Era Reference and the AVADirect Avatar, which both feature a Founder’s Edition GTX 1080 Ti. The Era runs with a Core i5-7600K overclocked to 4.8 GHz, so it should provide excellent contrast to the Chronos in games and workloads that favor Hyper-threading. The Era’s GPU overclock is also nearly identical to the Chronos, with both systems sporting a 120 MHz boost on the core clock. However, Steiger’s sample has a higher GPU memory overclock, with an extra 200 MHz (the Chronos is boosted by 120 MHz). The Avatar lacks overclocking on the GPU, but the Intel Core i7-7700K is set to 4.7 GHz, just below the Chronos’ 4.8 GHz.

The Intel Core i7-7700K inside the Origin PC Chronos is overclocked to an all-core frequency of 4.8 GHz. CPU thermals are kept in check by a 120mm liquid cooler, and the GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition graphics card is overclocked by 120 MHz on both the core and memory clocks. The 32GB (2 x 16GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2666 features a CAS latency of 15-15-15-35, and the tight timings should provide above-average total memory bandwidth and performance in RAM-intensive workloads, and the capacity is decidedly above the cut.

3DMark

The Origin PC Chronos starts our benchmark suite strong, taking a clean lead against the other systems in the 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy synthetic gaming tests. The Era Reference trades blows with the Chronos in the Graphics tests thanks to their similarly clocked GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards, and the Era manages to get a win in the GPU-oriented portion of the test in Fire Strike Extreme. However, the Chronos thoroughly leads the field in all other aspects of the test, including the Physics (CPU) and Combined segments of the benchmarks.

Cinebench R15

The Chronos again leads the pack in the Cinebench R15 benchmark. Although they both have identically clocked CPUs, the Origin PC Chronos takes a slight lead over the Steiger Dynamics Era Reference in the single-threaded portion of the benchmark. It doesn’t have any issue overtaking the Avatar and Era Reference in the multi-threaded tests, and it also exhibits the best OpenGL shading results at 180.88 FPS.

CompuBench

We again see the Era Reference and Chronos exchange blows in the Compubench Video Processing and Bitcoin Mining tests. The Chronos upends the Era in the Video Processing segment thanks to its Hyper-threaded Core i7, but the Era’s slightly higher GPU memory clock gives it a minuscule edge against the Origin PC contender in the Bitcoin mining benchmark.

Storage Test

The Origin PC Chronos makes short work of the other systems in the field in the storage tests with its 512GB Samsung 960 Pro SSD, which achieves slightly higher IOPS performance than the competition (which have Samsung 960 EVO SSDs). The Chronos also achieves significantly higher sequential read and write performance with its Pro-series SSD, reaching 3,228.95 MB/s read and 2,061.83 MB/s write speeds.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

The 32GB (2 x16GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2666 inside the Chronos has a low CAS latency of 15-15-15-35, giving it higher total multi-threaded memory bandwidth than the competition with its tight timings. The increased module density also plays a role in the increased bandwidth compared to the other systems (the Era features DDR4-3000 with CAS timings of 16-18-18-38; the Avatar has DDR4-2400 with a CAS latency of 15-15-15-35; both have 2 x8GB modules). However, the single-threaded memory bandwidth falls more in line with what you’d expect from the base memory frequency, with the Era and its DDR4-3000 leading the pack (albeit by a small margin).

PCMark 8

The Chronos’ high memory bandwidth, speedy storage, and high-clocked CPU all play pivotal roles in its high scores in PCMark 8. The Origin PC SFF leads the Avatar by a sizable 305 points and 87 points in the Adobe Creative and Microsoft Office application tests, respectively.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Alien: Isolation

The Origin PC Chronos begins our game tests in the lead, outperforming the competition by sizable margins in the Alien: Isolation benchmarks. The Avatar's lack of GPU overclocking holds it back from reaching the same peaks as the Chronos, whereas the Era Reference’s overclocked graphics card seems to compensate for the lack of Hyper-threading enough to bring it just behind the Avatar’s Core i7 (at 100 MHz less) and non-overclocked GPU. However, the Chronos pulls considerably ahead at all tested resolutions.

Ashes of the Singularity

The Chronos makes a similar statement in Ashes of the Singularity, netting noticeably higher average framerates at all tested resolutions compared to its similarly equipped test subjects. The overclocked and Hyper-threaded Core i7-7700K in the Chronos puts it ahead of the Era (which sports an i5-7600K at the same 4.8 GHz clock rate and an almost identically clocked GPU) in the CPU-intensive benchmark.

Bioshock Infinite

The Origin PC Chronos gets the hat trick (three in a row), topping the charts in the Bioshock Infinite benchmarks. Once again, its CPU ensures victory over the Core i5-equipped competition (the Era), whereas the Chronos’ slightly higher CPU frequency and overclocked GPU push ahead of the Avatar’s performance by leaner margins.

DiRT Rally

The DiRT Rally results throw us our first curve ball, with the Era Reference beating the Origin PC Chronos (and the rest of the group) by a considerable margin at 1920 x 1080. The only tangible advantage the Era has against the Chronos (hardware-wise) is the slightly higher (we’re talking 80 MHz) GPU memory clock, but that shouldn’t account for a 17.5 FPS average framerate variance.

This anomaly completely disappears at higher resolutions, with the Chronos ascending back to its familiar place on top and the Era falling behind all of the Core i7-equipped systems at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160. The Era even falls behind our Z270 test rig at stock frequencies. We’re not sure how to explain the 1080p results without retesting the Era, but we theorize that Windows Updates, Hyper-threading states (it may not engage until you push to higher resolutions), or a possible advantage for physical CPU cores at lower resolutions could play a role.

Grand Theft Auto V

The Origin PC Chronos takes a dominant lead over the other tested systems in the field in the GTAV benchmarks at all tested resolutions. At the most demanding settings, you have to play at 4K to average below 60 FPS. In fact, the performance drops severely when you turn it up to 3840 x 2160, with all of the GTX 1080 Ti-equipped PCs struggling to stay above a playable 30 FPS average.

GRID Autosport

GRID Autosport is another platform-bound game, and the CPU gives the Chronos a clear advantage over the Era Reference (its similarly-priced, sized, and equipped competition). The Avatar bridges the gap between the two with a slightly less overclocked (but Hyper-threaded) CPU and stock-clocked GPU.

Hitman

The Origin PC Chronos continues its gaming dominance in the Direct3D 12 version of the Hitman benchmark, earning top honors in the group of Z270/GTX 1080 Ti gaming rigs. At 1920 x 1080, the Chronos outperforms the Avatar by over 15 FPS average and nets a better minimum framerate by just about 2 FPS. The lead becomes less pronounced as you turn up the resolution (about 11 FPS at 2560 x 1440, 4 FPS at 4K), but the Chronos maintains its lead.

Metro: Last Light Redux

The Chronos again finds itself at the top of the chart in Metro: Last Light Redux. Our settings heavily tax the CPU, and although the Era is able to compete against Core i7 systems with stock-clocked GPUs, it can’t catch up to the Chronos.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the most demanding games in our suite, and the Chronos crushes it by achieving an average framerate of 95.3 FPS and 60.79 FPS at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440, respectively. However, 3840 x 2160 brings all of the GTX 1080 Ti rigs to unplayable framerates, and not even the Chronos can achieve an average of 30 FPS (although it falls short just barely) without turning down some of the more intense graphics settings.

The Division

We test The Division using DirectX 12, and we again see the Era sneak in a sizable win against the Chronos and other GTX 1080 Ti-equipped PCs. Hyper-threading is not a factor in the Chronos’ unforeseen loss, but memory bandwidth (both DRAM and VRAM) are the likely advantages that bring the Era to the front of the pack again. However, the Chronos doesn’t trail far behind, and all of the GTX 1080 Ti rigs offer more-than-comfortable framerates using the highest settings and resolutions in the Tom Clancy shooter.

Thief

The Origin PC Chronos finishes our test suite at the top of the GTX 1080 Ti mountain, reclaiming its throne from the similarly priced, sized, and configured Steiger Dynamics Era Reference by just about 4 FPS average at all tested resolutions. The obvious CPU advantage gives Origin PC the performance edge in this round of Z270/GTX 1080 Ti desktops reviews, but the variances weren’t often by large numbers (as seen in the Thief results).

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The Origin PC Chronos is the company’s first custom SFF chassis, and it packs a lot of power in a tiny box. The overclocked and water-cooled Intel Core i7-7700K and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti deliver best-in-class gaming performance. Its 32GB of DDR4-2666 memory, 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD, and 6TB HDD gives you exceedingly high memory and storage capacity, even by PC gaming enthusiast standards.

However, this all comes at a hefty price: $3,259. We can already hear enthusiasts furiously typing comments about building it themselves cheaper! But when it comes to custom shop gaming PCs, this price is actually par for the course for a Core i7/GTX 1080 Ti SFF PC with a fully custom chassis (see Steiger Dynamic’s Era Reference). In fact, compared to the Era, the component set of the Chronos (Core i7, higher RAM and storage capacity) is quite reasonable, even if the final price tag is higher.

The chassis catches the eye with a matte red finish and red LED strip. A small window showcases the graphics card, and it has vents that line up directly with the GPU’s blower fan, giving it a steady supply of cool air. The simplicity and size makes the Chronos well-suited for a powerful living room gaming rig, but the case's versatility makes it just as appealing sitting on a desk or under your display.

We weren’t thrilled with the interior of the case, particularly how incredibly compacted everything is. This isn’t really a bad thing if you aren’t ever going to touch the components yourself, but anyone considering a purchase probably intends to keep it for a long time, and upgrades (or replacements) may become available or necessary after some time (say, if the PSU or SSD goes bad, or Nvidia turns the dial to 11 with a new series of GPUs and you’re dying to have the latest and greatest graphics card).

Although it is possible to access all of the individual components (there are standard Phillips-head screws holding the various cages in place), Origin PC certainly didn’t make it easy. The PSU and storage are inaccessible without disassembling the majority of the system. However, you can still access the memory, GPU, secondary storage, and cooling components without any tedious tinkering. If there are any issues you don't want to deal with yourself, Origin PC's warranty should make you rest easy.

Speaking of tinkering, if you aren’t one to dabble with CPU or GPU clock rates (either through a lack of knowledge or confidence), we generally recommend custom shop overclocking services as a means for the uninitiated to get the most out of their hardware. However, Origin PC’s asking price for this is much higher than its competition, with the company fetching $75 for a CPU overclock and $50 for the graphics card ($125 for both components). It's nice to know that Origin PC's warranty covers the overclock, but the company doesn't provide the performance perk for cheap.

Steiger comes in slightly lower with its overclocking services at $100 for the CPU and GPU (at least at the time we reviewed the Era; Steiger has since reduced its overclocking fees in response to our feedback), but shops like AVADirect and Xidax only charge $25 per component for the performance boosting add-ons (although GPU overclocking isn’t available in the AVADirect Avatar). Occasionally, shops will throw in the service (for one, if not both of the components) as a special sale, but currently, Origin PC doesn’t appear to be running any such promotions. Despite the unsavory price tag, the fine tuning certainly helped propel the Chronos to the top of the charts against similarly equipped competition.

The Chronos exhibited excellent thermal dissipation in our testing. We observed peak CPU and GPU temperatures no higher than 75°C, which is well within the standard operation parameters of the components. The clock rates never seemed to waver, and the intuitive design of the Chronos prevents any thermal throttling with its strategically placed air vents and clever implementation of a 120mm radiator and slim-profile fan. You wouldn’t think a gaming rig this compact and powerful could provide adequate airflow for the overclocked premium components, but Origin PC put some serious thought into the design of the Chronos, and the results speak for themselves.

Although Kaby Lake is about to be demoted with the arrival of Intel's 8th generation Coffee Lake desktop processors, it's a sure bet that Origin PC will be offering the updated Z370 chipset and six-core CPUs in an impending update to the Chronos. If this sample is any indication, it will offer top-tier gaming performance, stable overclocks, and a sweet red SFF chassis.

The Origin PC Chronos is a brilliant combination of intelligent design and raw horsepower, and it's a worthy consideration for PC gamers looking for the absolute best if a budget is just a number and cash flow is comfortable.

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Maingear Vybe Desktop Review

Derek Forrest — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 01:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

Maingear has had a good year. Through partnerships with HP (the Maingear Omen X) and Razer, in addition to former Voodoo CEO and tech legend Raul Sood joining the company, we’ve seen Maingear grow into a brand-name custom shop that offers a plethora of PC configurations, along with its signature hot rod-inspired paint shop.

Although Maingear is most known for its high-end custom water loops and premium automotive finishing, the company debuted its budget-friendly Vybe gaming desktop PC last year, bringing Maingear’s custom PC mastery to a more comfortable price point. Starting at $999 for VR-ready configurations (and $699 for budget setups), the Vybe lacks the custom paint options and open-loop liquid cooling of the company’s pricier offerings, but we wanted to see what Maingear’s conservative side had to offer.

Much to our dismay, Maingear pulled out all the stops with the Vybe configuration it sent us, single-handedly decimating our original expectations with a beast of a gaming PC equipped with an Intel Core i7-7700K overclocked to 5.0 GHz, an NVMe PCIe SSD, and dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Founder’s Edition graphics cards in SLI. Ringing up for $3,842, this Maingear Vybe gives us an insanely powerful hardware set with everything but the kitchen sink (open-loop cooling and custom paint). Time to see how the not-so-budget-oriented premium configuration of the Vybe performs in our test suite.

Specifications

Exterior

The Maingear Vybe in our lab doesn’t feature the flashy custom paint we’re used to seeing with other premium PC configurations from the company (although this can be accommodated, starting at $499), but the modified NZXT S340 mid-tower ATX chassis is eye-catching in its own right. The case’s feet have been modified from its original specification to increase stability, and indeed, the Vybe is sturdy where it sits. The solid front panel doesn’t allow for an optical drive, but it gives the Vybe a sleek look with a Maingear logo and matte black finish. Maingear also ships the Vybe with an external USB DVD-RW drive, so we don’t miss the unsightly (and nearly obsolete) optical drive protruding from the front of the case.

The left side panel features an acrylic window that showcases the interior components, which are bathed in RGB LED lighting. This premium add on usually costs a cool $69, but Maingear is offering the remote-controlled light strip for free during its back-to-school sale. The underside of the chassis features a PSU dust filter, which is easy to remove and keeps your power supply clean. The top of the chassis has a 140mm exhaust fan.

The front-panel I/O is also located on the top of the case, with two USB 3.0 ports residing next to the power button. To the left of the USB ports are two audio jacks (one headphone-out, one mic-in). The motherboard’s connectivity is more expansive, with USB 3.1 (Gen 2) Type-C and Type-A ports (capable of up to 10 Gbps data rates) powered by an ASMedia ASM2142 chipset, two USB 3.0 ports, and three USB 2.0 ports wired directly to the motherboard’s Z270 chipset.

Display output on the motherboard comes in the form of an HDMI 1.4 port and a DisplayPort 1.2 interface, but Maingear capped these off, directing customers to the two GPUs, which sport six DisplayPort 1.4 interfaces, two HDMI 2.0 ports, and two DVI-D ports between them. You can connect to the internet using the RJ-45 port, which is powered by a Qualcomm Killer E2500 Gigabit LAN controller.

Interior

Inside the Vybe, an MSI Z270 Gaming M7 motherboard is loaded with an Intel Core i7-7700K processor, which Maingear overclocked to a stable 5.0 GHz for a $49 Redline Overclocking service fee. A 240mm liquid cooler (branded as the Maingear Epic 240 SuperCooler) takes in cool air at the front of the chassis with the aid of two 120mm NZXT case fans. Ambient heat is driven from the chassis by a rear 120mm fan and top 140mm fan.

The Vybe’s 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2666 has above-average speed, with a CAS latency of 15-17-17-35. These tight timings should help in memory intensive workloads, and the capacity is also more than adequate for most AAA game coming down the pipeline. Two Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Founder’s Edition graphics cards are linked together with a familiar green high-bandwidth SLI bridge, and similar to the CPU, Maingear overclocks the GPUs (+100 MHz core, +150 MHz memory) with the purchase of its Redline Overclocking service.

One of the motherboard’s M.2 slots (between the GPUs) features an M.2 Shield, which is just a metal mounting plate used to dissipate heat from a socketed SSD. The interface is occupied by a 512GB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD, which is rated for up to 3,500 MB/s sequential read speeds. The size and speed of the primary storage is ideal for even enthusiast gamers, and getting a higher capacity SSD would assuredly sink a lot more money into the build. The SSD is complimented by a 2TB 7,200 RPM Seagate HDD (accessible from the right side panel in the 3.5” drive bay), and the total storage capacity and potential primary storage performance of the Vybe mirrors what many price-conscious DIY enthusiasts would go with in their own builds.

A sleek PSU shroud hides a fully modular Corsair AX860i power supply, but you can access it from the right-side panel. Maingear recently changed up its configurators, and it now offers EVGA-branded PSUs in the Vybe. The AX860i in our review unit was replaced by an EVGA Supernova 850W PSU in the same price class as our sample’s AX860i, but either of those are adequate enough to power the beastly SLI rig, so we shouldn’t see too much of a difference between what we have in front of us and what Maingear offers today.

The PSU’s stock ATX, CPU, and PCIe power cables are connected to red, individually-braided cables (for an extra $99), which connect to the motherboard in the visible (main) chamber of the chassis. The red cables and the aforementioned remote-controlled RGB LED light strip give the Vybe some much-needed aesthetic wow factor, but the customized Maingear cable shroud running up the right side of the motherboard also makes the interior stand out. The cable management is also pristine, with all of the case’s wires, power, and data cables (visible or not) all neatly tied down without obstructing airflow or fan blades.

Software And Accessories

The Maingear Vybe doesn't come with any trial software or bloatware, but Maingear loaded GeForce Experience and MSI Afterburner with an overclocking preset for the GPUs, pushing the core clock up by 100 MHz and the memory clock by 150 MHz. Customers should appreciate the simplicity of the installation, which came loaded with all of the latest drivers, firmware, and Windows updates.

Maingear also ships the Vybe with all of the components' manuals, spare parts, and accessories, giving users the ability to upgrade without worrying about missing cables, screws, mounts, or software (it even comes with its Windows 10 retail box and product key). The complete set of individually-braided CableMod PSU cables are also included.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

We tested the Maingear Vybe against similarly configured and priced competition, including the Digital Storm Velox. The Velox goes for considerably more money than the Vybe, but they are almost identical in component sets. Both feature an Intel Core i7-7700K overclocked to 5.0 GHz and two Founder’s Edition GeForce GTX 1080 graphics cards in SLI. However, Digital Storm overclocked the GPU cores slightly higher (Maingear added 100 MHz, Digital Storm added 150 MHz), but Maingear also bested Digital Storm’s memory clock increase of 50 MHz by 100 MHz (in other words, the Vybe video memory is boosted by 150 MHz). The Velox also sports faster memory (DDR4-3000) at a higher capacity (32GB), but the primary storage between the two dueling systems is identical (a 512GB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD). The Velox and Vybe are destined to duke it out for GTX 1080 SLI supremacy throughout our benchmark suite.

We also included metrics from our recent review of the AVADirect Avatar, which sports the same CPU (a Core i7-7700K) and a single GTX 1080 Ti under the hood. Although the Avatar's CPU isn’t clocked as high as the SLI-enabled systems in the field (4.7 GHz), the Founder’s Edition GTX 1080 Ti graphics card should give the GTX 1080-SLI-equipped systems a run for their money in games and workloads where SLI scaling is weak (or non-existent), even at its stock clock speeds. The Avatar’s primary storage (a 250GB Samsung 960 EVO NVMe SSD) should also show the contrasting performance between Samsung’s EVO and Pro series SSDs.

Finally, we loaded our Z270 test rig up with another EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card and ran our benchmark suite with SLI enabled (where applicable), and the stock-clocked CPU and GPUs should show us exactly how much performance Maingear’s overclocking can provide. The full specifications of our test rig are listed below:

Comparison Products

AVADirect Avatar 2017

Digital Storm Velox Z270

Test System Configuration

3DMark

The Maingear Vybe vies for 3DMark dominance against the Digital Storm Velox, with the GTX 1080 SLI-equipped gaming rigs coming within 200 points of each other’s overall score in all the varying Fire Strike benchmarks. The Vybe manages to upend the Velox in the Physics portion of the tests by a small margin, primarily due to a slight lead in CPU frequency (we observed the Velox and Vybe achieving CPU frequencies of 4999 MHz and 5010 MHz, respectively). This is likely because of slight variances in each systems platform (motherboard), which can affect base clock stability and where a 5.0 GHz setting will actually sit comfortably.

This slight lead in CPU horsepower nets the Vybe wins in the Combined portions of Fire Strike and Fire Strike Extreme, but when GPU horsepower becomes more important at 4K (Fire Strike Ultra), the Velox’s slightly higher GPU clock pushes its Combined score above the Vybe. Switching to DX12 with Time Spy flips the script: the Vybe edges out a win against the Velox in the Graphics test, but falls slightly behind in the CPU test.

Cinebench R15

Cinebench R15 puts the spotlight on the processor, and the slight advantage we saw in the Physics portion of the Fire Strike benchmarks is reaffirmed here. The Vybe achieves slightly higher CPU rendering scores (single and multi-threaded) against the Velox. However, the OpenGL test favors Digital Storm’s sample, which leads the Vybe by 3.38 FPS.

CompuBench

Because CompuBench doesn’t test multi-GPU configurations, the Vybe (and its similarly equipped comparisons) falls behind the AVADirect Avatar’s GTX 1080 Ti. It also trails the Velox’s slightly higher-clocked GPU by roughly 5 FPS in the Video Processing test and by just about 5 MH/s in the Bitcoin mining test. Clock speeds pay dividends in CompuBench, but real-world applications (using both GPUs) would put the likes of the Vybe and Velox (and even our test rig, in this configuration) ahead of the Avatar and its single GPU if mining is the goal.

Storage Test

The Maingear Vybe’s 512GB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD is exceptionally fast, reaching sequential read and write speeds closer to its advertised maximum than its competition (with identical or near-identical SSDs). Its 4K random read and write performance is also at the top of the class, and we suspect that better thermals (possibly aided by the motherboard’s M.2 Shield) played a role in the Vybe’s landslide sequential performance victory.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

The Maingear Vybe’s 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2666 hits its marks in the Sandra Memory Bandwidth tests, outperforming the Avatar’s similar (and identically branded) 16GB kit of DDR4-2400. When we reviewed the Velox, we weren’t including the Sandra memory bandwidth tests in our suite, so we don’t have any data for it in this particular benchmark. However, we’d predict it would be a win in at least the single-threaded test; the Velox had a 32GB (4 x 8GB) kit of DDR4-3000. The Maingear Vybe does attain an exceptionally high total memory bandwidth in the multi-threaded portion of the test, thanks to its tight CAS latency of 15-17-17-35.

PCMark 8

The Vybe finishes the productivity portion of our benchmark suite strong, achieving top scores against the comparison systems in the PCMark 8 application tests. Maingear’s significant storage performance advantage carries it to a sizeable lead (over 300 points) in the Adobe Creative application benchmark, but the Vybe and Velox are neck-and-neck in the Microsoft Office test, separated by only 14 points.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Alien: Isolation

The Maingear Vybe manages to upend the Velox in Alien: Isolation at 1920 x 1080, where the average framerate is limited by CPU performance. The same slight (nearly negligible) performance lead we saw in the 3DMark Fire Strike Physics tests carries the Vybe to the narrow 1080p win, but once the graphics start to play a larger role at higher resolutions, we see the Digital Storm system outperform the Vybe by a small fraction, thanks to its higher GPU overclock.

Ashes of the Singularity

The Vybe scores a surprise win in the DX12 version of the Ashes of the Singularity tests, besting its similarly equipped competition by a few FPS at all tested resolutions. The CPU-intensive benchmark puts a spotlight on the same performance advantage we saw in the 3DMark Fire Strike and Alien: Isolation tests, where the Vybe comes out on top with its ever-so-slightly higher CPU clock rate.

Bioshock Infinite

All of the SLI configurations in the field experienced high frame time variances in the Bioshock Infinite benchmarks, evidenced by the similarly low minimum framerate shared by the Vybe, Velox, and Z270 test rig at all tested resolutions. The Avatar trails behind the pack in average framerate with its single GTX 1080 Ti, but it nets much better minimum framerates than the dual-GPU setups. The Vybe can’t keep up with the Velox’s higher-clocked GPU, but by the time you turn the resolution up to 4K, the performance difference is negligible, and none of the tested SLI systems have issues keeping average framerate in the triple digits at 3840 x 2160.

DiRT Rally

The Maingear Vybe falls in where you’d expect it to amongst the other dual-GPU PCs in the field, besting our Z270 test rig (at stock clock speeds) and falling slightly behind the Velox and its higher-clocked GPU. However, SLI scaling is not as advantageous in DiRT Rally as it has been in other games, and the Avatar pulls out the win in this particular title when you turn up the resolution. A single GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s edition narrowly bests our GTX 1080 SLI test rig and comes within a .02 FPS average of the Vybe at 2560 x 1440. At 4K, the Avatar steals the win from the Velox by a few FPS.

Grand Theft Auto V

GTAV gives us more predictable results, with the Maingear Vybe regaining its second-place position and the Avatar sinking back down the stack. The Vybe crushes the most demanding settings the game has to offer at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440, but at 4K, all of the systems in the field dip below 60 FPS. However, the GTX 1080 SLI systems still see a sizable lead in average framerates over the Avatar’s GTX 1080 Ti at 3840 x 2160, with all three dual-GPU PCs floating around a comfortable 45 FPS.

GRID Autosport

The Maingear Vybe clings to its second-place finish in the GRID Autosport benchmarks, lagging behind the Digital Storm Velox by a small, negligible margin. None of the PCs in the field have any issue averaging above 115 FPS at 3840 x 2160, and GRID doesn’t push the graphics workload as heavily as other games in our suite. The Avatar’s win over our stock-clocked Z270 test system also suggests that performance is most correlated with CPU clock rates than GPU performance in this particular game.

Hitman

When we first benchmarked Hitman using DX12 and multiple GPUs (when we reviewed the Velox), we encountered some stability issues, so we resorted to testing the rig with multi-graphics support disabled. Although subsequent driver updates and game patches have alleviated much of these issues, we wanted to keep our data sets for this round of desktop reviews comparable, so we tested the Maingear Vybe in the same manner.

As such, the AVADirect Avatar handily beats the GTX 1080-equipped systems with its GTX 1080 Ti. The SLI rigs line up in the usual arrangement, with the Vybe netting better average framerates than our Z270 test bench and sitting hot on the heels of the Velox.

Metro: Last Light Redux

The GPU-intensive and SLI-accommodating Metro: Last Light Redux benchmark returns us to the natural order of things, with the Maingear Vybe trailing the first-place Velox in average framerates by a narrow margin at all tested resolutions. The Avatar also returns the bottom of the chart by a considerable margin. SMAA plays a role in the Vybe’s (and the other systems’) less-than-savory average framerate at 3840 x 2160, but you can dial back a few details or turn off the AA to push it well above 60 FPS.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

We recently went back to using DX11 in the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmarks, a change we made after our review of the Digital Storm Velox. To keep data sets comparable, we included a DX11 and DX12 chart, comparing the applicable systems in each version of the test.

The Maingear Vybe predictably outperforms our Z270 GTX 1080 SLI test bench and the Avatar using DX11, taking a first-place win in the absence of the Digital Storm Velox. Putting the two custom-shop SLI rigs head to head in the DX12 version of the test puts things in perspective, with the Velox edging out the Vybe by less than 1.5 FPS at all tested resolutions.

The Division

Similar to Hitman, multi-GPU DX12 support in The Division was shoddy when we first tested the Velox, so we resorted to testing the game with a single GPU enabled. This puts the Avatar and its GTX 1080 Ti in the lead against the GTX 1080 SLI-equipped systems, which fall into line in their usual formation (with the Velox leading the Vybe by a small margin).

Thief

As an older game, Thief sees significant performance gains with higher clock rates, with the Maingear Vybe and Velox pushing far past our Z270 test rig and the Avatar. Although the Vybe again trails the Velox in average framerates by 5-6 FPS at all tested resolutions, it has no issues averaging above 90 FPS at 3840 x 2160.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The Maingear Vybe offers top-tier 4K gaming performance with an Intel Core i7-7700K on a Z270 motherboard overclocked to 5.0 GHz with a 240mm liquid CPU cooler and two Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics cards in SLI. It also sports moderate productivity chops with its 512GB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD and a speedy 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2666. Coupled with a flashy remote-controlled RGB LED light strip, red individually braided power cables, and Maingear’s aesthetic case modifications, the Vybe houses a component set any gaming or PC enthusiast would be lucky to own.

Its primary competitor among the units we've tested is the Digital Storm Velox, which comes in at a significantly higher price than this configuration of the Maingear Vybe. Although the Velox narrowly bests the Vybe in the majority of our benchmark suite with its higher GPU core clockrate, the performance difference is nearly negligible, and the price-to-performance ratio winner in this showdown is easily Maingear.

When it comes to custom shop PCs, raw performance only tells half of the story. The Vybe offers plenty of aesthetic bonuses, many of which are also offered in the Velox (RGB LED lights, colored cables, modified cases). However, it lacks RGB LED fans and a custom paint job (which the Velox has), and Maingear’s automotive paint service starts at an additional $499. However, adding the paint would still put the Vybe’s price tag slightly lower than the Velox, which currently sits around $4,737 as it was configured for our review. Maingear stakes its reputation on its custom paint process (we know, we’ve seen it in action), but the premium cost can be a turn-off for performance and price-oriented shoppers, and this configuration of the Vybe (sans paint) would likely appeal to those consumers—although the price tag is still in the premium range.

The Vybe also lacks an internal optical drive (which we’re totally okay with, and it comes with an external DVD-RW drive) and has less memory and storage capacity compared to the Velox, which sports a slim DVD-RW drive, double the RAM (32GB DDR4-3000), and 1TB more HDD space. This also makes it harder to determine a true value winner between the two competing systems, as increased storage and memory capacities will only appeal to those who need it for specific workloads, and it certainly impacts final pricing. Without an identical sample from each shop, it's premature to declare a winner; we've got a few more systems on the test bench before we begin making some definitive recommendations.

Still, the Vybe provides a level of performance and quality that PC enthusiasts aim for in their own DIY systems, and Maingear sent us a beastly system any gamer would be proud to own. If you take away all the pricey hardware and extras, you’re still left with a custom-built and overclocked gaming PC with a sleek look, a lifetime warranty (with a free three-year comprehensive warranty as part of the back to school sale), and expert craftsmanship starting at $699, and for that, the Maingear Vybe is Tom’s Hardware Approved.

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

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 09:20:00 +0000

Features & Specifications

It's certainly been a great year for enthusiasts. The dynamics of the desktop CPU market changed radically as AMD rose up to challenge Intel's dominance for the first time in recent history. For us, that meant an almost endless stream of new processors to benchmark and compare.

AMD's attack began with mainstream and entry-level parts offering more cores at lower price points than comparable Core CPUs. Intel continued on its merry way, introducing a first round of expensive Skylake-X CPUs that, in many of our benchmarks, failed to impress. When the Ryzen Threadripper family launched shortly thereafter, wielding up to 16 cores and the ability to schedule as many as 32 threads, it became clear that AMD meant business.

All along, we knew Intel was also preparing 12-, 14-, 16-, and 18-core processors of its own. But the company seemed to be rushing around in response to its perhaps unexpected competition. The Core i9-7900X is fast, no doubt. However, excessive thermal and power consumption, along with limited overclocking headroom, marred its debut. Although Intel took steps to drop prices, its Skylake-X models still sell for a rich premium compared to the Threadripper chips contending for enthusiast affection.

From what we understand, Intel believes it has an ace in the hole. Those 6-, 8-, and 10-core Skylake-X CPUs it already sells were a mere prelude to the big guns landing today. Moving forward, Threadripper has to contend with much more sophisticated Core i9s, led by an 18-core -7980XE.

So, Where's The Core i9-7980XE Review?

Unfortunately, our sample and test platform aren't working well together, demonstrating unexpected Turbo Boost frequencies at stock settings. Specifically, the Core i9-7980XE does not exceed 3.4 GHz on a single core. For now, the source of this issue remains unidentified, despite many combinations of components, operating system revisions, and motherboard firmware revisions. We suspect the problem traces back to our engineering sample CPU or motherboard BIOS. We are, of course, in contact with both Intel and MSI regarding our findings.

Interestingly, the 16C/32T Core i9-7960X, which goes up against Ryzen Threadripper 1950X's core count (albeit at a $1700 price point) does work correctly with our test platform. This allows us to post a review of that model with accurate results. For now, our test suite is abbreviated. But we'll update this space with our complete list of benchmarks in the days to come.

Specifications

Intel's Core i9-7960X is the company's second-from-the-top Skylake-X model, selling for $300 less than the flagship -7980XE, but with two fewer cores and 4.75MB less cache. That puts it at a similar core/thread count as AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 1950X (16C/32T). Despite its discount relative to -7980XE, though, Core i9-7960X bears a massive premium compared to the top Threadripper model ($1700 vs. $1000). While we're confident that Intel gets more done per clock cycle with its Skylake architecture, the fact that AMD gives you just as many cores at such a discount is compelling in a great many workloads.

Intel hopes to offset higher pricing with superior performance and features, such as its new mesh topology. This allows the construction of a single monolithic die, as opposed to AMD's multi-die module. Skylake-X is consequently a significant retooling of the Skylake architecture, as we've covered in-depth on multiple occasions. In some applications, this can cause performance to slide the wrong way. Most tests benefit from Intel's enhancements, though. Company representatives claim that future software optimizations may help ameliorate the few cases where Skylake-X suffers, similar to what AMD went through as Ryzen came online.

A realigned cache hierarchy promises improved application performance, while dual 256-bit FMAs work in parallel to support AVX-512. Intel's combination of greater cache throughput and AVX enablement facilitate up to 1 TFLOP compute performance from a single processor. That's a first on the desktop.

Core i5-7640X

Core i7-7740X

Core i7-7800X

Clock rates generally drop as core counts increase. Intel does, however, offset a low-sounding 2.8 GHz base frequency with significantly improved Turbo Boost bins. Core i9-7960X delivers a 4.2 GHz Turbo Boost 2.0 bin with two cores active, and up to 4.4 GHz with Turbo Boost Max 3.0, targeting lightly-threaded workloads across two "favored" cores. The feature is supported natively in the latest Windows 10 Creators Update. However, you still need Intel's driver if your motherboard firmware doesn't implement the feature correctly.

Active Cores	1-2	3-4	5-12	13-16
Intel Core i9-7960X (GHz) Turbo Boost 2.0	4.2	4.0	3.9	3.6

Intel's sophisticated Turbo Boost algorithms provide accelerated clock rates based upon the number of active cores. These higher frequencies even kick in when 16 cores are active, nudging Core i9-7960X as high as 3.6 GHz so long as power, thermals, and current fall below certain thresholds. While Intel only guarantees -7960X's base frequency, we found the Turbo Boost bins to be consistently aggressive during our testing.

Intel's Skylake-X series is repurposed data center silicon from the Xeon line-up, so the processors share the same LCC (Low core Count) and HCC (High Core Count) die that power up to 10- or 18-core processors, respectively. Previously, Core i9-7900X weighed in as Intel's largest LCC-based desktop processor, but Intel employs its HCC die for the chips launching today. That means the -7960X has a much larger die area for dissipating heat. We're hoping this improves its thermal performance compared to Core i9-7900X.

As we know, Skylake-X could certainly use some help in that department. The -7960X's 165W TDP is 25W higher than the -7900X we've already had problems with. And unfortunately, Intel is still using thermal paste between its die and heat-spreader. Even the beefiest custom loops won't be able to overcome this limitation, barring direct-die cooling. Notably, this isn't an issue AMD has with Threadripper thanks to its use of solder.

Similar to the other Skylake-X CPUs, the -7960X supports up to DDR4-2666 memory. It's also used with the same X299 Basin Falls chipset, which boasts improved DMI throughput and 30 HSIO (High Speed Input/Output) lanes that motherboard vendors can allocate to expanded connectivity options. Core i9-7960X also enables the full complement of Skylake-X's 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes, though it trails Threadripper. All of AMD's high-end desktop processors wield 64 lanes of third-gen PCIe. Of course, finding a use for that many lanes might be challenging, but it's certainly nice to have them available.

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Overclocking & Test Setup

Overclocking

If we learned one thing from out overclocking efforts, it's that Intel's thermal throttling mechanisms work great. And often. Even slight voltage increases result in large temperature increases. We found that adjusting the VCCIN voltage (voltage going to the processor) in tandem with VCORE adjustments (voltage to the cores) delivers the best results. It's even possible to generate higher multi-threaded performance scores in some benchmarks, like Cinebench, at the same frequency but with increased VCCIN voltage.

We raised VCCIN up to 1.9V, though this does cause thermal output to increase. We also found that up to 2.0V is "generally" safe if you are using water cooling. However, we lowered the VCORE to a mere 1.1V to combat heat. That gave us a semi-stable 4.5 GHz overclock; we were able to run a wide range of heavily threaded workloads, though extended AIDA stress tests exposed throttling. We decided to stick with a 4.3 GHz all-core overclock (84-88°C) because we found that to be the safest setting that wouldn't trigger the aggressive throttling algorithms. The -7960X is very sensitive to increased voltages, and even bumping up to 4.4 GHz resulted in nagging throttling during stress tests.

The processor will throttle if it overheats, but Skylake-X motherboards also throttle if the package power exceeds a defined threshold. With our MSI motherboard, that ceiling lands in the 300W range. We can remove the power restrictions via BIOS manipulation and pull more than 400W through the package, but we shied away from that because we want to test this processor in the future.

We also tested with both the AVX and AVX2 offsets at the Auto setting. The offset automatically reduced our AVX frequencies to 2.4 GHz. We didn't spend too much time tuning this option due to time constraints, but given the platform's high power consumption and thermal challenges, the dual-headed offsets are a welcome and needed feature.

Be sure to bring a custom loop if you plan to overclock. Also, we advise air or water cooling on the power delivery subsystem. Make sure to use a power supply able to deliver a minimum of 20A on the 12V rail. We've heard reports of up to 530W flowing through the eight-pin EPS cable, so a beefy PSU is a must.

Fine-grained tuning will yield better overclocks as we all acclimate to tuning Skylake-X. However, throttling happens any time you take a wrong turn with your settings. A lot of trial and error is required in order to get more from these components.

Comparison Products

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X

Ryzen 7 1800X

Test Systems

Test System & Configuration

Hardware

Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7960XMSI Xpower Gaming AC 4x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAMD Socket SP3 (TR4)AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X, 1920XAsus X399 ROG Zenith Extreme4x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sIntel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900X, i7-7820XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAMD Socket AM4 AMD Ryzen 7 1800XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium2x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200 @ 3200 MT/sIntel LGA 1151 Intel Core i5-7700K MSI Z270 Gaming M72x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAll EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703Corsair H100i v2

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AotS: Escalation & Civilization VI

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation responds well to the addition of more host processing resources, and that's good news for Core i9-7960X's 16 cores and high IPC throughput.

The -7960X provides great performance at stock settings and even better results after some tuning. We did, however, encounter lower minimum frame rates from -7960X compared to the Core i9-7900X, though. The same behavior manifested on our -7980XE, so we suspect this issue is endemic to Intel's HCC die. You can see where the frame rates dip in our performance over time chart. This is accompanied by higher frame times in those problem areas.

AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 1950X lags behind, though it does achieve a higher minimum frame rate and 99th percentile measurement. The Threadripper models also don’t suffer as much during the latter stages of our benchmark.

Civilization VI AI Test

The Civilization VI AI test measures performance in a turn-based strategy game. Intel's Core i9-7960X offers middling performance at its stock settings, but benefits greatly from our overclocking efforts. It even outpaces an overclocked Core i9-7900X.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Core i9-7960X trails most of the field, including a stock Ryzen 7 1800X, in its out-of-box configuration. Overclocking propels it to the top of our chart, though.

The tuned Core i9-7960X does encounter some turbulence during the opening stages of our Civilization VI benchmark, though, manifesting as a spike in the frame time variance chart.

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Battlefield 1 & Dawn of War III

Battlefield 1

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

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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Grand Theft Auto V, Hitman & Shadow of Mordor

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V tends to perform best on Intel CPUs, and that pattern continues with our Core i9-7960X benchmarks, which outperforms the -7900X at stock and overclocked settings (though the delta between them is tiny at our highest overclocks).

Core i7-7700K fares well at its stock settings, but only slightly beats the stock Core i9-7960X (97.7 FPS) after an aggressive tuning session.

Hitman

Hitman scales well with additional processing resources, once again giving the -7960X a quantifiable advantage.

Shadow of Mordor

Shadow of Mordor is lightly threaded, which punishes the Core i9-7960X's low base frequency. We verified that this CPU sporadically boosts to 4.5 GHz during the test, but the speed-ups are so brief that they do little to improve our frame rate measurements. Even tuning doesn't help much. Notably, Intel's latest lags the overclocked -7900X by more than 5 FPS on average.

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Project CARS, Far Cry Primal & Rise of the Tomb Raider

Project CARS

The Core i9-7960X offers leading performance against the rest of our field at stock settings, and tuning yields a solid 11.5% gain on average.

Given its price, the quad-core Core i7-7700K continues to complement our GeForce GTX 1080 well, while AMD's Ryzen Threadripper processors suffer in Game mode. Then again, we know this title slows down even more if you leave Threadripper in Creator mode, so Intel's advantage is likely a simple matter of getting more done per cycle.

Far Cry Primal

Far Cry Primal refuses to load on CPUs with more than 24 threads. Although we could have disabled eight of the -7960X’s threads, we instead chose to turn off half of them to match Ryzen Threadripper 1950X’s thread count in Game mode as an experiment. This gives us a look at “like” performance with the same number of threads.

The Threadripper models don’t take a lead, but they aren’t far behind after tuning. Meanwhile, Intel's Core i7-7700K shows why we don't typically recommend high-end desktop CPUs for gaming PCs.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

The Core i9-7960X unsurprisingly delivers impressive performance during our Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark, besting Core i9-7900X in stock and overclocked trim.

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Rendering, Encoding, Compression & Decompression

Web Browser

Dropping $1000+ for exceptional Web browsing performance is overkill, no doubt. But these tests do give us an idea of how responsive each CPU is using common desktop applications.

Our results line up based on clock rate and IPC throughput, it appears, highlighting the lightly threaded nature of many productivity-oriented workloads. Of course, those tasks do tend to favor Intel's architectures, which lead in every test.

Rendering

Heavy rendering workloads are easy fodder for high-end desktop CPUs, and Intel's Core i9-7960X delivers superior performance in almost every test we throw at it (except for the single-threaded ones).

The Kaby Lake-based Core i7-7700K outpaces Intel's Core i9-7960X in both single-threaded tests due to its higher Turbo Boost frequency and improved IPC throughput. Meanwhile, the tuned -7900X and -7820X flex their higher clock rates to carve out a lead in those same metrics.

Our stock -7960X beats the chip's overclocked configuration in the short single-threaded Cinebench test by virtue of its 4.4 GHz Turbo Boost 3.0 bin, which is slightly higher than the all-core 4.3 GHz we dialed in during our tuning session. In contrast, the single-threaded POV-ray benchmark caused Intel's Core i9-7960X to shed some frequency, likely due to increased thermal load during this longer test.

Encoding & Compression

A chart-topping core count proves beneficial to the Core i9-7960X during our HandBrake and compression/decompression workloads. But the $1700 CPU stumbles during the LAME benchmark. Intel has confirmed that its mesh architecture can lead to performance regressions in a few applications, and it appears that LAME might benefit from optimization for the new architecture.

PCMark 10

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Conclusion

Intel unabashedly aims its high-end desktop CPUs at those seeking the ultimate in performance, and from our first round of testing, it's apparent that Core i9-7960X delivers this across a range of heavily threaded workloads like rendering, encoding, and file compression. Aggressive Turbo Boost binning, which is far more ambitious than anything Broadwell-E offered, yields impressive results in lightly-threaded workloads too. Though there are rare exceptions, -7960X is also exceptional in games. It's no longer necessary to compromise alacrity in one discipline for devastating speed in another. The top Skylake-X CPUs simply crank up the clocks when their many cores aren't needed.

Of course, you have to pay a premium for this privilege. And if you aren't explicitly running well-threaded tasks on a regular basis, there's not much reason to spend a small fortune on Skylake-X. For gaming, we're using a geometric mean of the 99th percentile frame times, which we convert into an FPS measurement, to provide an easy-to-read performance outlook. The 99th percentile results are a good indicator of smoothness. Ryzen's extra cores could enable more performance in the future as software evolves to utilize them better, so we also include a chart with newer games that exploit host processing resources more thoroughly.

Enthusiasts who mostly plan on gaming: mainstream chips are still the smart choice.

It is remarkable that, for years, developers wrote code capable of utilizing a handful of cores, at most. Yet, in the span of a few months, we suddenly have processors with so many cores that some applications won’t even load. It’s easy to imagine that we’ll start seeing more software optimized for multi-core architectures in the years to come. AMD gets a lot of credit for this; the company's new processors obviously spurred Intel to respond with lower prices and faster processors.

But Intel still charges a big premium for access to its 16-core -7960X. You'll pay $700 more than Ryzen Threadripper 1950X or the 10-core Core i9-7900X. For many, an undeniable performance advantage might not be worth that extra money. But if every second you save translates to dollars, the higher price tag might be worth paying.

Although Intel isn't charging as much per core this generation, the company's segmentation practices persist. AMD gives you ECC memory support and more PCIe connectivity, for example. Meanwhile, Intel disables ECC support to dissuade its Xeon customers from adopting a less expensive platform, and it slowly shaves off PCIe lanes as you descend the Core hierarchy.

Grueling time constraints limited what we could do with Core i9-7960X on this first outing with the chip. But we do have more tests to run, and you can bet we'll revisit the exhaustive thermal/power analysis that went into our Core i9-7900X review. Plus, Core i9-7980XE is sitting here, waiting for a fixed motherboard firmware to truly unlock its potential; test results from Intel's flagship will follow shortly.

In the meantime, there's no question that Core i9-7960X is the fastest 16-core processor available. Intel is simply charging too much for the pleasure of owning one.

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AVADirect Avatar 2017 Desktop Review

Derek Forrest — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

Ever get that feeling of déjà vu? It seems like only yesterday that we were putting AVADirect’s Avatar gaming desktop through its paces. In reality, it’s been roughly eight months since we first reviewed the Avatar; a time before the dawning of Kaby Lake processors and the GTX 1080 Ti. The new version of the micro-ATX platform is priced slightly higher than the previous submission at $2,677, but it features those newer components, with a Core i7-7700K and a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti housed in the familiar chassis. It’s time to see if the new iteration of the Avatar can surpass its predecessor. (We'd sure hope so.)

Specifications

Exterior

The AVADirect Avatar features an Aerocool DS Cube case, which houses a micro-ATX motherboard positioned horizontally (upright) in a steel and plastic chassis with a windowed side panel. The front panel has a faux-leather surface, making it appear sleek and sophisticated. The top of the case has a ventilated panel, but you can swap it out for a solid panel (also faux-leather clad) if you choose. However, we wouldn’t recommend this; the 240mm liquid cooling radiator is mounted beneath the vent. The case is also easy to clean, with a PSU fan filter and an easy-to-remove front panel (careful where you grab it, we learned our lesson the first time around).

The window on the left-side panel showcases the graphics card, which appears upright and is well-illuminated by the 20-color remote-controlled LED light strip and RGB LED fans. The clear acrylic window also features an etched AVADirect Avatar logo.

The front panel I/O is unchanged from the previous version of the Avatar, with two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports on the right side of the top of the case. The power button and headphone-out/mic-in jacks are on the left side. The rear panel sports two USB 3.1 Gen2 ports (one Type-A, one Type-C) powered by an ASMedia controller (no Thunderbolt 3), in addition to four USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports connected directly to the chipset. There’s also a PS/2 combo port for legacy peripherals, and the S/PDIF and five-port audio connections are fed by an ROG SupremeFX 8-channel audio codec.

For display output, the graphics card features the standard GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition connections--an HDMI 2.0 port and three DisplayPort 1.4 interfaces. The motherboard also has an HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 interface, but you won’t need to use those unless you are going for more than four displays. To get online, you can use the Intel i219V Gigabit LAN RJ45 port or the integrated dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi receiver.

Interior

Removing both of the side panels exposes all the top-tier hardware and cabling. An Intel Core i7-7700K sits atop an Asus ROG Strix Z270G micro-ATX motherboard with a 16GB (2x8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2400 memory. The motherboard is rich with features and connectivity (including integrated Wi-Fi, dual M.2 slots, and RGB LED lighting on the PCH heatsink. The RAM is unchanged from the previous version, and its frequency (2400 MHz) is somewhat standard for the newer Z270 chipset (whereas it was above-average for the Z170 version). However, the capacity is enough to handle any AAA game title coming down the pipeline for some time.

The EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition graphics card is about as good as it gets for desktop GPUs, and it should provide impressive framerates at high resolutions. The reference Nvidia shroud further adds to the Avatar’s sleek look, and the blower-style cooler exhausts the hot air out the back of the PC.

AVADirect mounted a 250GB Samsung 960 EVO NVMe SSD in the motherboard’s primary M.2 slot (located below the secondary PCIe slot). The Avatar we previously reviewed featured a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SATA SSD, and at the time, AVADirect didn’t offer M.2 SSDs in the Avatar at all. Although the SSD capacity of the new version has been cut in half, the performance should be significantly higher, with the 960 EVO NVMe SSD rated at up to 3,200 MB/s and 1,500 MB/s sequential read and write speeds, respectively (the 500GB Samsung 850 EVO is rated up to 540 MB/s and 520 MB/s). The 3.5" drive bay houses a 1TB 7,200RPM HDD, which is a good starting point for a moderately sized gaming library, and it makes up for the minimalist capacity of the primary SSD.

The Avatar gets its power from an EVGA 650 G3 80 Plus Gold certified fully modular PSU, which is mounted beneath the motherboard and main chamber at the bottom of the chassis. This is plenty of juice for the GTX 1080 Ti in the Avatar (Nvidia recommends a 600W PSU), and it leave a little headroom to handle overclocking. The modular cables are of the stock EVGA variety, but the cable management is pristine, with the front panel, audio, USB, power, fan, and SATA cables all tied neatly to the case about as clean as one can possibly make it.

A Corsair H110i 240mm liquid CPU cooler is mounted to the top (ceiling) of the case, partially inside of the 5.25” drive bay. The cooler is an added feature (the stock configuration of the Avatar has an air-cooled CPU heatsink), and it comes bundled with the overclocking service for $124. Similar to the primary storage, this is a substantial upgrade from the previous version of the Avatar, which had a 120mm CPU liquid cooler mounted to the rear exhaust vent.

This new version also comes with three Corsair SP120 RGB LED fans (two on radiator, one on rear exhaust), which connects to a six-port RGB fan hub (mounted to ceiling of the PSU bay) and a three-button controller mounted near the 3.5” drive bay. It’s somewhat inconvenient that you have to open the chassis to access the RGB fan controller, but the fact that AVADirect puts the three pricey fans in the Avatar at no extra cost is enough to forgive that. The rear fan also has a protective grating mounted on it, which prevents the CPU cooler's tubing from hitting the fan blades. A 200mm fan at the front of the case takes in fresh air, and the RGB LED light strip remote control box is mounted directly behind the larger intake fan.

Software & Accessories

The AVADirect Avatar doesn’t come with any additional software (aside from Windows), and the installation is as clean as can be. However, the company ships the device with all of the components’ manuals and extra parts (cables, adapters, Wi-Fi antenna, SLI bridge, etc.) in a convenient accessory box (which is really just a motherboard box with AVADirect graphics on it).

The Aerocool DS Cube’s alternate top panel (solid, instead of vented) is also included in the box. Consumers will appreciate the lack of often-pesky software trials and bloatware, and having all the extra components allows you to alter or expand your configuration down the line.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

For comparison, we turn to our Z270 reference system, which features an Intel Core i7-7700K (clocked at its stock 4.2 GHz with a 4.5 GHz max turbo frequency in lightly threaded applications) in an ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming i7 ATX motherboard. A 16GB (2x8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX Savage DDR4-2133 memory runs at the standard CAS latency of 15-15-15-36, and EVGA provided us with a set of the Founder’s Edition graphics cards (a GTX 1080 Ti, 1080, and 1070) and a 1000W PSU. We used data from the GTX 1080 Ti for this review, and we run the GPU at its respective default base and boost clock frequencies. You can check out the full specifications of our test rig below.

Comparison Products

AVADirect Avatar (2016)

Steiger Dynamics Era Reference

Test System Configuration

We also included data from our recent review of the Steiger Dynamics Era Reference gaming desktop, which sports the same GPU as the AVADirect Avatar (a Founder’s Edition GTX 1080 Ti), and which Steiger overclocked (for an added $50) by 120 MHz on the core clock and by 200 MHz on the memory clock. AVADirect doesn’t offer GPU overclocking services on its Avatar series desktops (although it does offer the service on other models for $25), with the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition graphics card running at its stock base, boost, and memory clock frequencies (1480 MHz, 1582 MHz, 11 GHz, respectively), similar to our test rig.

Steiger’s system also features an overclocked Core i5-7600K, which is boosted up to 4.8 GHz with a low-profile air cooler. The Avatar sports a liquid-cooled Intel Core i7-7700K overclocked to 4.7 GHz, and we should see it prevail against the Era in games and applications where hyperthreading is advantageous. However, the Era could pull ahead in workloads that rely on single-threaded performance.

Last but not least, we compared the new AVADirect Avatar to its predecessor, the 2016 Avatar. At the time, it was equipped with a Core i7-6700K overclocked to the same 4.7 GHz as the new Avatar (with a Core i7-7700K). It also had the same 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2400 memory (with a CAS latency of 15-15-15-35). However, the top dog in the GPU kingdom at the time was the GTX 1080, so the old version will undoubtedly fall behind in graphics-intensive workloads against the new version’s GTX 1080 Ti.

Similarly, the older model had a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SATA SSD, whereas the new Avatar 2017 is equipped with a 256GB Samsung 960 Evo M.2 NVMe SSD. This is a significant shift in components from the previous model; AVADirect didn’t even offer M.2 SSDs (NVMe or SATA) in its Avatar configurations at the time. Furthermore, the old version had a 120mm liquid cooler, but the new AVADirect Avatar features a 240mm radiator (and only if you opt to overclock the CPU). Comparing the Avatar 2017 ($2,677) against the older 2016 Avatar ($2,509) should show if AVADirect has improved the overall value of its product over time.

3DMark

The AVADirect Avatar manages a better overall score against our stock-clocked GTX 1080 Ti-equipped test rig throughout the 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks, thanks primarily to its higher Physics score; a result of the CPU overclock. The Graphics scores come in slightly ahead of our test rig; these two systems should be neck and neck in graphics-intensive workloads throughout our benchmark suite, considering they sport the same GPU and clock rates.

As the graphics power demand increases with Fire Strike Extreme and Ultra, we see the Steiger Dynamics Era Reference upend the Avatar’s overall score, which is not surprise given the moderate GPU overclock Steiger applied to its Founder’s Edition graphics card. However, the Avatar goes unchallenged in the Physics (Fire Strike) and CPU (Time Spy) tests thanks to its moderately overclocked and hyperthreaded Core i7-7700K.

Cinebench R15

The Avatar can’t quite catch up to the Era’s single-threaded performance in the Cinebench R15 rendering tests due to the 100 MHz difference in CPU clockrate (Steiger overclocked to 4.8 GHz, whereas AVADirect went for stability with 4.7GHz), but it pulls far ahead of Steiger’s pricier GTX 1080 Ti-equipped offering as soon as hyperthreading becomes a factor in the multi-threaded and OpenGL tests,. The new Avatar also easily bests our test rig’s stock-clocked CPU, and its predecessor’s Core i7-6700K falls the slightest bit behind the new version’s i7-7700K at the same 4.7 GHz clockrate. However, the OpenGL framerates are identical between the battling Avatars, showing that there isn’t much of a difference between Skylake and Kaby Lake processors clocked at the same frequency in this particular workload.

CompuBench

The Avatar manages to outpace our Z270 test rig in the CompuBench Video Processing test thanks to its CPU overclock, but it falls behind the Era ever so slightly thanks to Steiger’s higher overclock. Steiger’s GPU overclock also outpaces the Avatar’s stock-clocked GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition graphics card in the Bitcoin Mining test, but the Avatar bests our test rig in this GPU-bound portion of the benchmark, albeit by a narrow margin.

Storage Test

The Avatar’s 250GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD is a potent storage device, with sequential read and write speeds reaching over 1800 MB/s and 1300 MB/s, respectively. The Steiger’s nearly identical SSD (a 500GB Samsung 960 EVO) barely edges out the Avatar in sequential read performance, but it pulls ahead of it in sequential write performance thanks to its higher capacity (which usually provides better write speeds).

Random 4K read performance is similar; the Avatar and Era are again neck-and-neck, with the AVADirect submission getting the win by a small margin. However, write speeds take a similar dive in performance compared to the Era’s higher-capacity SSD. Despite the second-place write performance finishes, these speeds are still insanely fast for single-SSD (non-RAID) primary storage, and decidedly faster than the former version of the Avatar, which could only be equipped with SATA SSDs at the time.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

The AVADirect Avatar offers above-average total memory bandwidth compared to our test rig’s memory set at the DDR4 standard of 2133 MHz (with a CAS latency of 15-15-15-36). The Avatar’s 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of DDR4-2400 maintains those same timings at a higher frequency, so it’s no surprise we see a boost of performance there. However, it’s not as fast as Steiger’s choice of DDR4-3000, which easily bests the lower-speed memory.

We didn’t run the Sandra Memory Bandwidth tests in our Z170 reviews, so we don’t have performance data from the 2016 version of the Avatar. However, we’d imagine it would be extremely similar to the current iteration’s performance, given that the memory options (brand, speeds) have not changed since our last look at the system.

PCMark 8

The AVADirect Avatar finishes our productivity suite with top scores, besting the Steiger Dynamics Era Reference by small margins in both the Adobe Creative and Microsoft Office application tests in PCMark 8. Hyperthreading plays a pivotal role in these results, evidenced by the lead our Z270 test rig (with a hyperthreaded Core i7 CPU) has against the Era (with a non-hyperthreaded Core i5 processor) in the Office portion of the test, despite the 300 MHz CPU clock rate difference between the two. As a result, the Avatar still manages to beat out its similarly equipped and higher overclocked competition.

Incidentally, last year’s version of the Avatar completely dominated the other system in the Office application benchmark. This can likely be attributed to recent upgrades to both Microsoft Office and PCMark8, which could affect scoring. Without a way to retest the old version of AVADirect’s gaming PC, we can at least confidently say the Avatar bests the field in the PCMark 8 tests (either way).

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Gaming Benchmarks

Alien: Isolation

The AVADirect Avatar starts our gaming benchmarks off strong with its hyperthreaded and overclocked Core i7-7700K giving it the slightest of edges over its direct competition, the Steiger Dynamics Era Reference. Although the Era has a slightly higher CPU overclock (100MHz higher) and an overclocked GPU, AVADirect’s focus on stability seems to pay off with better average framerates in Alien: Isolation at all tested resolutions.

Ashes of the Singularity

The Avatar trails the Era in the Ashes of the Singularity benchmarks by a small fraction (less than 1 FPS at each tested resolution), and the previously mentioned 100 MHz CPU clock and 80 MHz GPU memory clock advantages of the Era yield slightly higher average framerates than the Avatar. Hyperthreading seems to hold no bearing on the results, and the difference in performance between the two high-end custom shop gaming rigs can’t be distinguished with the human eye.

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite assuredly favors hyperthreaded processors in a small way, with the Avatar coming out on top against the Era’s higher CPU and GPU memory overclock. The average framerate is capped by the CPU at 1920 x 1080, and despite the Era’s 100 MHz advantage (on a Core i5-7600K), the Avatar shines through with its Core i7 processor. The same can be said at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160, where the Avatar narrowly edges out the Era as the GPU becomes the bottleneck. At 4K, the difference in performance is indiscernible.

DiRT Rally

The Avatar is thrown a curve ball at 1920 x 1080 in the DiRT Rally benchmark, where it falls beneath the overclocked Era reference by a much higher margin than in previous games. We made sure that there weren’t any shifty things going on (background tasks, throttling) as we tested (and retested) this game at these settings, but it appears that overclocking barely helps the Avatar beat our Z270 reference rig at 1080p. However, moving up to 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160 gives us results more in line with what we’ve seen from the previous games, with the Avatar coming out ahead of the Era Reference by a narrow margin.

Grand Theft Auto V

Hyperthreading again propels the Avatar to a first-place finish in the GTAV tests. Although the Era’s primary components are clocked higher, it only manages to best our test rig at stock CPU and GPU clock speeds, and the Avatar brandishes a healthy lead against its Core i5-equipped competition.

GRID Autosport

Similar to DiRT Rally (also developed by Codemasters), GRID Autosport isn’t favorable to the Avatar at 1920 x 1080. Although it easily bests our Z270 reference system, the Era’s higher-clocked CPU and GPU memory gives it a slightly higher average framerate over the Avatar. However, the Avatar has a better minimum framerate, signifying that hyperthreading may indeed help in some way after all.

This proves true as you turn up the resolution, with the Avatar regaining its first-place lead and besting the Era’s average framerate by over 5 FPS at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160. The Avatar’s minimum framerate is also significantly better than the Era at these resolutions. You’ll notice we did not include the 2016 Avatar in the 1080p results. We do not have that unit to re-test, and the results were far out of alignment with our expectations, so we excluded them in light of our in ability to test various hypothesis.

Hitman

The Avatar leads the pack again in the Hitman DX12 benchmark, with the Era’s Core i5 unable to compete with the Core i7-equipped competition. The 2016 Avatar (with a GTX 1080) trails the Era by a small margin at 1920 x 1080 thanks to the gains its Core i7 and hyperthreading provides. The performance advantage of a Core i7 fades as you turn up the resolution, with the 2016 Avatar falling far behind the Era (as it should be) and the 2017 Avatar leading by a little less than 3 FPS at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160.

Metro: Last Light Redux

Metro: Last Light Redux is a great game to differentiate GPU performance, but we’re somewhat confused by the results. In the past, we’ve observed Founder’s Edition GPUs with the same clock rates performing nearly identically every time (usually within 1 FPS), with CPU frequencies holding little bearing on the end result. However, in the case of the Avatar, we see the stock-clocked Founder’s Edition GTX 1080 Ti not only best our Z270 test rig (with an identically clocked and cooled GPU), but it out-duels the overclocked Founder’s Edition GPU inside of Steiger Dynamic’s Era Reference. This is most apparent at 1920 x 1080, where the Avatar leads the pack in average framerate by 2.34 FPS. At 2560 x 1440, this lead is reduced to 0.33 FPS, and the Avatar and Era both averaged 30.67 FPS at 3840 x 2160. We saw no indication of throttling from either the Era or our test rig, but we theorize the Avatar was able to keep cooler (and therefore, more stable) and maintain its boost frequencies for longer periods of time, giving it a slight edge.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Hyperthreading proves advantageous again in Rise of the Tomb Raider, with the Avatar’s Core i7 processor propelling it ahead of its Core i5 and overclocked GTX 1080 Ti-equipped competition (the Era) at all tested resolutions. However, this lead would be difficult to see with your eyes, with an average framerate difference less than 1 FPS.

The Division

The Avatar falls down the ladder again in The Division, which favors GPU clock rate over CPU performance in its DX12 benchmark. As such, the stock-clocked GTX 1080 Ti in the Avatar falls significantly behind the Era’s moderately overclocked GPU at all tested resolutions. However, the Avatar still manages to best our reference Z270 rig, thanks to either the CPU overclock, GPU stability, or both.

Thief

As an older game, Thief generally doesn’t care if your CPU has hyperthreaded cores. All it wants for framerate glory is speed, and as such, the Avatar takes a second-place win at all tested resolutions, falling behind the Era’s slightly higher overclocked CPU and significantly faster GPU. The Avatar’s overclocked Core i7-7700K is able to push better average framerates than our Z270 reference system (with the same CPU and GPU, at default settings), but Steiger Dynamic’s moderately overclocked GPU and 100 MHz CPU clock advantage ensures higher average framerates than the Avatar in this particular game. I guess you can’t win them all.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The 2017 AVADirect Avatar brought us on a stroll down memory lane, and it quickly reminded us of why we were fond of it in the first place. The new version’s Intel Core i7-7700K offers excellent top-tier gaming performance, and although AVADirect’s CPU overclocking may not yield the highest clock rate in the field, we can attest to its rock-solid stability, which is one of AVADirect’s primary goals with the Avatar series desktops.

The processor is cooled by a Corsair H110i v2 240mm CPU liquid cooler, which is only offered with the CPU overclocking service ($99 for the cooler, $25 for the overclock, for a combined total of $124). If you forgo the overclock, the Avatar comes equipped with an air-cooled CPU heatsink. This configurator option is convenient for AVADirect’s target audience – the average consumer looking for a powerful and stable top-tier gaming PC. If overclocking isn’t something they care for, why would they need anything better than an air-cooled CPU heatsink (especially an aftermarket, non-stock cooler)? This prevents customers from paying for a component they don’t necessarily need.

The 240mm cooler is also a definite upgrade from the previous model of the Avatar that featured a Corsair H60 (120mm) cooler. So, too, are the Corsair SP120 RGB LED exhaust fans mounted in the rear of the case and on the radiator. Previously, these were just the stock 120mm Silent fans that came with the case, and the colorful LED fans now come stock in every Avatar configuration at no extra cost. Combined with a 20-color remote-controlled LED strip (also at no added cost), AVADirect is packing massive aesthetic value into the new iteration of the Avatar.

The Avatar’s EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti provides top-tier performance at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160. We wouldn’t recommend such a powerful GPU for gamers with 1920 x 1080 displays (you could save some serious cash downgrading to something less beastly, but still potent), and this configuration of the Avatar is most certainly geared for the PC novice who wants the best possible performance. AVADirect again walks the path of stability with the Avatar by not offering GPU overclocking services (although the company does offer it on other desktop series for $25), holding it back from attaining true dominance against the other GTX 1080 Ti-equipped systems in GPU-intensive gaming benchmarks. However, it doesn’t trail far behind, and end users could just as easily download MSI Afterburner and boost the graphics card themselves should they find they have the need for more speed.

The Avatar is also quite proficient in productivity applications, aided by speedy SSD storage and 16GB (2 x 8GB) of DDR4-2400 memory. The 256GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD is a welcome change from our last encounter with the Avatar; AVADirect didn’t even offer M.2 storage on its configurator at that time. This was one of our primary criticisms in the 2016 review, and although the capacity of the newer, faster SSD isn’t substantial, it’s a great starting point for the average consumer. The memory options have not changed from the previous version of the Avatar (it’s still a kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2400), but again, the company tunes the Avatar series for stability over speed. Few games rely on the memory for performance, and the capacity is more than adequate, even if it’s not that fastest RAM on the block.

It’s almost as if AVADirect is paying attention to what its critics and customers say about its products. Virtually every nitpick we had mentioned in our review of the 2016 version of the Avatar has been remedied with the new 2017 model. AVADirect’s website configurator was significantly simplified since then too, and it’s incredibly easy to use (one of the easiest we’ve ever sampled), especially for an average consumer. The new configuration’s price is much more attractive; the previous version sat at $2,509 with a Core i7-6700K and GTX 1080, and it lacked M.2 NVMe storage, RGB LED fans, and a 240mm CPU liquid cooler. At $2,677 (only $168 more), the 2017 AVADirect Avatar offers all of this with a newer CPU and better graphics card, resulting in a better price-to-performance ratio than its predecessor and similarly equipped competition (the Steiger Dynamics Era Reference, priced at $2,958).

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CPU Performance In VR: 11 Games Benchmarked

Chris Angelini — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction

When HTC’s Vive launched at $800 and Oculus’ original incarnation of the Rift surfaced for $600, friends and family made it a point to stop by my place for their first tastes of VR. Most of them loved the experience, but nobody ran out and bought an HMD of their own.

More recently, the Rift + Touch kit went on sale for $400, while HTC permanently dropped the Vive’s price to $600. Suddenly, people I know were taking the leap and asking for help building fast-enough PCs. Most of all, I encouraged, buy as much graphics horsepower as possible.

But what about the platform that beefy GPU lives on? How much muscle do you need backing up your favorite GeForce or Radeon card? Oculus sets the bar low, specifying a Core i3-6100, Ryzen 3 1200, or FX-4350 at minimum. However, the company recommends a Core i5-4590, Ryzen 5 1500X or more. HTC suggests a Core i5-4590 or FX-8350 at least. If only there was a way to quantify the benefit of stepping up from entry-level to a more potent host processor...

As it turns out, we’ve already done a fair bit of work to establish a toolset and methodology for benchmarking PC hardware in virtual reality. If you haven’t already read our primer, check out FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality. That piece introduces the VR rendering pipeline, two approaches to collecting performance data, the ways we can present it, and it introduces our first batch of results. We showed how Oculus’ asynchronous spacewarp technology works, how quality settings affect a game like Chronos, how Nvidia’s Pascal and Maxwell architectures stack up to each other, and how AMD’s Graphics Core Next architecture compared earlier in 2017.

On one page at the very back of our story, we took a peek at host processor performance in Arizona Sunshine, a game purportedly imbued with special CPU extras for owners of Core i7 CPUs (which of course made it controversial). It turned out that a Core i7-6950X and Core i7-6700K did, in fact, enjoy a performance advantage over Core i5-6600K. And all three Intel chips decimated AMD’s FX-8320.

Eager to expand on those initial findings, we put together five distinct platforms, came up with ways to test 11 different Oculus Rift titles, and talked to some of the developers about the ways they utilized host processing resources in their VR games.

What (And How) We Tested 11 Different Games in VR

Compiling all of the necessary hardware was our first challenge to overcome. Again, we’re an international team, and launch-day hardware gets spread all over the world. A few companies stepped in to help fill in the holes, expressing interest in answering the same questions we were asking.

MSI set up all of our host platforms, providing its X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC (for Skylake-X), Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon (for Kaby Lake and Skylake), X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium (for Summit Ridge), and 990FXA-GD80 (for Vishera).

The company also sent over a Core i9-7900X for us to use as an ultra-high-end contender. We added our own Core i7-7700K to represent the top of Intel’s mainstream Kaby Lake family, and we purchased a Ryzen 7 1800X to compare the performance of AMD’s Zen architecture. Core i3-6320 and FX-8350 serve as floors, upon which the faster CPUs build.

Given Ryzen’s sensitivity to memory performance, we knew our choice in DDR4 would be scrutinized. G.Skill sent its F4-3200C14D-16GFX FlareX kit to complement the Ryzen 7 1800X and its F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ kit for our other DDR4-based configurations. Both were set to 3200 MT/s for testing.

We used a F3-2133C10Q-16GXM Ripjaws X kit at 2133 MT/s to go with AMD’s FX-8350. In this way, we were able to maximize throughput on every platform. The CPUs with dual-channel memory controllers were limited to 16GB (from one DIMM per channel), while the X299 setup featured 32GB (allowing the same one DIMM per channel).

In an effort to give each platform comparable thermal performance, we approached Corsair about a high-end closed-loop solution that we could use on Skylake-X, Socket AM4, LGA 1151, and Socket AM3+. The company sent over its Hydro-series H110i, which not only fit all of our test platforms, but also facilitates the cooling needed to keep our Core i9 from throttling.

Everything else was held constant. We used a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to alleviate graphics bottlenecks as much as possible, a 500GB Crucial MX200 SSD, and the familiar be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W PSU. Windows 10 was installed fresh and completely updated before we started downloading games from Oculus’ store.

Test Equipment
Cooling	Corsair H110i
CPU	Core i9-7900XCore i7-7700KCore i3 6320Ryzen 7 1800XFX-8350
Graphics	EVGA GTX 1080 Ti
Memory	Flare X 16GB DDR4-3200Trident Z (32GB)
Motherboard	MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon ACZ270 Gaming Pro CarbonX370 XPower Gaming TitaniumMSI 990FXA-GD80
PSU	be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W
Storage	MX500 SSD

We still have two PCs sitting side-by-side able to collect data using the hardware- or software-based approaches to FCAT VR. Our primer established the software version’s efficacy, though, so we’re using that utility exclusively to save time and provide insight not otherwise available from video-based analysis (such as unconstrained frame rate, calculated from real frame time measurements).

Again, if you’re interested in learning more about hardware performance in VR and want to get the most out of today’s deep-dive, FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality is the best place to start.

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Arizona Sunshine

Arizona Sunshine is a great place to start—not only does it allow us to pick up where we left off in our VR performance primer, but it also comes first alphabetically in today’s 11-game suite.

Our 150-second test starts on the bridge towards the game’s beginning, right as you pick up a second handgun. We run through abandoned cars on the highway, blasting zombies along the way, stopping just before the roadblock leading to the mine.

The FCAT VR output makes two observations obvious on its own. Most clear is the FX-8350’s struggle. It actually hamstrings our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, keeping the card from rendering 90 real frames per second on its own. Instead, Oculus’ runtime is forced to step in and synthesize frames to prevent stuttering. As a result, 41% of our test sequence’s 13661 frames are the product of asynchronous spacewarp.

Our look at CPU performance in Arizona Sunshine six months ago showed the FX-8320 suffering similarly, though the more taxing test we use today goes a step further to illustrate FX’s shortcomings in games.

Second, the Core i7-7700K’s frame time over time plot (in red) looks better than the rest of the field. Although the Core i9-7900X, Core i7-7700K, Core i3-6320, and Ryzen 7 1800X suitably support our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in its quest to maintain 90 real frames per second, render times lower than 11.1ms per frame reduce the chance of an errant drop. So, you want as much headroom under there as possible.

Indeed, if we take the frame time results measured by FCAT VR and convert them into a theoretical “unconstrained frame rate”—the performance you’d see if v-sync didn’t force the Rift's output to 90 Hz—Core i7-7700K does emerge a winner.

Vertigo Games didn’t respond to our request for comment, so we can’t tell you just how extensively the developer optimized for threading. But we do know that Arizona Sunshine employs the Unity engine, does not support GPU-accelerated PhysX, but does offer more sophisticated physics effects through the “Advanced CPU Extras” checkbox, which we enable.

Beyond four Hyper-Threaded cores, it looks like the highest clock rate and IPC throughput yields the best unconstrained frame rate. The Core i9’s extra cores don’t help, and we can assume its previous-gen architecture isn’t an asset against Kaby Lake, either.

Ryzen 7 1800X roughly matches the Core i3-6320. And if you’re dabbling with VR on an FX-based platform, you’re doing the experience a serious disservice by limiting your graphics card’s performance.

Core i7 and Core i9 achieve the lowest 99^th percentile frame times, though it’s notable that four of these five platforms land under 11.1ms in that comparison.

Every CPU registers at least some frame time spikes. That’s why you see the “Worst” column jump up quite a bit. Core i9 encounters the fewest dropped frames, while Ryzen 7 fares the worst. Still, 21 dropped frames in a 150-second sequence isn’t subjectively perceptible.

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Chronos

Chronos is one of the Rift’s launch titles, and at the game’s Epic detail settings, it’s one of the most graphically demanding workloads we’ve seen for VR.

Our test sequence lasts 80 seconds, starting from the protagonist’s first moments on the beach and ending before he passes through a specific doorway.

Thanks to the power of our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, all five platforms avoid dropping into ASW mode through our Chronos benchmark. That doesn’t mean they perform similarly, though—there are clear differences in the frequency of dropped frames, indicated by red spikes in each interval chart.

We again see Intel’s Core i7-7700K achieve the lowest frame times over time. Curiously, it appears the Core i3 lands in second place, followed by the FX we’ve been recommending against. Intel’s Core i9 and AMD’s Ryzen 7 look like the last-place finishers.

Every platform enables a constant 90 FPS delivery to the Rift. But converting frame times to unconstrained FPS illustrates the differences in headroom each host processor offers.

It’s strange to see the Core i3 landing, as predicted, in second place, with AMD’s FX behind it (and ahead of Core i9/Ryzen). In a graph of CPU utilization over 60 seconds, Chronos only appears to use about 8% of our Core i7-7700K, suggesting that the game doesn’t even fully utilize one of the processor’s cores. It’s possible, then, that the fabrics and meshes touted by AMD and Intel serve to hurt the performance of their massively parallel CPUs by adding latency.

Although AMD’s FX-8350 causes the most dropped frames, Core i9-7900X and Ryzen 7 1800X do demonstrate the worst frame times in our 50^th, 90^th, 95^th, and 99^th percentile measurements. They also present some ugly worst-case frame time spikes that are clearly visible toward the end of our frame time over time line graph.

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Damaged Core

You have to play through quite a bit of Damaged Core before reaching a point that can be accessed for easy and repeated testing. Our benchmark sequence includes 80 seconds of enemy forces assaulting a reactor. The frame times look sinusoidal because the benchmark involves turning from one side to the other in four-second intervals.

A GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is plenty fast for Damaged Core’s most demanding settings. But this Unreal Engine 4-based shooter still scales based on processor performance.

Frame time oscillations make it hard to tell which CPU is fastest. But we definitely see AMD’s FX-8350 struggle the most with high frame times and troublesome variance. In places, insufficient performance causes the FX to trigger ASW. As a result, ~5% of the run’s frames are synthesized by Oculus’ runtime.

This does serve to shelter the FX from dropped frames, though. We observe 35 drops, while Core i3-6320 drops 46 frames and Ryzen 7 1800X drops 53.

Intel’s Core i7-7700K achieves the highest unconstrained frame rate, leaving lots of headroom under the 11.1ms ceiling that translates to 90 FPS. Core i9 lands in second, telling us that there’s either minimal scaling beyond 4C/8T in this game, or that Core i9’s other architectural changes hurt performance more than its extra cores help.

High frame times set FX-8350 apart from the rest of our field in each percentile measurement. And it’s those spikes in the beginning of our benchmark that determine the worst-case peaks.

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EVE: Valkyrie

For many early adopters of Oculus’ Rift, EVE: Valkyrie was the experience that got them enthused about VR. CCP Games continues updating EVE, most recently with beta Touch support.

We ran our tests after the developer added Ultra-quality settings, applying volumetric lighting, multi-sample G-buffer anti-aliasing, specular highlights, Lens-Matched Shading, and Multi-Res Shading. These features were added specifically for owners of Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070, 1080, and 1080 Ti cards.

The Station 27 chronicle we used for testing isn’t particularly taxing, but it’s far more consistent than a chaotic dogfight would be. Consequently, we observe fairly even frame times from each platform.

All five CPUs work well enough with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to enable >90 FPS throughout our 200-second recording. The Core i9, Core i7, and Ryzen 7 deliver particularly clean-looking runs, while Intel’s Core i3 encounters a couple of additional dropped frames. FX-8350 drops 64 frames during the course of its benchmark. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, given higher frame time variance and a propensity for breaking above the 11.1ms mark.

That brings up an interesting point: how are we seeing frame times in excess of 11.1ms from the FX-8350, but still experiencing 90 frames per second without dropping into ASW mode? If you look back at our Chronos results, the same thing happened. We did explore this phenomenon in FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality and determined that “...the envelope can expand/contract due to preemption/parallelization done by the VR runtime. Oculus' adaptive queue ahead feature is designed to facilitate this, so an 11ms cut-off is not absolute, though it’s generally true. In short, optimizations are not enough to keep you from dropping frames if you render at >11ms for an extended period of time.”

All of the calculated unconstrained frame rates exceed 100 FPS. However, Core i7-7700K’s frame times afford it a 36% advantage over FX-8350, a 22% lead over Core i3-6320, an 18% edge on Ryzen 7 1800X, and even a 9%-better finish than Core i9.

The Core i7, Core i9, Ryzen 7, and Core i3 frame times look good all the way through our 99^th percentile measurements. FX-8350 is consistently ~2ms higher than the Core i3. And those two spikes visible in the frame time over time plot show up in this chart when we single-out each CPU’s worst frame time result.

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Gunjack

This is another CCP Games title based on Unreal Engine 4. Gunjack was introduced for Gear VR back in 2015 and later adapted to the Rift and Vive in 2016. There are no graphics settings, though, so although CCP Games updated Gunjack with higher-resolution graphics, better textures and effects, and higher-quality audio, it’s still meant to be broadly accessible.

Not surprisingly, then, a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cuts through this workload easily. Dropped frames are sprinkled through our interval charts, but all five platforms render 90 real frames per second through our 80-second sequence.

Unconstrained frame rates in the 200, 300, and 400 FPS range are uncommon, though the deltas between CPUs look pretty familiar. From top to bottom, Core i9-7900X facilitates ~41%-higher results than the FX-8350. Of course, we actually see all of these output at 90 FPS.

Huge frame rates are indicative of tiny frame times. Indeed, four of our five contenders achieve 99^th percentile frame times under 4ms. Isolated spikes across our frame time over time plot correspond to the “Worst” column, though these are outliers at best.

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The Mage’s Tale

The Mage’s Tale doesn’t have adjustable quality settings either. However, this UE4-based title, funded by Oculus VR for the Rift, is definitely more demanding than Gunjack. We capture 80 seconds of the introduction as a benchmark.

Big frame time spikes cause a significant number of dropped frames on AMD’s FX-8350. But these don’t last long enough to engage ASW mode.

Dropped frames dot the other four plots as well, corresponding to big frame time spikes.

Interestingly, that green line peeking out below the others hints at a Core i9-7900X win.

Converting measured frame times to unconstrained frame rates confirms the -7900X’s superior performance. Ryzen 7 1800X also nips close at the heels of Core i7-7700K. And FX-8350 isn’t as far behind Core i3-6320 as we’ve seen in other games.

CPU utilization generally doesn’t jump above 10% or so on a Core i7-7700K, so the Core i9’s advantage probably isn’t a result of its 10 Skylake-based cores. We suspect that The Mage’s Tale responds well to larger L2 caches.

Ninety-five percent of FX-8350’s frames land under 10.1ms. Jumping to the 99^th percentile measurement sees this figure rise to 11.2ms. That’s where a lot of the dropped frames come from. Moreover, extreme spikes as high as 346ms are an order of magnitude more severe than the worst frame times encountered on our Core i3, Ryzen 7, and Core i9 platforms.

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Project CARS

A maximum-detail run through a Nürburgring replay in Project CARS yields a fairly consistent benchmark. This is perhaps the most demanding workload in our suite—even a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is forced to its knees by extreme levels of anti-aliasing.

All five platforms are hammered by Project CARS’ top detail settings, imposing ASW across our 80-second test sequence.

As we’ve become accustomed to seeing, AMD’s FX-8350 incurs the highest frame times. Occasionally, this means ASW has to synthesize two frames for every real one. A series of spikes in the first quarter of our benchmark cause the same issue on Core i7-7700K.

Those anomalous spikes cause Core i7-7700K to trail Intel’s Core i9 in our average unconstrained frame rate graph. Of course, this came as a surprise to us, so we asked the Slightly Mad Studios team to weigh in on our findings.

From our discussion, it sounds like Project CARS doesn’t specify thread affinity on the PC, so all available threads are, in fact, utilized. However, the benefit of this depends on the granularity of tasks being scheduled and dependencies that might result in a stall. There is, then, a saturation point where the advantage of more cores bottoms out.

Cache utilization can become a factor as well. SMS CTO and technical director Ged Keaveney adds, “we are sensitive to [L2 cache usage] on some of our threads, and that can have a big impact depending on the thread topology the OS scheduler chooses. They tend to only care about available time slices and not cache usage, so patterns can occur where multiple cache-heavy threads can end up on the same cluster and the caches get hit harder.” Taking that information into account, in addition to the Core i7’s troubled first quarter, helps explain how Core i9 might establish its lead.

The jump between our 95^th and 99^th percentile frame times on Intel’s Core i7-7700K is wholly attributable to the benchmark's beginning sequence, culminating in a worst-case 43ms frame. Through most of the test, though, Core i7 is well-behaved.

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Robinson: The Journey

Developed on CryEngine V, Robinson: The Journey offers a number of graphics options that we crank up to tax our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Collecting performance data involves running a circular path around the perimeter of Robin’s downed craft, including passes by the power-providing creek and lots of foliage.

Monitoring resource utilization during our run shows Robinson using more host processing power than any other game we’ve looked at thus far. Perhaps that’s why Crytek recommends at least a Core i5-4590.

When we break each platform’s performance out into their separate 90 FPS intervals, we see that AMD’s FX-8350 does fall back on ASW once, briefly. Everything else pumps out 90 real frames per second.

More interesting, perhaps, is Intel’s Core i3-6320. Its frame time plot appears to weave in and out with Ryzen 7 1800X (in other words, it serves up stellar frame rates for a dual-core CPU). But the interval chart is dotted with dropped frames. We might guess that, at certain points, two cores can’t feed the GeForce card fast enough, and a frame is dropped. But this deficit is brief. It doesn’t last long enough for the runtime to kick into ASW. After all, the 90^th percentile frame times are under 11ms. That deeper look at performance is illustrative enough that we’d advise against a dual-core CPU—even a Hyper-Threaded one.

Average frame rates (in this case, a look at unconstrained FPS) often miss important subtleties. It looks like Core i9 and Core i7 fare similarly, followed by Core i3 and Ryzen 7. But as we just established, Intel’s Core i3 has issues keeping up.

Even a look at frame times fails to pinpoint Core i3’s hiccups. It still looks comparable with Ryzen 7.

Counting the dropped frames, however, Core i3 is clearly in a league of its own.

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Robo Recall

If EVE: Valkyrie is the game that hooked a lot of enthusiasts into spending money on VR, then Robo Recall is the title that reminded them they made a good decision. Ironically, Epic Games released it as a free-to-play title (with the purchase of Touch) based on its Unreal Engine 4.

Our benchmark is 150 seconds long, running from the beginning of the first mission. We use High Graphics Quality, 4x on the Antialiasing MSAA scale, a pixel density of 1.0, and no adaptive resolution. Planar Reflections and Indirect Shadows are both enabled.

FX-8350 posts high frame times and lots of up/down variance. This causes AMD’s previous-gen platform to force our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti into ASW mode for about 23% of the test.

Ryzen 7 1800X has some issues of its own, though. A number of frame time spikes cause a disproportionately high dropped frame count. Core i3 isn’t immune, either.

We asked Epic Games founder Tim Sweeny for any information he might be able to provide about how UE4 handles the latest CPU architectures. He responded that the engine generally provides excellent scaling to four cores, and worthwhile scaling up to 8-10 cores in complex scenes.

He continues, “We'll be improving this significantly over time. Sixteen cores in a consumer CPU was a (very pleasant) surprise to everyone, and there's some good headroom for future optimization. Bottom line, if the CPU makers can keep it up, we have solutions that will scale to lots more cores, given sufficient development time.”

The unconstrained frame rate graph shows Intel’s Core i7 and Core i9 on equal footing, while Ryzen 7 and Core i3—the CPUs that dropped the most frames—line up fairly evenly as well. FX-8350 presents the lowest frame rate; however, more than 3000 synthesized frames help smooth the slower platform’s performance, preventing some of the drops that’d otherwise show up without ASW.

Core i7-7700K’s strong performance is evident from its worst-case frame time: a mere 11.8ms.

Ryzen 7’s issues with frame time spikes aren’t prevalent in the raw data. Ninety-nine percent of the CPU’s frames are rendered in less than 11.8ms. But that last percent includes frames rendered in up to 85ms.

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Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope

Older gamers will remember Serious Sam from its early beginnings in 2001. The fast-paced shooter translates amazingly well to VR, thanks to Oculus Touch. Incredibly enough, Croteam goes so far as to recommend a Core i7-6800 or equivalent CPU, along with a Radeon R9 Fury or GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card! That’s a $400+ host processor and $400+ GPU.

Despite Serious Sam’s hefty recommendations and our merciless selection of Ultra settings across the board, this game runs smoothly on our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. To be sure, it’s largely GPU-bound. Only AMD’s FX-8350 needs help from Oculus’ runtime to maintain smooth performance towards the end of our 80-second test, which is when on-screen action is most hectic.

Croteam senior programmer Dean Sekulic confirmed for us that many-core CPUs shouldn’t affect graphics performance much. The Serious Engine 4.5’s multi-threaded renderer is API-agnostic, supporting DX11, DX12, Vulkan, OpenGL, OpenGL ES, and even DX9. But it benefits little beyond a core count of three. The physics and collision system is where more cores help out. Sekulic says he believes it uses all detected cores, minus one.

It’s entirely possible that this physics/collision system, or Skylake-X’s quadrupled L2 cache per core, is responsible for Core i9-7900X’s narrow victory over Core i7-7700K in our derived frame rate measurement.

Core i3 succumbs to Ryzen 7 here (although the Core i3 does drop a few more frames), while FX-8350 presents one figure to sum up the weakness we saw in our frame time over time plot.

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The Climb

The Climb is a CryEngine-based title that Crytek suggests pairing with a Core i5-4590, at least. And if Robinson was any indication, this game might be expected to brutalize our lowest-end CPUs.

In fact, the dropped frames we see on our Core i3-6320 are even worse than they were in Robinson, causing the dual-core chip to average 80 delivered frames per second.

FX-8350 fares worse on paper, as it imposes high-enough frame times on our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti that the runtime kicks over into ASW on several occasions. But the resulting experience is smoother—we prefer the FX’s 1800 synthesized frames to the Core i3’s 1500 dropped frames.

Core i9, Core i7, and Ryzen 7 all appear to perform admirably. Let’s convert those frame times to frame rates once more...

Similar to Robinson, this CryEngine-based title favors Core i9 ever-so-slightly more than Core i7. This time, however, Ryzen 7 lands ahead of Core i3, which is of course hampered by dropped frames.

We know there’s an issue here from Core i3’s 50^th percentile frame time of 11.5ms...and it only gets worse from there. By the time we’re looking at the 99^th percentile, frames take as long as 14.5ms to render. And the worst-case frame time is a sluggish 29ms.

Incidentally, that’s right up there with FX-8350, though the FX-based platform’s other results are even worse. ASW cuts in early to smooth out those less-than-ideal render times, though.

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Conclusion

VR gaming generates excitement. But even 18 months after we first reviewed the Oculus Rift, significant barriers to widespread adoption remain.

Most material is the price of VR. You have to buy an HMD. And while the Rift and Vive both cost a lot less than they did in 2016, that’s still an outlay of several hundred dollars. There’s also the investment in a high-end gaming PC. Both Oculus and HTC go out of their way to bring minimum requirements down through technologies like asynchronous spacewarp and asynchronous reprojection, respectively. But there’s a big difference between the “barely cutting it” experience and high-quality VR. Our tests today push maximum-quality settings through a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Really, that’s not the best way to isolate platform performance, since graphics bottlenecks stand to mask differences between host processors. When we’re immersed in VR, however, we want beautiful visuals.

Premium content is also in short supply. Those AAA titles that do exist knock this medium out of the park. They’re still pretty rare, though. And because the install base of HMDs is relatively small, developers aren’t making much money creating new games. You’re seeing stakeholders like HTC and Oculus subsidize the hefty development costs in order to get good games out of the door. Once those games exist, a greater number of enthusiasts will see the value in spending hundreds of dollars on new hardware. It’s a chicken-and-egg issue that works itself out slowly, and only after significant investment.

The pace at which this industry moves is breathtaking, though. Some of the developers we spoke with had an idea of how previous-gen platforms behaved under their games. Most could only speculate how newer architectures like Core i9 and Ryzen might fare since they hadn’t gone hands-on yet. And they all seemed to have moved on to new projects already. Clearly, the best is yet to come as those talented studios apply what they learned from the games we tested today.

As is usually the case after a cursory look at performance, a bit of data begs for more. We wanted to go wide on game testing, narrowing the comparison platforms to keep the workload manageable. And while it’s great to see how so many different engines handle such a wide range of hardware, a retrospective look back makes us wish we had Core i5 and a lower-end Ryzen chip to fill in holes in the middle.

The good news for enthusiasts building high-end PCs is that Core i9, Core i7, and Ryzen 7 are all capable of backing a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Frankly, though, if your primary focus is VR gaming, the Core i7-7700K really can’t be beaten. It’s a top performer and $90 cheaper than the Ryzen. You could pick up the -7700K and a GeForce GTX 1080 for less than a Core i9, leaving money left over for a couple of games.

Slower CPUs and flagship-class graphics cards obviously create balance issues. It’d be far more likely to pair an older FX or Core i3 with a GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 580, not the GTX 1080 Ti we used. But then you’re talking dialed-back detail settings in order to maintain playable performance. Until we’re able to generate some data with more mainstream configurations, we’d guess that mid-range GPUs are best paired with Core i5 or Ryzen 5 host processors at a minimum, rather than the baselines Oculus/HTC specify.

If there are specific combinations you’d like to see tested, or if you have questions you’d like to have your favorite developers answer, let us know in the comments—we’ll see what we can do!

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AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X Review

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Wed, 30 Aug 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction

AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 1950X put a feather in the cap of its high-end desktop aspirations. The company's new line-up challenges Intel's best efforts. But, as usual, some of the best value in AMD's product stack is found in the mid-range models. Ryzen Threadripper 1920X comes arms with 12 physical cores and SMT, enabling 24 concurrent threads fed by 38MB of cache, a quad-channel memory controller, and 64 lanes of PCIe. All of that costs $800, dramatically undercutting the 10-core Core i9-7900X.

Based on the back-and-forth we've witnessed this year, it appears the Ryzen family of CPUs may have caught Intel off-balance. AMD's siren call to enthusiasts includes lower prices, more cores, less segmentation, soldered heat spreaders, less expensive motherboards, and a longer commitment to each platform.

Intel does have pricier Skylake-X options available, but they sag under the weight of deliberate segmentation that fuses off native features on the cheaper models. Don't count Intel out, though; its beefiest Skylake-X chips are still forthcoming, along with a salvo of mainstream Coffee Lake CPUs to rival Ryzen 7, 5, and 3.

AMD has an aggressive roadmap it'll use to improve the Zen architecture and transition to smaller nodes, so the company should remain a competitive force to be reckoned with. Ryzen Threadripper 1920X is a great start, though. Based on the 1950X we already reviewed, this processor is expected to perform well at a reasonable price point (plus the highest overclocking ceiling we’ve seen on a Ryzen processor).

Meet Ryzen Threadripper 1920X

AMD designed its Threadripper processors for anyone able to utilize lots of cores and tons of PCIe connectivity. Think content creators, heavy multi-taskers, and software developers.

The 12C/24T Threadripper 1920X features a 3.5 GHz base clock, which is just 100 MHz higher than the 16C/32T 1950X. Surprisingly, the two chips share the same 3.7 GHz boost frequency for heavily-threaded workloads and a four-core 4 GHz setting for less taxing tasks. If your cooler is robust enough, both processors also enable a four-core 4.2 GHz XFR ceiling.

Like all of AMD's Ryzen processors, the 1920X utilizes two quad-core complexes combined into a single Zeppelin die. Two Zeppelin dies, tied together using the Infinity Fabric interconnect into a multi-chip module, come together to create Threadripper CPUs wielding 16 physical cores. AMD creates the 12-core 1920X by disabling four of them, leaving six cores per die (3+3).

The disabled cores serve as dark silicon, which absorbs heat dissipated by the active circuitry. This, coupled with AMD's use of a soldered heat spreader and aggressive binning (the company claims to use the top 5% of Zeppelin dies), leads to impressive overclocking headroom from our 1920X sample. We maintained a 4.1 GHz overclock, the highest achieved with any Ryzen CPU in our U.S. lab, using a relatively tame 1.42V.

	Threadripper 1950X	Core i9-7900X	Threadripper 1920X	Core i7-7820X	Threadripper 1900X
Price	$1000	$1000	$800	$600	$550
Interface/Chipset	TR4 / X399	LGA2066 / X299	TR4 / X399	LGA2066 / X299	TR4 / X399
Cores/Threads	16/32	10/20	12/24	8/16	8/16
TDP	180W	140W	180W	140W	180W
Base Frequency (GHz)	3.4	3.3	3.5	3.6	3.8
Boost Frequency (GHz)	4.0 (4.2 XFR)	4.3 / 4.5 (TB 3.0)	4.0 (4.2 XFR)	4.3 / 4.5 (TB 3.0)	4.0 (4.2 XFR)
Cache (L2+L3)	40MB	23.75MB	38MB	19MB	20MB
Memory Support	DDR4-2667	DDR4-2666	DDR4-2667	DDR4-2666	DDR4-2667
Memory Controller	Quad-Channel	Quad-Channel	Quad-Channel	Quad-Channel	Quad-Channel
Unlocked Multiplier	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PCIe Lanes	64	44	64	28	64

Ryzen Threadripper 1920X slots into the large price gap between Intel's Core i9-7900X and $600 i7-7820X. Making AMD's solution more interesting is the fact that Intel cuts PCIe connectivity from 44 lanes to 28 as you drop to the Core i7. In comparison, the Threadripper chip boasts 64 lanes, though four are reserved for AMD's chipset. The extra I/O comes in handy for multi-GPU configurations, large PCIe-based storage arrays, and streamers using dedicated capture cards.

The 1920X and 1950X both feature 32MB of L3 cache sliced into 16MB per Zeppelin die. You do lose 2MB of L2 cache to the four disabled cores, leaving 512KB per core, or 6MB across the MCM, active. Despite the disabled cores and cache, AMD still rates its 1920X with a 180W TDP.

Enthusiasts have to love that AMD uses Indium solder instead of the thermal paste Intel employs. Threadripper's large IHS helps with heat too, and the chip generally features solid thermal performance. We haven't encountered any serious heat concerns with the Threadripper models, which we can't say for Intel's Skylake-X CPUs.

Ryzen Threadripper Memory Support	MT/s
Quad-Channel/Dual-Rank/Two DIMMS per Channel (8)	1866
Quad-Channel/Single-Rank/Two DIMMs Per Channel (8)	2133
Quad-Channel/Dual-Rank/One DIMM Per Channel (4)	2400
Quad-Channel/Single-Rank/One DIMM Per Channel (4)	2677

Threadripper features independent dual-channel memory controllers, one paired with each die, that combine to provide quad-channel support with varying data transfer rates based upon memory types and DIMMs per channel. The platform supports ECC memory and a functional limit of 256GB of DDR4, though it can support up to 2TB as memory capacity increases.

The distributed memory alignment, along with the latency imposed by traversing the fabric between two separate dies, creates unique challenges for applications sensitive to timing. AMD has also discovered that certain games won't fire up with all of Threadripper's cores enabled. So the company implemented a pair of toggles that enable either UMA or NUMA mode to mitigate memory latency concerns, and a Legacy setting to disable one CCX, solving compatibility issues.

Selectable Creator and Game modes provide users with performance profiles tailored for either content creation or gaming. We covered how the underlying architecture responds to these modes in our AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X review.

We are starting to see dedicated coolers trickle out from leading vendors for AMD's massive 4094-pin TR4 socket. In the interim, AMD also includes an Asetek bracket with all Threadripper models to provide widespread compatibility with existing closed-loop coolers from several vendors.

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How We Test

Comparison Products

Ryzen 7 1800X

Intel Core i9-7900X

Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X

Test Systems

We introduced our new test system and methodology in How We Test Graphics Cards. If you'd like more detail about our general approach, check that piece out.

Test System & Configuration
Hardware	Germany AMD Socket SP3 (TR4)AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X, 1920XAsus X399 ROG Zenith Extreme4x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 4GB G.Skill RipJaws IV DDR4-2600AMD Socket AM4 WorkstationAMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1600X, 1500XMSI X370 Tomahawk4x 8GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200Intel LGA 2011v3Intel Core i7-6900KMSI X99S XPower Gaming Titanium4x 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4-2400Intel LGA 1151Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2400 MT/sAll SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders EditionNvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.AMD Socket SP3 (TR4)AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X, 1920XAsus X399 ROG Zenith Extreme4x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sIntel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900X, i7-7820XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAMD Socket AM4 AMD Ryzen 7 1800XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium2x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 3200 MT/sIntel LGA 1151 Intel Core i5-7700K MSI Z270 Gaming M72x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAll EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK
PC Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Extension Kit and Mods Configurations: Open Benchtable, Closed Case
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

Test Notes

Intel released new microcode for its Skylake-X processors recently, which reduces performance in some titles and lowers the AVX offset by two bins. We also noticed far lower Turbo Boost activation thresholds, though that could separately be the result of MSI's newest BIOS. The changes likely come in response to some of the power and thermal issues we encountered during our extended testing. We consequently retested both Skylake-X processors with the newest microcode.

AMD's Ryzen gaming performance is also a moving target, though it continues to improve over time. Today's story reflects all processors re-tested with the latest chipset, BIOS, GPU drivers, and game patches. We continue seeking out the best performance possible, so in today's review, we dial in AMD's Game mode for our game benchmarks.

VRMark & 3DMark

We aren't big fans of using synthetic benchmarks to measure game performance, but 3DMark's DX11 and DX12 CPU tests provide useful insight into the amount of horsepower available to game engines.

VRMark responds well to high IPC throughput and frequency, so it's not surprising to see the 1920X benefit from a clock rate advantage over the 1950X at stock settings. Extra overclocking headroom gives the 1920X a bigger boost once we start tuning.

The Intel processors lead, but it's possible that Ryzen-specific optimizations could improve Threadripper's results.

We also tested the 1920X and 1950X in Creator mode for the threaded 3DMark DX11 and DX12 tests. Big core counts propel Threadripper to the top of our charts when it's overclocked, but Game mode halves the number of available threads, causing lackluster performance. Notably, both overclocked Threadripper models in Creator mode yield the best performance.

The Vulkan API responds exceedingly well to Threadripper's architecture, and the tuned 1920X delivers excellent DX11 single-threaded performance, particularly in game mode.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Switching the 1920X into Game mode creates a 6C/12T configuration that maximizes memory locality and eliminates die-to-die latency. But that comes at the expense of performance in parallel workloads. As such, Threadripper falls below its 8C/16T Ryzen 7 1800X counterpart in this heavily-threaded game.

We include an additional slide with test results using various settings. These numbers highlight that Game mode has a positive impact on lightly-threaded and otherwise incompatible titles, but can be a hindrance for more taxing workloads. A bit of tuning (and switching to Creator mode) pushes the Threadripper models above Intel's Core i9-7900X.

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Civilization VI, Battlefield 1 & Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

High frequencies and IPC throughput provide the best results in Civilization VI's AI test, which measures the available computational horsepower during a turn-based strategy gaming session.

The overclocked Intel processors lead, while AMD's Ryzen models populate the lower half of our chart. Interestingly, though, Threadripper 1920X triumphs over the 1950X in yet another lightly threaded title.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Both Skylake-X-based processors fall to the bottom of our chart in their stock configuration, which doesn't make sense given superior host processing resources. This is one of the notable performance regressions we have encountered with Intel’s new mesh architecture.

The Threadripper models lead the Intel competition at stock and overclocked settings. But the nimble Ryzen 7 1800X also demonstrates the value of a much less expensive platform. Core i7-7700K also does well out of the box, managing to outpace the brawnier stock Threadripper models. However, both the -7900X and -7700K do suffer significant frame time outliers.

Battlefield 1 (DX11)

The less expensive Core i7-7820X and -7700K CPUs outpace AMD's Threadripper processors, though much of this is due to Ryzen's tendency to stutter during the opening seconds of our benchmark sequence.

The 1950X outperforms Threadripper 1920X, suggesting this title scales with additional cores.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

A stock Core i7-7700K dominates this test. Still, the overclocked Threadripper models put up a good fight as they deliver a smooth experience at over 100 FPS.

The 1920X leads over the 1950X in both stock and overclocked configurations. Meanwhile, Intel's Core i7-7820X suffers severe frame time variance that manifests as visible stuttering.

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Grand Theft Auto V, Hitman & Shadow of Mordor

Grand Theft Auto V

We measure performance during Grand Theft Auto V's F-16 flight sequence with the built-in benchmark.

Grand Theft Auto V has always responded well to Intel's architectures. But a tuned 1950X in Game mode fares well, rivaling the Core i9-7900X and outpacing the -7700K.

The tuned 1920X isn't far behind the -7700K, Meanwhile, it's a bit faster than a stock -7800X. Stock Threadripper chips land at the bottom of our chart, illustrating the gains available if you're willing to tune AMD's HEDT line-up. The overclocked 1950X also delivers the best 99th percentile results, albeit by a slim margin.

Hitman (2016)

We encountered quite a bit of variability with the Threadripper processors (particularly from the 1950X) during our Hitman test sequence. Even tuning does little to rectify the frame time outliers. Low minimum frame rates, usually misleading when viewed in a vacuum, apply to all the Ryzen models, indicating this title might be particularly sensitive to memory latency.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

The Core i9-7900X paints a very poor picture of frame time variance as it works through the benchmark, while Threadripper provides a much smoother experience in this older title. AMD's top models also deliver excellent average frame rates.

We observe slight differences between both companies' high-end CPUs as Intel's stock Core i7-7700K dominates.

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Project CARS & Far Cry Primal

Project CARS

Project CARS is a CPU-intensive title that promotes parallelism by breaking tasks into smaller chunks and spreading them among available cores.

Intel's high IPC throughput is clearly a factor as the Core i7-7700K and i9-7900X cruise to a substantial lead.

Ryzen Threadripper 1920X offers higher clock rates than then 1950X, which helps it secure a narrow victory.

The Core i7-7820X suffers due to its comparatively low core count.

Far Cry Primal

Threadripper 1920X shines when we overclock it. Notably, the chip yields a 14.9ms 99th percentile measurement, while the overclocked -7900X registers a much higher 18.2ms.

The Core i7-7700K suffers several extreme frame time outliers.

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Rise of the Tomb Raider & The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider has long been a thorn in Ryzen's side due to architectural eccentricities. Recent game patches have cleared up most of the inexplicable anomalies, thankfully.

The tuned 1950X fares well, beating our overclocked Threadripper 1920X sample. All of these CPU deliver a smooth experience, though.

We continues to observe that telltale AMD frame rate behavior at the end of the benchmark as it becomes more CPU-intensive, even from the Threadripper models.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

That large frame time spike in the benchmark's early section is a scene transition. All of our contenders suffer from it to some extent, though AMD's Threadripper 1950X stumbles most.

Intel's Core i7-7700K remains the processor to beat.

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DTP, Office, Multimedia & Compression Performance

Although we usually don’t run our application benchmarks on overclocked processors, we're including the Threadripper models at stock and overclocked frequencies to study how well AMD’s architecture scales with increased frequency. We also added a (reasonably) overclocked Intel Core i9-7900X to our results.

DTP & Presentation

Adobe’s Creative Cloud gives us a look at single- and multi-core performance. As such, it beats synthetic benchmarks as a productivity test.

After Effects CC scales well with core count, granting an easy win to the Threadripper processors. Conversely, InDesign CC finds Intel’s Skylake-X in the back of the pack, while Core i7-7700K leads with its blend of high IPC throughput and frequency. Likewise, AMD’s Ryzen 7 outperforms the Threadripper processors, even after we boost their clock rate. The 1920X dominates in Adobe Illustrator, while the 1950X inexplicably struggles.

Encoding & Multimedia

After tuning, the Threadripper processors trade blows with Intel's overclocked Core i9-7900X. They do lag behind at stock settings; however, the 1920X slips past Core i7-7820X.

Intensifying the workload with higher quality settings really emphasizes threading. This gives AMD's Threadripper processors a sizeable advantage over the -7900X and a resounding win over the rest of the group.

Compression & Decompression

The 1920X's extra cores also come into play during our compression test, giving it an advantage over the stock -7900X.

Intel's overclocked Core i9-7900X barely beats the stock and overclocked 1920X, but its advantage is small enough to be imperceptible.

A lightly-threaded 7-Zip decompression workload prefers high clock rate and IPC throughput. The 1920X's slight frequency advantage over AMD's brawny flagship translates to a quantifiable win. Tuning widens the gap even further.

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2D & 3D Workstation Performance

2D Workstation Performance

Tom’s Hardware Synthetic 2D Benchmarks

We take a look at direct device write throughput first. There hasn’t been true 2D hardware acceleration since the introduction of the unified shader architecture, and Microsoft's Windows driver model complicates 2D hardware acceleration as well.

The graphics test is lightly threaded, so AMD's Threadripper processors struggle while Intel's Core i7-7700K enjoys a massive advantage.

Next, we generate the graphics output in memory, using the only remaining 2D hardware function. The benchmark is the same as before, but we instead plot a bitmap in memory rather than send the information directly to the monitor. The bitmap is only copied once it's complete. This pushes the CPUs, since they’re no longer platform-bound.

Ryzen Threadripper processors dominate the field, with AMD's 1920X landing in first place.

AutoCAD 2016 (2D)

The AutoCAD 2D benchmark doesn't scale well with additional cores. That shifts the focus to IPC throughput, where Intel's processors shine.

Surprisingly, Ryzen 7 1800X beats the tuned Threadripper 1920X. Die-to-die latency may come into play during this test.

3D Workstation Performance

AutoCAD 2016 (3D)

AMD’s Ryzen family lands within a narrow range during this frequency-sensitive application. The Core i7-7700K takes an easy lead, and the -7820X's second-place finish confirms that the workload isn't optimized for parallelism. In fact, AutoCAD’s performance resembles older games because it uses DirectX and doesn't leverage multiple cores effectively.

Cinebench R15 OpenGL

Clock rate tends to influence the Cinebench R15 OpenGL benchmark results most. Our numbers indicate that the application could benefit from Ryzen-specific optimizations.

SolidWorks 2015

SolidWorks 2015 tells a similar tale. Even an overclocked Ryzen Threadripper 1920X loses to Ryzen 7 1800X. Switching to NUMA mode could help improve Threadripper's placement, but that'd also have an impact on other applications. You'll have to choose the settings that yield the best experience or face a steady stream of reboots to optimize AMD's platform for whatever you're running at the moment.

Creo 3.0

The 1920X's lead over the 1950X tells us that frequency is more important than core count during this benchmark.

Moreover, Ryzen 7 1800X's performance advantage over the Threadripper processors suggests the unique MCM design can be problematic in some workloads. Optimized BIOS settings could push those processors up in our field, but they'd also negatively impact Creo's CPU composite score.

Blender (Real-time 3D Preview)

Threadripper's Blender benchmark results are acceptable for a high-end processor, but the -7700K is a fly in the ointment for both Intel's and AMD's priciest chips. The overclocked 1920X leads AMD's line-up, illustrating the advantages of extra clock rate in workloads not well-optimized for high core counts. Given the great rendering results you'll see on the next page, Threadripper 1920X provides a potent balance of performance in all types of applications.

Catia V6 R2012

This graphics benchmark is well-optimized (it’s part of the free SPECviewperf 12 suite, after all). We can see that frequency is particularly important in determining performance.

Maya 2013

Maya 2013 also leans heavily on clock rate. But you have to remember that real-time 3D output benchmarks don’t tell the whole story. AMD’s Threadripper processors are much more competitive during final rendering, which we'll cover on the next page.

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CPU Rendering, Scientific & Engineering Computations, & HPC Performance

CPU Workstation Performance

Many modern suites include modules that are based exclusively on computing and simulations. This means we need to go beyond just 3D workstation performance to form our opinion of these high-end CPUs.

Threadripper offers solid performance in applications that respond well to IPC throughput and frequency, so the Threadripper 1920X leads its counterpart in the SolidWorks and Creo Composite tests. 3ds Max 2015's CPU Computing test benefits from both frequency and parallelism, rewarding the 1950X with a first-place finish when it's overclocked.

CPU Performance: Photorealistic Rendering

Final rendering doesn’t require a CPU that's good at everything. Rather, this task wants efficiency and fast parallel computation.

Nothing beats AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper when it comes to rendering in 3ds Max 2015. Core count is much more important than clock rate, which yields a predictable pecking order.

Most of the Blender tests naturally respond well to Threadripper's array of execution resources.

IPC throughput and clock rate become a factor during the "Blenderalla" workload, so Intel's Skylake-X processors assume the lead.

Overall, the Threadripper products are great for semi-professional use and rendering workloads. Even when they don't win absolutely, they still offer performance that's competitive with Intel's similarly-priced models.

Scientific & Engineering Computations, & HPC Performance

For these tests, we use the SPECwpc benchmark suite for workstations with its wide variety of tasks. It runs a number of different mathematical computations optimized for parallelization. They typically make heavy use of available memory bandwidth and cache, plus expose issues with latency.

The convolution benchmark consists of an operation performed on two functions that results in a third function. Performance scales similarly well with core count and clock rate, allowing the Threadripper architecture to shine.

CalculiX is based on the finite element method for three-dimensional structural computations. In this test, Ryzen Threadripper 1950X bests Intel's -7900X, while the 1920X leads the rest of the field.

SRMP algorithms are used for discrete energy minimization, and none of the AMD entrants handle them well, suggesting the benchmark might be latency-sensitive.

The Kirchhoff Migration test plays well with AMD's Threadripper design, though, so the company's highest-end chips lead the field by an impressive margin.

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Overclocking, Cooling & Temperature

The Right Cooling Solution

AMD uses solder between Threadripper's dies and its heat spreader. This plays a critical role in aiding our overclocking efforts, helping us achieve the highest clock rate we've seen from a Ryzen CPU. We made significant changes to our cooling setup to avoid a few issues with the standard mounting mechanism.

Overclocking

Our Threadripper 1950X sample overclocked to 3.9 GHz at 1.35V, and the 1920X hit 4.1 GHz with 1.42V. The all-in-one water-cooler in our kit couldn't keep the CPU stable at that level, though. This was due to processor power consumption exceeding 250W during our rendering test.

And so we went back to our higher-end Chiller for a better comparison data. This way, there’s one true constant to our measurements: a water temperature of approximately 20°C that can be held constant, even subjected to more than 300W of waste heat.

For everyday use, a normal water-cooling solution will definitely suffice thanks to AMD's soldered heat spreader, which makes Threadripper less of a challenge than Intel's Core i9-7900X. Our approach simply allows us a bit more thermal headroom.

Using the Chiller, AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 1920X went even higher, reaching 4.2 GHz at 1.45V and 4.3 GHz at 1.5V. At that point, the Chiller started falling behind Threadripper's thermal output as temperatures crept too high for comfort. We dialed in a more reasonable 4.1 GHz for our benchmarks.

Maximum Temperatures: Stock Clock Rate

For our baseline results, we used the 360mm closed-loop cooler that AMD provided. As a spoiler, the motherboard limits both Threadripper chips to ~180W. You can’t exceed this upper boundary for even short periods using normal settings.

The 1920X’s curves look almost identical to those of AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 1950X, except for a few insignificant Tctl and Tdie jumps. This is hardly surprising, seeing that the load is similar as well.

The CPU temperature values reported by HWiNFO64 through Asus' separate sensor loop are between 6°C and 12°C lower than the Tctl values, and they rise more slowly. Even without additional cooling, the voltage converter temperatures are almost perfect at just under 60°C.

Maximum Temperatures: Overclocked

Increasing voltages to guarantee stable operation pushes the processors past their sweet spot. Consequently, power consumption goes through the roof. Operating well beyond 300W poses a challenge for any cooling solution. That's why we're using the Chiller. We did try a normal water-cooling loop though, resulting in the Tctl and Tdie values going up by ~10°C to 15°C. This is well within an acceptable range.

The overclocked 1950X peaks at 320 to 325W. Using the Chiller, this level of power consumption is accompanied by Tctl values of 87°C. That’s actually not as severe as it seems once the offset and Tdie values are taken into account. A real temperature of approximately 60°C serves as a great demonstration of why solder is superior to thermal paste.

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Power Consumption

We establish the package’s power consumption results by using a special sensor loop. This way, our values represent the exact amount of power that goes into the CPU and then reemerges in the form of waste heat dissipated by the cooling subsystem. We check our sensor readings using shunts and by measuring overall power consumption directly at the EPS connector (with a current probe and direct voltage measurement).

AMD’s Threadripper CPUs use different partial voltages for the SoC and SMU rails at different clock rates. These partial voltages, which, again, vary based on frequency, do influence the package’s power consumption. AMD recommended that we use the profile included with its DDR4-3200 kit. But if we instead use the standard SPD values for DDR4-2133, our power measurement is 15W lower!Both of AMD’s CPUs are designed for a maximum power ceiling of 180W at their default settings. If the memory gets overclocked, the CPU has 15 fewer watts to work with. This could affect performance in workloads that utilize all cores and, consequently, get too close to the limit.

Idle Power Consumption

Threadripper’s idle power consumption is roughly twice that of the Ryzen 7 models. However, Threadripper also hosts two dies instead of one, and it also hits higher clock rates under sporadic loads. The overclocked version requires higher voltages as well, and memory also plays a role in power consumption. For instance, dropping to DDR4-2133 pulls the 1920X's idle power use down to 32W.

CAD Workload Power Consumption

AutoCAD 2016 rarely uses more than two or three cores. In fact, most of the time it's limited to a single core. Thus, it's not surprising that the CAD power consumption only adds a maximum of 15W to the idle power numbers. The two overclocked configurations add another 14W, which makes for an almost 30W difference compared to our idle power consumption results.

Gaming Power Consumption

When it comes to gaming, Threadripper’s MCM design causes its many cores to get in each others' way. Thus, the frame rates we report end up lower than competing processors. But power consumption ends up similar to Intel's Core i9-7900X, even though Skylake-X offers much more performance.

Stress Test & Maximum Power Consumption

Power consumption goes through the roof during our stress test, especially for the overclocked configurations.

The motherboard is partially to blame for the stock Intel Core i9-7900X's excessively high numbers. It doesn’t obey the standard Turbo Boost frequency thresholds, instead boosting aggressively and staying in those boost states longer than required. For more details, see our article about the power and thermal issues we encountered during our extended testing.

Threadripper doesn’t have those kinds of issues. Asus X399 ROG Zenith Extreme limits power consumption to exactly 180W at stock settings, just as it should.

At a respectable 1.425V, the Ryzen Threadripper 1920X reaches 4.1 GHz. The higher-end 1950X needs 1.35V to achieve 3.9 GHz. Once overclocked, AMD’s new processors join Intel's Core i9-7900X overclocked to 4.5 GHz in the stratosphere beyond 300W.

In the end, Threadripper's two dies sometimes consume more power than other processors’ single dies, depending on the task. We succeeded in breaking the 4 GHz barrier by overclocking the 1920X to 4.1 GHz. At that speed, all 24 threads were fully functional and at our disposal. The high power consumption is acceptable if it's accompanied by comparably elevated application performance. For Threadripper, that requires highly parallelized workloads (and perhaps optimized software).

Unfortunately, Threadripper's efficiency during gaming turns out to be significantly worse than Intel’s. Threadripper draws an additional ~15W at idle due to the memory. Subtracting that 15W from AMD's gaming power consumption changes the picture, bringing power consumption in line with the lower gaming performance.

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Final Analysis

Ryzen Threadripper 1920X bears most of the same features touted on Threadripper 1950X. It clearly offers strong performance in threaded applications, but it also comes with higher base clock rates and more overclocking headroom than any Ryzen model we've tested. Compared to the 1950X, you save $200 in exchange for four cores and eight threads. However, you also gain higher performance in many lightly threaded productivity applications.

AMD positions Threadripper as a solution for content creators, heavy multi-taskers, and gamers who stream to services like Twitch. It also says the processors are ideal for gaming at high resolutions (a most logical pairing, given the likely specs of a desktop with an $800 CPU). The 1920X isn't intended for low-resolution gaming, particularly with lightly threaded titles. Still, we test at lower resolutions to unearth the differences between competing architectures, rather than be bound by graphics performance.

The following gaming price efficiency charts use a geometric mean of the 99^th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness), which we convert into an FPS measurement and plot against price. Our suite includes six games released in 2016 and five older titles that launched in 2014/2015. Threadripper’s extra cores could enable more performance in the future as software evolves to utilize them better, so we also include a chart with newer games that exploit host processing resources more thoroughly.

Ryzen Threadripper 1920X drops into the gap between Intel's $600 Core i7-7820X and $1000 i9-7900X. It offers less performance than the Intel processors in both new and older games, even after a substantial overclock. Those deltas will shrink at higher resolutions, though. The 1920X's performance is fairly comparable to the higher-end 1950X, although AMD's flagship also exhibits a relatively small lead over the 1920X in stock and overclocked configurations.

Threadripper's true value registers in more intense workloads, such as heavy multitasking while gaming. Moreover, its hefty allotment of 60 available PCIe lanes allows for plenty of expansion. Even though the X399 motherboards are quite stable, more performance-enhancing firmware is trickling out from several vendors. We've already seen much higher gaming performance from the 1950X in Game mode, which is promising. Ryzen-specific optimizations for current titles continue surfacing as well, and we expect most new games to include similar optimizations. Gaming on Ryzen should only improve with time.

Of course, we still recommend sticking with mainstream processors like Ryzen 7/5 or Core i7/i5 for the best gaming value. That recommendation applies to both Intel and AMD high-end CPUs.

Focusing more on Threadripper's core competency, the 1920X offers great performance in a few of our less demanding productivity tasks, such as the Adobe suite. Notably, the 1920X's extremely high score in Adobe Illustrator feels like an outlier, so we provide charts both with and without that test. In either case, the 1920X's frequency advantage provides more performance than Core i9-7900X in this and some other lightly threaded tasks, like decompression.

The 1920X excels in encoding and compression workloads, often matching or outstripping Intel's Core i9-7900X. The 1920X isn't as dominant in the Blender and LuxRender tests, but it delivers incredibly competitive performance, especially in light of its lower price point. It also fares well in many of our HPC and scientific workloads, highlighting its diverse capabilities.

The Threadripper processors are a solid choice for highly parallelized or simultaneous workloads. Intel still enjoys an advantage in most lightly threaded tasks. But overall, the 1920X is more competitive in these applications than the lower-frequency 1950X. Of course, switching into Game mode might enable higher performance in some situations, but we don't think professional users will tolerate constant reboots to toggle back and forth.

Intel's X299 and AMD's X399 platform costs are similar, at least by early indications. Several TR4-specific coolers have already come to market, and we expect more in the future. Surprisingly, the bundled Asetek bracket, which provides poor IHS coverage, is sufficient to attain substantial overclocks (at least by Ryzen standards). We used the bracket and a standard Thermaltake 360mm radiator to achieve a rock-solid 4.1 GHz, so cooling isn't as much of a worry here as it was with Skylake-X. Take note Intel; solder pays off.

Intel's Skylake-X models are still trickling out, so the company will have faster options soon. But they'll launch at hideous price points. Meanwhile, the 1920X slots into the $400 chasm between Core i9-7900X and i7-7820X, and it doesn't appear that Intel will have a Skylake-X processor to compete any time soon. This is a tremendous opportunity for AMD, and it's great news for anyone seeking no-compromise connectivity, competitive responsiveness in everyday apps, and superior performance per dollar in threaded software.

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AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 8GB Review

Chris Angelini — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 13:00:01 +0000

Introduction

Flagships always attract the most attention. They’re big, bad, and expensive, and enthusiasts love fawning over high-end hardware. But in the hours leading up to AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64 launch, the company seemed prescient of its top model’s fate. Radeon RX Vega 56 landed as we were wrapping up a story that’d be published in English, French, German, and Italian with a note: “…we ask that you consider prioritizing your coverage of Radeon RX Vega 56.”

The wheels were already in motion and we couldn’t add the derivative board in time for AMD’s embargo. So, we planned a review to focus solely on Vega 56 with even more data. And we’re glad we did. Not only did we have a chance to expand our testing, but we also saw Radeon RX Vega 64 launch, sell out in minutes, and then slowly trickle back into stock at substantially higher prices.

Of course, it’s not uncommon to see new hardware sell out quickly and then start commanding a premium. It happens all of the time, particularly in the high-end space. The competition has a 15-month head start and plenty of product in the channel, though. There’s no room for an air-cooled Radeon RX Vega 64 beyond $500—it simply doesn’t get recommended over GeForce GTX 1080. AMD needs its flagship right where it launched…or lower.

Lower is the realm of Radeon RX Vega 56, which AMD tells us will sell for $400. But if you think today’s issues with Vega 64 availability are going to get better come Vega 56, then you’re sorely mistaken. AMD wants to sell as many of its 12.5-billion-transistor Vega 10 GPUs on $500 (or higher) cards. Unless it’s having a serious yield issue, it’s almost inconceivable that we’d see more Vega 56 cards on launch day.

Will Radeon RX Vega 56 be worth waiting for then, once it’s readily in stock at AMD’s recommended price? Now that’s a question we can sink our teeth into.

Specifications

Meet Radeon RX Vega 56

Radeon RX Vega 56 utilizes the same Vega 10 processor found in Vega 64. It’s a 486 mm² behemoth sporting 12.5 billion transistors manufactured on GlobalFoundries’ 14LPP platform. You’ll still find four Shader Engines under the hood, each with its own geometry processor and draw stream binning rasterizer.

But rather than 64 active Compute Units across those Shader Engines, AMD turns off two CUs per Shader Engine, leaving 56 enabled across the GPU. Given 64 Stream processors and four texture units per CU, you get 3584 Stream processors and 224 texture units--~88% of Vega’s NCU resources. This configuration takes another hit to SP and texturing throughput in the form of lower base and typical boost clock rates. Radeon RX Vega 56's base is 1156 MHz compared to Vega 64's 1274 MHz, while Vega 56's boost frequency is rated at 1471 MHz versus Vega 64's 1546 MHz. Using AMD’s peak compute performance figures, that knocks theoretical SP performance down from 13.7 TFLOPS to 10.5 TFLOPS.

Each of Vega 10's Shader Engines sports four render back-ends capable of 16 pixels per clock cycle, yielding 64 ROPs. These render back-ends become clients of the L2, as we already know. That L2 is now 4MB in size, whereas Fiji included 2MB of L2 capacity (already a doubling of Hawaii’s 1MB L2). Ideally, this means the GPU goes out to HBM2 less often, reducing Vega 10’s reliance on external bandwidth. Since Vega 10’s clock rates on the 56-CU card can get up to ~40% higher than Fiji’s, while memory bandwidth actually drops by 102 GB/s, a larger cache should do even more to help prevent bottlenecks here than on the flagship.

Adoption of HBM2 allows AMD to halve the number of memory stacks on its interposer compared to Fiji, cutting an aggregate 4096-bit bus to 2048 bits. And yet, rather than the 4GB ceiling that dogged Radeon R9 Fury X, RX Vega 56 comfortably offers 8GB using 4-hi stacks, similar to the Vega 64. A 1.6 Gb/s data rate facilitates a 410 GB/s bandwidth figure, exceeding what either the GeForce GTX 1070 or 1080 have available to them using GDDR5 or GDDR5X, respectively. Still, it's a little surprising that AMD carves out ~15% of its throughput budget, given the emphasis on memory all the way back to Hawaii (512-bit aggregate bus) and Fiji (HBM enabling 512 GB/s). We have to imagine that a 3584-shader configuration at up to almost 50%-higher clocks than Radeon R9 Fury won't scale as well as it could with a beefier memory subsystem.

Model	Cooling Type	BIOS Mode	Power Profile
RX Vega 56	Cooling Type	BIOS Mode	Power Save	Balanced	Turbo
	Air	Primary	150W	165W	190W
	Air	Secondary	135W	150W	173W

Like Vega 64, Radeon RX Vega 56 offers two on-board BIOSes, each with three corresponding driver-based power profiles. The primary firmware in its default Balanced mode imposes a GPU power limit of 165W. Turbo loosens the reigns to 190W, while Power Save pulls Vega 10 back to 150W. The second BIOS is eco-friendlier, defining 135W, 150W, and 173W limits for the three power profiles. Of course, board power is higher, and AMD defines just one specification for this: 210W. That’s 71% of Radeon RX Vega 64’s board power, reflecting the combined impact of fewer active resources and lower GPU/memory frequencies.

Look, Feel & Connectors

AMD’s RX Vega 56 weighs in at 1064g, which makes it 14g heavier than the Frontier Edition. Its length is 26.8cm (from bracket to end of cover), its height is 10.5cm (from top of motherboard slot to top of cover), and its depth is 3.8cm. This makes it a true dual-slot graphics card, even though the backplate does add another 0.4cm to the back.

Both the cover and the backplate are made of black anodized aluminum, giving the card a cool and high-quality feel. The surface texture is achieved using simple cold forming that preceded the aluminum’s anodization. All of the screws are painted matte black. The red Radeon logo on the front is printed, and provides the only splash of color.

The top of the card is dominated by two eight-pin PCIe power connectors and the red Radeon logo, which lights up. There’s also a two-position switch that allows access to the aforementioned secondary BIOS optimized for lower power consumption and its corresponding driver-based power profiles. These make the card quieter, cooler, and, of course, a bit slower.

The end of the card is closed and includes mounting holes that are a common sight on workstation graphics cards. The powder-coated matte black slot bracket is home to three DisplayPort connectors and one HDMI 2.0 output. There is no DVI interface, which was a smart choice since it allows for much better airflow. The slot bracket doubles as the exhaust vent, after all.

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Disassembly, Cooler & Interposer

Disassembly & Cooler

Some tools are needed to remove the card's cover. Six small screws that hold the shroud in place can be unfastened with a small Phillips-head screwdriver (PH1). This reveals AMD's cooler, along with a frame responsible for adding rigidity and dissipating thermal energy.

AMD leans on a direct heat exhaust solution once again, and that's not a bad thing. We can see the radial fan sitting in its chamber, which brings in air from the case. This flow passes horizontally though the sink’s body and blows out of the card’s slot cover.

The backplate is made from black anodized aluminum. Looking good is its only purpose, which is to say that the plate doesn't help with cooling. AMD secures this piece using six T6 screws.

Our attempt to make the backplate functional with thermal pads didn't get us very far; they didn't draw much waste heat away from the board.

Up top, there's a massive cooling frame that helps keep the card's structure nice and rigid. It also looks like AMD implemented some of the design lessons it learned from past generations. Similar to Gigabyte's Aorus GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Edition, the chokes transfer heat to the frame through thermal pads. Indentations in the metal accommodate voltage regulation circuitry as well.

The heat sink’s body is made of thin aluminum cooling fins attached to a large copper vapor chamber. Toward the bottom of the following two pictures, you can see the chamber's outlet, which was soldered shut and should never be snapped off. A large protrusion on the copper plate's surface is situated perfectly to make contact with AMD's GPU/memory package.

The 7cm radial fan is a simple ball bearing-based model from Delta. This is a first for AMD, and it’s certainly nice to see after generations of loud fans on the company's reference cards. Whereas those old fans spun at up to 10,000 RPM, the new BVB1012-family model hits its maximum speed at 5000 RPM. AMD’s target is around 40 to 41% duty cycle, translating to ~2000 RPM.

With the board completely exposed, all eyes turn to AMD's GPU and the HBM2 mounted together on an interposer, which sits on a large package substrate.

The Package: Confusion & Production Problems

Of course, the GPU can't simply be soldered to the PCB. As with AMD's Fiji-based cards, Vega and its complement of memory go through a packaging process that's handled by specialty tools. The resulting module is much easier for board partners to handle later on.

Looking at the Vega Frontier Edition and some Radeon RX Vega cards, pictured on the left, it's clear that AMD now favors the use of molding. The area around the GPU and memory is filled with an epoxy-like material that significantly improves stability. These packages are made in Taiwan and manufactured by ASE. Compare that to the version on the right, which we snapped of our Radeon RX Vega 56 sample. We went into depth on the specific differences in Is AMD Vega's Package Construction A Problem?

That package on the right is actually the third version we've come across; its shim, circuit board, and inscription indicate a different manufacturer and origin.

Thinking back to Fiji, AMD usually shipped its chips first to memory vendor SK hynix, which then assembled its HBM modules, had the packages completed in Korea without molding, and finally sent back, completed, to AMD. Both of the Vega cards we tested previously had molded packages from from ASE in Taiwan, so we now have a new Korean package on the scene.

So, what’s the problem? The HBM2’s positioned 40μm lower on the packages without molding and the underfill’s a bit different too. This causes unexpected production challenges, delaying add-in board partner products. We’ve been told that some of AMD’s partners are having to use six screws to attach their heat sinks instead of just four. Naturally, already-complete thermal solutions and backplates either can't be used or have to be modified to work with molding-less packages.

Is The Memory Different?

It is rumored that HBM2 made by different manufacturers (Samsung and SK hynix) is being used depending on the package version. Although we haven't talked to anyone willing to confirm this, it'd at least explain the different HBM2 module heights and the three packages we've run across. Insufficient packaging process capacity shouldn’t be a problem at this point in time, and should be excluded as the sole reason for all of this.

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Board Layout & Components

Board Layout

AMD’s RX Vega 64, RX Vega 56, and Vega Frontier Edition employ the exact same board and components. The only differences are the package soldered to the board (this includes HBM2) and adjusted firmware. If AMD wanted to shorten Vega to the length of Radeon R9 Nano, it could.

The lack of memory modules outside of the package opened up some possibilities for AMD to get creative with its PCB. Now, the voltage regulators are found where you'd expect to find GDDR5, and we're looking at a classic 6+1-phase design for power delivery to the GPU and HBM2.

A pair of eight-pin auxiliary power connectors have one coil each; they help smooth out certain voltage peaks. Interestingly, though, there are no large capacitors to be seen.

GPU Power Supply

At the center of it all is International Rectifier's IR35217, a poorly-documented dual-output multi-phase controller able to provide six phases for the GPU and two others. A closer look reveals 12 regulator circuits though, not just six. This is a result of doubling, allowing the load from each phase to be distributed between two regulator circuits.

Six IR3598 interleaved MOSFET drivers on the back of the board are responsible for the doubling. These are the parts we pointed out earlier. The following video was taken at idle and shows how the PWM controller switches the load back and forth between the circuits. This keeps efficiency high by using only one phase, but also avoids overloading a single circuit over prolonged periods of time.

The actual voltage conversion for each of the 12 regulator circuits is handled by an IRF6811 on the high side and an IRF6894 on the low side, which also contains the necessary Schottky diode. Both are International Rectifier HEXFETs that we've seen AMD use before.

For the coils, AMD went with encapsulated ferrite core chokes that are soldered in the front. At 190nH, their inductivity is a bit lower than the 220nH we often see.

Memory Power Supply

The memory's one phase is supplied by the IR35217 as well. One phase is plenty, since on-package HBM2 needs a lot less power. A CHL815 gate driver is found on the back of the board. For the voltage converters, AMD opted for ON Semiconductor's NTMFD4C85N, a dual N-channel MOSFET that supplies the high and low sides.

It’s interesting that AMD went with flat SMD capacitors instead of can caps. The somewhat lower capacity is compensated for by simply running two of them in parallel on the back of the board. It does make sense to spread the hot-spots and make the thermal solution's job a little easier. Waste heat is kept to a minimum, as is the cost associated with cooling.

At 220nH, the coils are a bit larger this time around. The ones corresponding to the "partial voltage" converters, which operate at a much lower frequency, are even larger at 820nH. They don’t have to deal with the same amounts of power, though.

Other Voltage Converters

Creating the VDDCI isn’t a very difficult task. But it's an important one since this regulates the transition between the internal GPU and memory signal levels. It’s essentially the I/O bus voltage between the GPU and the memory. As such, two constant sources of 1.8V and 0.8V are supplied.

Underneath the GPU, there’s an Anpec APL5620 low drop-out linear regulator, which provides the very low voltage for the phase locked loop (PLL) area.

ON Semiconductor's MC74HC238A demultiplexer drives the LED bar that shows the power supply’s load. It’s a fun gimmick, but does get annoying in a dark room at night due to its brightness.

The remaining components are the usual fare.

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How We Tested AMD's Vega RX 56 8GB

AMD’s latest and greatest will no doubt be found in high-end platforms. Some of these may include Broadwell-E-based systems. However, our U.S. lab is sticking with its MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard, which was recently upgraded to host a Core i7-7700K CPU, for performance measurements. The new processor is complemented by G.Skill’s F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ memory kit. Intel’s Kaby Lake architecture remains one of the company’s most effective per clock cycle, and a stock 4.2 GHz frequency is higher than the models with more cores. Crucial’s MX200 SSD remains, as does the Corsair H110i cooler and be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W power supply.

As far as competition goes, the Radeon RX Vega 56 is rivaled most closely by Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070. Of course, we imagine that gamers also want to know how Vega 56 fares against the faster/pricier GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and 1080, so we include them in our benchmark results. Similarly, we add EVGA’s GeForce GTX 1070 SC Gaming 8GB for an additional comparison point to an Nvidia partner card still for sale (Founders Edition boards just aren’t around anymore). Progress relative to AMD's previous-gen graphics hardware is tracked by testing the Radeon R9 Fury X and Radeon R9 390X.

Leading up to today's review, we completely revamped the software side of our platform. Installing the Windows 10 Creators Update caused all sorts of problems with PresentMon, OCAT, and our own custom front-end, but we thought it important to get our operating systems current. As such, we used a combination of OCAT 1.1.0 and PMG 0.9.21 to collect data, along with a fresh build of our log file interpreter to get that information into Excel. All of the Nvidia cards were benchmarked using driver version 384.94, while AMD's previous-gen cards were tested with Crimson ReLive Edition 17.7.2.

It's also worth noting that the air-cooled Radeon RX Vega 56 has two on-board BIOS versions, each with three different power/performance profiles. All of our benchmarks are run in the out-of-box configuration using AMD's more aggressive BIOS and a Balanced profile.

Our conventional gaming selection now includes Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, Battlefield 1, Doom, Hitman, Metro: Last Light Redux, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, and The Witcher 3. We’re also adding Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III.

Comparison Graphics Cards

Asus GeForce GTX 1080 8GB

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 8GB

Sapphire Radeon R9 390X

Test Systems

We introduced our new test system and methodology in How We Test Graphics Cards. If you'd like more detail about our general approach, check that piece out.

In this case, only the hardware configuration with CPU, RAM, mainboard, as well as the new cooling system are different, so the summary in table form gives a quick overview of the systems used:

Test System and Configuration
Hardware	Germany Intel Core i7-6900K @ 4.3 GHzMSI X99S XPower Gaming TitaniumCorsair Vengeance DDR3-32001x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming Pro CarbonG.Skill F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ1x 500GB Crucial MX200be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK
PC Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Extension Kit and Mods Configurations: Open Benchtable, Closed Case
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (DirectX 12)

Radeon RX Vega 56 essentially ties GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition at 2560x1440 in Ashes. It delivers about 82% of Radeon RX Vega 64’s average frame rate in the process, yielding playable performance through the benchmark run.

Still, Vega 56 trails AMD’s previous-gen flagship, Radeon R9 Fury X, demonstrating what the loss of eight CUs and significant memory bandwidth does to Vega 10’s potential.

Vega 56 again ducks in under the R9 Fury X and GeForce GTX 1070 at 3840x2160, though all three cards fare quite similarly.

While variance doesn’t seem problematic for AMD, a number of frame time spikes during our 150-second recording cause Vega 56 to register the highest percentage of 16ms+ frames. It was quite a bit smoother at 2560x1440.

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Battlefield 1 (DirectX 12)

Notably better performance under Battlefield 1 propels Radeon RX Vega 56 in front of GeForce GTX 1070, the overclocked EVGA card we have, and Radeon R9 Fury X. In fact, Vega 56 comes close to GeForce GTX 1080 at 2560x1440. Very little frame time variance and an all-red unevenness bar graph point to a smooth experience.

Even at 3840x2160, Vega 56 serves up an enjoyable experience with frame rates that never drop below 40. That’s good enough to land between GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070, delivering average performance almost 22% better than Radeon R9 Fury X.

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Doom (Vulkan)

We have a story in the works that compares Ashes of the Singularity frame rates under DirectX 12 and Vulkan. Until then, Doom is the only Vulkan-based game in our suite.

Radeon RX Vega 56 repeats its Battlefield 1 performance by besting the R9 Fury X (by 7%), EVGA card (by 16%), and GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition (by 22%) cards. Though the entire field serves up smooth frame rates, Doom is extremely fast-paced and twitchy, so you want as many frames per second as possible to avoid untimely hitching. Our variance bar graph shows Radeon RX Vega 56 delivering those frames in a consistent manner.

The step up to 3840x2160 puts Vega 56 at the same level as GeForce GTX 1080, ahead of Radeon R9 Fury X, and in front of GTX 1070 by more than 22%. Frame time variance is low, and our unevenness index suggests well-paced frame delivery, even at 3840x2160 using Doom’s most taxing quality settings.

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Hitman (DirectX 12)

Although GCN’s strength under DirectX 12 isn’t universal, the architecture is certainly more competitive with low-level APIs able to keep it busy. Hitman shows Radeon RX Vega 56 achieving 91% of Vega 64’s frame rate, but it’s well ahead of AMD’s previous-generation cards. The advantage is enough to land Vega 56 in front of GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition and our overclocked EVGA board.

Vega 56 loses steam at 3840x2160, landing between the GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition and EVGA cards. Both Nvidia boards demonstrate higher minimum frame rates through our benchmark, though the trio is essentially tied otherwise.

AMD’s Vega 56 performs in a range that’d clearly benefit from pairing with a FreeSync-capable display. But we’d suggest dropping a quality preset or two with or without variable refresh to improve your experience at 4K.

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Metro: Last Light Redux (DirectX 11)

The use of SSAA at 2560x1440 was already an issue for Radeon RX Vega 64, so the hit we take on Vega 56 gives even more reason to turn that feature off (or dial back from the game’s Very High quality preset). Nevertheless, it’s good to see Vega 56 landing between the two GeForce GTX 1070s in a DirectX 11-based title historically favorable to Nvidia.

One interesting take-away apparent from the frame time over run line graph is that both Vega cards exhibit larger spikes and dips than the other boards in our test field. As a result, they fall to the bottom of our frame time variance chart.

Disabling SSAA for 3840x2160 testing keeps performance close to where it was at 2560x1440, though now we’re flirting with minimum frame rates under 30 FPS.

The same observation about frame time and variance can be made at 4K, where both Vega cards are less consistent than older Radeons or GeForces. Still, our lab notes turn up no complaints of apparent stuttering, and our unevenness index shows Vega 56 and GTX 1070 on roughly equal footing.

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Rise of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 12)

Applying SSAA in Rise of the Tomb Raider imposes a heavy performance penalty. But Radeon RX Vega 56 posts an average frame rate behind Vega 64 and ahead of both GeForce GTX 1070s.

The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti’s massive frame time spikes register on our variance chart. In the same graph, Vega 56 appears less consistent than Radeon R9 Fury X. Fortunately, higher overall frame rates allow both Vega cards to register a smoother experience in our unevenness index.

Similar analysis applies at 3840x2160, where we disable SSAA for the higher-resolution benchmark.

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Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (DirectX 11)

Radeon RX Vega 56 again lands between two GeForce GTX 1070 cards at 2560x1440.

We deliberately avoid this game’s highest quality preset, which enables Nvidia’s Turf Effects feature and hammers performance pretty hard.

The step up to 3840x2160 allows Vega 56 to jump the EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC Gaming 8GB in absolute terms. But the two cards perform almost identically (though all four GeForce cards do exhibit slightly higher frame time variance through our test sequence).

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Tom Clancy’s The Division (DirectX 12)

During its Vega 64 architecture announcement, AMD cited The Division as an example of how asynchronous compute benefits its architecture. According to company representatives, switching to the game’s DirectX 12 renderer facilitates a 13% boost, presumably due to improved utilization.

The result of this focused optimization is a Radeon RX Vega 56 able to match Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080. If AMD could help game developers extract that level of utilization from its architecture, our comparisons would all shift up a model in Nvidia’s line-up.

Vega 56 doesn’t let up at 3840x2160, hanging right with GeForce GTX 1080.

While most of our test samples keep their noses above 30 FPS through Ubisoft's built-in benchmark sequence, an average frame rate under 40 FPS suggests that you’d enjoy a smoother experience at 4K if you stepped back a quality preset or two.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and Titan Xp are still the only two cards we’d recommend for gaming at 4K with maxed-out details. Of course, they’re also a lot more expensive. Radeon RX Vega 56 should get you close for $400, should prices ever settle down. As of this writing, the cheapest “$500” Vega 64 cards sell for almost $700, well beyond their comparative worth to gamers.

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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III (DirectX 11)

Vega proves its mettle once again in Dawn of War III, essentially matching a GeForce GTX 1080’s frame rate and demonstrating lower frame time variance. Through our benchmark, you’re looking at roughly 17%-higher performance than EVGA’s overclocked GeForce GTX 1070.

That lead shrinks to ~14% at 3840x2160.

Even Radeon R9 Fury X is faster than GeForce GTX 1070 in this AMD-sponsored title, despite its 4GB of HBM.

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The Witcher 3 (DirectX 11)

We had to pull our cards back out after wrapping up benchmarking to confirm what you see here: that The Witcher 3 averages slightly higher frame rates on Radeon RX Vega 56 than 64.

While our test sequence is a manual run-through and subject to some variation, we do know this game is power-hungry. It’s plausible that this DX11-based title isn’t utilizing AMD’s NCUs efficiently, keeping Vega 64’s extra Stream processors/texture units from augmenting performance. At the same time, higher power consumption could put a cap on Vega 64’s clock rate that Vega 56 isn’t limited by. In any case, Vega 56’s match our expectations more than what we’ve repeatedly measured from Vega 64.

Jumping up to 4K puts more stress on each GPU’s ability to render pretty pixels quickly, so Vega 64 assumes its position ahead of Radeon RX Vega 56 at 3840x2160, as we'd expect. Vega 56 notably leads the two GeForce GTX 1070 cards as well, turning what we considered to be a curious loss in our Vega 64 review into redemption for AMD’s derivative model.

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VR: Arizona Sunshine (DirectX 11)

The tools and methodologies used for benchmarking in virtual reality are explained exhaustively in FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality. If you'd like to know more about these results, start with that story. We're using the same hardware described on the How We Tested AMD's Vega RX 56 8GB page, plus an Oculus Rift HMD.

A graph of frame time over time suggests a fairly consistent experience through our 150-second benchmark run in Arizona Sunshine. However, GeForce GTX 1080 does achieve the lowest (best) frame times. Radeon RX Vega 56 appears to fare slightly better than GeForce GTX 1070. And Radeon RX Vega 64 peeks up above the rest of the field.

Looking instead at the 90 frames per second displayed by each graphics card, we see that neither AMD nor Nvidia fall back on Asynchronous Space Warp to keep up with Oculus’ HMD. There are dropped frames across the board, but we don't observe any synthesized frames.

Working backwards from frame time, we’re able to calculate an unconstrained frame rate. This is the performance you’d see if today’s top VR headsets weren’t locked to 90 Hz.

These numbers confirm that GeForce GTX 1080 enjoys the greatest headroom above 90 FPS. Both Radeon RX Vega cards occupy the middle spots, albeit in a reversed order compared to what we’d expect. GeForce GTX 1070 trails Vega 64 slightly.

While we know that 90 FPS gives us 11.1ms per frame, our 99^th percentile frame time chart shows Radeon RX Vega 64 and GeForce GTX 1070 approaching 12ms. How is that possible? From our previously-linked primer on VR benchmarking:

“In all actuality, the envelope can expand/contract due to preemption/parallelization done by the VR runtime. Oculus' adaptive queue ahead feature is designed to facilitate this, so an 11ms cut-off is not absolute, though it’s generally true. In short, optimizations are not enough to keep you from dropping frames if you render at >11ms for an extended period of time.”

The average frame times for all four cards are closer to 10ms, so there’s clearly some headroom available for dealing with worst-case frames, though some of those do get dropped (indicated by the red blips in our interval charts).

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VR: Chronos (DirectX 11)

Chronos at its highest quality settings is taxing, even for today’s top-end graphics hardware. But it’s also a UE4-based game, and Nvidia historically fares better in those.

Sure enough, we see the GeForce GTX 1080 spend a brief bit of our 80-second run in ASW mode, while the rest of its frames are new. GeForce GTX 1070 is a little more dependent on synthesized frames for a smooth experience, but it starts generating new frames again once the runtime sees headroom open up.

Radeon RX Vega 64 starts the benchmark pumping out new frames, but never recovers once we hit the taxing passage that forces Nvidia’s cards into ASW mode initially. Vega 56 simply cannot help but to rely on a 1:1 ratio of real to synthesized frames.

An unconstrained frame rate >45 FPS shows that Vega 56 at least has some performance reserves to maintain its ratio of one real to one synthesized frame. We’ve seen slower cards, like Radeon RX 470, that often require two synthesized frames for every real one. That’s no good. But it also means Radeon RX Vega 56 is significantly slower than GeForce GTX 1070 in Chronos.

The 99^th percentile frame times show why it’s necessary for all of these cards to switch over into ASW mode for at least part of our Chronos benchmark.

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VR: DiRT Rally (DirectX 11)

DiRT Rally gives us one of the most controllable VR experiences possible with a built-in benchmarking mode. The resulting frame time chart is quite consistent, with perspective changes triggering spikes across all cards simultaneously.

Although the GeForce GTX 1080 does drop a handful of frames across our 180-second run, it’s the only card that doesn’t engage ASW mode. GeForce GTX 1070 forces the runtime to synthesize about 600 frames, but that’s in comparison to >16,000 new frames.

We clearly see on the frame time plot where Radeon RX Vega 64 drops out of ASW mode roughly two-thirds through the test. Vega 56 never enjoys this opportunity; it generates 8312 new frames while Oculus’ runtime synthesizes 8324.

Again, the unconstrained frame rate gives us a performance figure unencumbered by v-sync. Because Radeon RX Vega 56 never comes out of ASW mode, its delivered frame rate is roughly 45 FPS. But it obviously has to be faster than that to avoid dropping below 45 FPS. This chart tells us just how much faster.

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VR: Robo Recall (DirectX 11)

Like Chronos, Robo Recall is based on the UE4 engine. You might think that’d spell bad news for AMD…

Although Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 does achieve lower (better) frame times than Radeon RX Vega 64, AMD’s card stays out of ASW mode and only drops 19 frames during our 150-second run. The 1080’s test isn’t as smooth—it drops 83 frames through the same sequence.

What’s strange is that GeForce GTX 1080 appears about 15% faster in our unconstrained frame rate chart, based on frame time. Radeon RX Vega 64 even lands under the 1070 Founders Edition card—that one also drops quite a few frames in our test (72).

Vega 56 doesn’t fare quite as well using Robo Recall’s High detail setting and 4xMSAA. An unconstrained frame rate under 90 FPS reminds us that ASW was needed for about 1000 of the benchmark’s ~13,700 frames.

Although GeForce GTX 1070 registers a slightly higher unconstrained frame rate (and thus, lower average frame time), Radeon RX Vega 64 actually achieves a lower 99^th percentile frame time.

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VR: Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope (DirectX 11)

Serious Sam VR throws convention out the window using Croteam’s in-house Serious Engine 4.5. The GeForce GTX 1080 does demonstrate a smooth frame time plot and few dropped frames. But it’s the Vega 64 and 56 that follow, while GeForce GTX 1070 is forced into ASW mode as our test sequence gets more hectic.

The three top finishers in this chart deliver 90 FPS to Oculus’ Rift using all-Ultra settings; GeForce GTX 1070 averages 87.7 delivered FPS when you factor in its brief drop to 45 FPS. But the unconstrained frame rates are naturally higher.

Switching into ASW mode punishes the GTX 1070’s 99^th percentile frame time. Meanwhile, Radeon RX Vega 56 swaps places with Vega 64. They essentially tie, though.

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Ethereum Mining

The latest version of Claymore’s Dual Ethereum AMD/Nvidia GPU Miner (v9.8) includes support for Radeon RX Vega, so that’s what we used for our mining benchmark.

All of the AMD cards run in ASM mode, which requires some fine-tuning using the -dcri command line option. Our Radeon R9 Fury X saw its hash rate peak at -dcri 85, while our Radeon R9 390X was optimal at -dcri 20. After experimenting with fine-tuning values on our Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 8GB, we saw slightly higher hash rates using the -asm 2 switch for alternative ASM kernel mode. Radeon RX Vega 64 didn’t seem to like being messed with as much; adjustments from the default -dcri 30 did little to affect performance in a positive way.

Perhaps the most glaring upset in our chart comes from GeForce GTX 1080, which underperforms the lower-end 1070. This is a known issue though, as the Ethereum base code fits the latency characteristics of GDDR5 better than GDDR5X. Both the 1080 Ti and Titan Xp get around that problem with a much wider 384-bit memory interface. So if you could build your card from Nvidia’s parts bin, it’d be a GP102 processor with a 384-bit bus equipped with 9 Gb/s GDDR5 overclocked to 10 Gb/s. If only it was that easy, right?

AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 56 achieves roughly 98% of Vega 64’s Ethereum mining performance at a lower price point while using less power. Although the card’s HBM2 operates at a ~15%-lower data rate, it must employ tighter timings in order to make up the difference so convincingly.

This is going to be bad news for gamers, but expect greater interest in Radeon RX Vega 56 from miners than RX Vega 64.

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Power Consumption: Testing Eight Different Settings

Similar to AMD's Radeon RX Vega 64, the Vega 56 offers two BIOSes with corresponding power profiles that can be selected using a switch on the card. If you don't change the driver-based profiles, the primary BIOS imposes a 165W package limit, while the secondary BIOS drops that to 150W.

We ran our maximum gaming load benchmark, The Witcher 3 at 4K, for all six combinations. In addition, we switched the Radeon RX Vega 56 to AMD's secondary BIOS, underclocked it slightly, and lowered the power limit by 25%. Finally, we also overclocked the card using its primary BIOS and increased the power limit by 50%. In total, this gives us eight different configurations to compare.

Let's start with power consumption, then move on to efficiency, frequencies, temperature, and noise:

We used our highest overclock to established the maximum motherboard slot power consumption. The 1.7A we measured is just 27% of the PCI-SIG’s specified limit of 5.5A. AMD has come a long way from the days of its Radeon RX 480.

In the end, we could have saved ourselves the trouble of dealing with a second BIOS, which requires that you shut your system down and open its case every time you want to toggle one way or the other. Our measurements show the primary BIOS' Power Save mode is similar to the secondary BIOS' Balanced mode, after all. From there, lowering the power limit by ~10% using the primary BIOS would roughly equal Power Save mode using the secondary BIOS.

Ultimately, two more WattMan profiles could have replaced the BIOS switch entirely.

Primary BIOS Power Consumption Graphs

For each BIOS, we provide comparison curves showing the voltage control at work and the loads on the individual power connectors over time.

Secondary BIOS Power Consumption Graphs

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Overclocking, Underclocking, Efficiency & Temperature

Frequencies & Corresponding Game Performance

Again, we're using The Witcher 3 at 4K for our worst-case scenario. This yields an average of 36.6 FPS at 1305 MHz using the Balanced mode's stock settings, giving us a good 100% baseline.

Switching to the secondary BIOS and dropping the power limit by 25% results in a 1101 MHz clock rate and surprisingly high 32.7 FPS average frame rate. For 85% of the default GPU frequency we measure 89% of the default configuration's performance. Not bad.

Conversely, pushing the card to its limit via overclocking gets us almost 1500 MHz and 39.6 FPS. So, a frequency increase of almost 15% yields just 8% more gaming performance.

From the lowest to the highest average clock rate, we observe an increase of 36.4%. However, gaming performance goes up by just 21.1%. That's not great scaling, but it's not terrible either. What's more important is the power consumption accompanying those numbers. Unfortunately, this is where the data gets ugly.

Using the secondary BIOS with a power limit reduced by 25% gets us 159.4W and 32.7 FPS. Compared to the stock settings, just 71.6% of the power consumption serves up 89% of the gaming performance.

Going back to a worst-case scenario, the overclocked card averages 39.6 FPS, but consumes 310.6W doing so. Trading 39.5% more power consumption for an 8%-higher frame rate isn’t acceptable. The efficiency curve drops off rapidly with increasing clock rates and the additional power those frequencies necessitate.

The spread between the lowest to the highest power consumption is a massive 94%, while gaming performance increases by only 21.1%. Almost double the power consumption for one-fifth more gaming performance is what we'd call catastrophic.

Efficiency & Sweet Spot

If all of the results we generated are combined, and the curves' start and end points are given a common basis, then we get an FPS/watt ratio illustrating the relationship between gaming performance and power consumption. The point at which the distance between both curves is at its greatest represents the so-called sweet spot. This is where the card operates at peak efficiency, right before it starts going the other direction.

Radeon RX Vega 56's sweet spot seems to be right around 188W to 190W, according to our measurements. Strangely, AMD placed three settings close to it, but didn’t place a single one right on.

GPU & Memory Temperatures

The temperatures are very similar across all six power profiles. This is due to the fan's aggressive controller, which responds quickly when power consumption increases. The combination of overclocking and a power limit adjustment of +50% proves to be too much, though. AMD's thermal solution can't keep up, and our measurements show an additional 10°C compared to the predefined settings.

At maximum load, the HBM2 averages up to an additional 6°C on top of the GPU temperature in question. Our overclocking efforts pushed it beyond the 90°C mark, leaving us a little nervous.

Primary BIOS Thermal Images

For each of the two BIOSes, we provide thermal images for all three driver-based profile settings. These show how the card’s power consumption and fan speed affects the temperatures of various on-board components.

As mentioned, though, all of the temperatures are fairly similar until we get to the overclocked configuration. This is due to the fan controller’s ability to maintain a target temperature between 74 and 75°C, regardless of what that means to our ears.

Secondary BIOS Thermal Images

We start with the underclocked settings, resulting in 160W of power consumption. At that level, we notice a deviation from the six driver profile-based average temperatures as well. The difference isn’t as pronounced as it was for the overclocked setting, though.

Similar to what we observed from the primary BIOS, the other temperatures increase only slightly as power consumption rises; they're kept in check by an especially responsive fan.

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Fan Speed & Noise

We now know that AMD prioritizes GPU temperature, meaning fan speed is what suffers. Let’s first look at how fast the fan is forced to spin on a warmed-up card across all eight of the configurations we're measuring:

The difference in noise between the card running at its lowest and highest clock rate is a massive 12.3 dB(A).

We discussed this fan's acoustic profile in our AMD Radeon Vega RX 64 8GB Review. Beyond the secondary BIOS' Power Save mode, Radeon RX Vega 56's noise level is unacceptable as well. The reference Radeon R9 290X, which made it even further beyond the 50 dB(A) mark, is really the only graphics card that does worse.

Primary BIOS Acoustic Profiles

If the fan speed limit was removed completely for our overclocking efforts, then the card would actually exceed 60 dB(A), compelling you to run the other direction.

Secondary BIOS Acoustic Profiles

The noise spectrum of the secondary BIOS' profiles appear in order of quietest to AMD's hurricane simulation.

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Conclusion

Radeon RX Vega 56 is a close derivative of Vega 64, so its behaviors largely carry over from AMD’s flagship. The company does cut this card’s board power rating by almost 30% through a combination of disabling eight Compute Units, dialing down the GPU’s frequency, and down-clocking its precious HBM2. But it’s ultimately still much more power-hungry, and consequently hotter and louder, than its primary competition, GeForce GTX 1070.

Performance-wise, Radeon RX Vega 56 fares well against the 1070. Even when we compare it to EVGA’s overclocked GeForce GTX 1070 SC Gaming 8GB (there are no Founders Edition cards left to buy), Vega 56 consistently matches or beats it. In the handful of scenarios where AMD is slower, the loss amounts to single-digit percentages. But whereas Vega 64 made a case for 4K gaming at dialed-back detail settings, it’s safer to think of Vega 56 as a solid solution for 2560x1440 displays at maximum quality in the latest games.

Our VR benchmarks are less conclusive. GeForce GTX 1070 is definitely faster than Vega 56 in Chronos and DiRT Rally. It’s technically quicker in Robo Recall as well, though the GeForce also suffers more dropped frames in that game. Serious Sam narrowly favors Vega 56 over GTX 1070, and Arizona Sunshine runs well on both cards.

There’s no way to be delicate about our environmental measurements, though. Despite a much lower board power than Vega 64, Radeon RX Vega 56 (using its default Balanced power profile) consumes ~220W in our typical gaming workload. You can overclock for nominal performance gains, but power consumption rises much faster, thrashing efficiency. Alternatively, you can drop Vega 56’s power limit, cut consumption dramatically, and retain most of the card’s performance. This just wasn’t an option for AMD’s shipping configuration—the company knew it had to beat GeForce GTX 1070 in the benchmarks, and it sacrificed the FPS/watt sweet-spot we calculated for a victory in the discipline gamers care about most: speed.

Beyond the tangibles—performance, power, heat, noise, and efficiency—it’s much more difficult to say whether Radeon RX Vega 56 should be your next graphics card. Weeks after its official debut, Vega 64 remains relatively rare. Those cards we do find in stock sell for ~$700—roughly 40% higher than AMD’s purported launch price and well beyond what any gamer should consider paying.

The company won’t comment on shipping quantities, but again, we know AMD would rather sell its expensive GPUs as Vega 64s than 56es. And given a relatively mature manufacturing platform, the company should yield more completely intact Vega 10 processors. At the same time, Radeon RX Vega 56 appears to be better suited for Ethereum mining than AMD's flagship. Then there’s the lower price tag bound to attract enthusiasts on a tighter budget. Taken together, those variables reasonably suggest less immediate availability and greater demand. That’s not a good prognosis for the likelihood of Vega 56 at a $400 price point.

Fortunately for AMD, GeForce GTX 1070 is a much better cryptocurrency mining card than GTX 1080. So, while gamers can still snag 1080s for as little as $510, 1070s are more elusive. The GeForce GTX 1070 SC Gaming 8GB we used for comparison is out of stock on EVGA’s website (it normally sells for $460). Lower-clocked models are available as low as $430; they’re just not as fast.

In the end, Radeon RX Vega 56’s appeal is a matter of relative comparisons. The preceding 23 pages painted a pretty clear picture of Vega 56’s position against Vega 64, several GeForce cards, and prior-generation Radeons from several different angles. The last one—value—is subject to change on any given day. At $400, we’re willing to overlook higher power consumption and, to a certain extent, more noise than a $460, or even a $430 GeForce GTX 1070, particularly when the Vega 56 is as fast or faster. But if at some point in the future you end up with both cards in your shopping cart and are unsure which way to go, Vega 56 generally wins when it also costs less.

There are still several Vega-specific features that could make this card faster or more capable in the future: Rapid Packed Math, primitive shaders, the Draw Stream Binning Rasterizers, and the HBCC. This is also a youthful product, and there are many examples of AMD’s driver team extracting more performance from new hardware over the course of months. Our Doom, The Division, and Warhammer benchmarks should be evidence of Vega’s potential. But until we see some of those forward-looking features exposed for gamers to enjoy, Vega 56’s success will largely depend on its price relative to GeForce GTX 1070.

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How To Build A $2,500 Gaming PC

Derek Forrest — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 16:00:00 +0000

How To Build A $2,500 Gaming PC

Our final entry in the Best Build series puts the budget at what we perceive to be the optimal level before the price to performance ratio starts to flatline. The $2500 “Glass House” is almost a complete rebuttal to a previous observation that our builds lacked windows. The Lian-Li PC-08WX ATX mid-tower case is all window (tempered glass, at least, and the entire left and front sides of the chassis), and it puts the primary components on full display.

An Intel Core i7-7700K is still the prime pick at this price point, and it’s cooled by another Cryorig CPU cooler (a popular choice in our series), namely the H5 Universal. A 525GB Crucial MX300 M.2 SATA SSD offers speedy load times, and a 16GB kit of G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-2800 can handle all the latest AAA games. All of this resides on an MSI Z270 Gaming M5 ATX motherboard, which also hosts two EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Superclocked Gaming ACX 3.0 graphics cards in SLI. We're using an EVGA 850 G2 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU that has plenty of juice to keep the top-tier GPU setup powered, with some headroom to spare.

Specifications

"The Glass House" by G-Unit1111
Case	Lian Li PC-O8WX
Cooling	Cryorig H5 Universal CR-H5A
CPU	Core i7-7700K
Graphics	EVGA GTX 1080
Graphics	EVGA GTX 1080
Memory	G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) F4-2800C16D-16GVG
Motherboard	Z270 Gaming M5
PSU	Supernova 850 watt G2 80 Plus Gold
Storage	950 Pro 512GB

Time to assemble the Best $2,500 PC Build.

Case

Be extra careful removing this case from its box. The Lian-Li 08WX has its tempered glass panels in a separate box from the main assembly, and it's quite heavy. Put those aside until the very end (don’t even take them out yet). Remove the case from the packaging (the side panel might come off, so be careful) and set the chassis upright in your workspace.

Take off the right side panel (which houses the drive bays, PSU mount, and internal cabling) by lifting up on the rear edge of the panel (there’s a tab), and set it aside. Similarly, the top panel of the case also comes off, but there’s no requirement for us to do so, because it just provides access to a dust filter. Remove the hardware box and other materials (that big orange paper) from the case. The box is in the drive bay and held down by green tape. All of these steps are reflected in the album of photos above.

Fans

There are five fan cables located in the right side bay: two in the rear, three in the front. These run through the portholes of the case. The rear fan cables are hanging where the motherboard will be mounted, and you can access them from the main chamber of the case.

Untie all of the five case fan cables in the drive chamber (excluding the cable of the rear fan in the main chamber), save the tie wraps, and run them into each other as neatly as possible. Tie the cables together with one of the white tie wraps, and let them rest at the bottom of the case in the drive chamber.

Get five molex-to-fan adapters from the hardware box (see the first picture above). Attach one to each of the five fan cables with the 3-pin connector. Then plug all of the molex connectors into each other as clean as you can. Let the molex chain sit at the bottom of the case for now.

Lighting

The Lian-Li 08WX case comes with RGB LED strips, and there’s a controller built right into the case. However, to reach the controller (mounted just under the 3.5” drive bay) and feed the wires to the main chamber of the case (where the flashy lights would surely go), we have to run the extension cables from it rather early in the building process.

Take the three RGB LED strips that come with the case, remove the extensions (wires without lights—see the 2nd and 3rd pictures below)) on each length of lights, and set aside the RGB LEDs for later. Plug the three extensions into the RGB LED controller using the white leads (4th picture below). Feed the wires straight down and tie them to the RGB controller cable with one of the white tie wraps.

Feed the black ends of the extensions into the hole on the bottom right of the drive chamber and into the main chamber of the case (see first picture in the album below). Adjust the RGB controller cable so that it rests along the edge of the case (out of the way of the PSU bay and port holes in the chassis).

Untie the case’s internal HD Audio, front panel I/O, and USB 3.0 cables. Separate the audio wire and feed it above the RGB controller and down to the same hole as the LED extensions (bottom right of drive chamber), behind the existing cables. Feed it through the hole in the chassis and let it hang with the LED wires for the time being.

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Motherboard & Storage

Motherboard

Set the chassis aside, and take the MSI Z270 Gaming M5 motherboard out of its box. Use the anti-static bag as a cushion before you set the motherboard in your workspace. Begin by lifting the CPU socket’s tension arm by unhooking it from its clip and lifting it—along with the CPU clamp—straight up to expose the pins.

Remove the Intel Core i7-7700K from its box and protective plastic. Carefully lower the CPU into the socket with the notches on the edge of the processor and the socket lined up. Make sure to discharge any static with a wristband or by touching a metal (non-electronic) surface before handling the processor.

Punch out the black plastic cover on the CPU clamp and lower it into position over the processor. Lower the tension arm and hook it to its clip to secure the CPU to the motherboard.

Storage

The lower M.2 slot of the motherboard features an M.2 shield, which is designed to help cool your solid-state storage. Remove the screw (Phillips head) that caps the mounting post, then use a thin flat-head screwdriver to loosen the post from the motherboard (see slide 2 in the album below). Lift the M.2 shield up (not too hard, it only raises so much) and remove the post from the 60mm thread. Move the post to furthest thread (80mm) and screw it in with your fingers. Lower the M.2 shield and finish tightening the post to the motherboard with the flat-head screwdriver (see last slide below).

Remove the 525GB Crucial MX300 M.2 SATA SSD from its packaging. Raise the M.2 shield and slide the M.2 SSD into the socket (with the drive’s chips facing upward) and push it into the slot at an angle (about 45 degrees, at most; don’t put too much pressure on it).

Peel off the blue plastic strip on the SSD-side of the M.2 shield. This will stick the plate to the SSD. Alternatively (and presumably for more heat dissipation), you can choose to remove the SSD label before installation so that the plate makes direct contact with the drive’s exposed chips. Lower the M.2 shield and the SSD down to the mounting post. Replace the screw (cap) to secure it to the motherboard.

Remove the 16GB (2x8GB) kit of G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-2800 memory from its package. Unclip the locks on both sides of the second and fourth DIMM slots (from the left of the CPU) and line up the memory modules with the notches in the motherboard memory slot. Push down evenly, one at a time, until the modules click into place.

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Installing The Components

Lay the case on its right side (mind the hanging cables in the drive chamber as you set it down) so that the motherboard tray is upright. Grab the motherboard’s I/O backplate and install it to the case by pressing firmly and evenly along its edges from inside the main chamber of the chassis.

Lower the motherboard into position (mind the RGB LED extensions and audio cables as you do so), lining up the holes to posts and the rear I/O backplate with its ports (see 3rd picture in the album above). Screw in the motherboard using the fat-headed, thick-threaded Phillips-head screws (nine of them) to secure it to the case.

Connect the HD audio cable (which is resting at the bottom of the main chamber) to the motherboard, and feed the excess back into the drive chamber (from whence it came). As you run cables, keep in mind that you want the main chamber of the chassis to look as clean as possible.

In that spirit, untie the main chamber’s rear fan cable. Feed it through the gap between the fan and plastic motherboard shroud (loop the wire first) and send it down to the notch in the fan frame. Pull the plug out of that hook and connect it to the motherboard’s SYS_FAN1 header. Tuck the excess between the fan and motherboard, then tuck the loop into the same gap between the motherboard and fan to give it a clean look.

Feed the front panel I/O wires through the hole at the bottom left of the drive chamber (1st picture in the album below). Attach the leads to the appropriate pins (refer to your manual or read the labels on the board) on the header, located next to the USB 3.0 pins on the motherboard. Once all the leads are connected, run the excess back through the hole and loop the cable together, cleaning it up with a white tie wrap.

The case also sports two USB 3.0 front panel cables. Run one of the cables into the same hole as the front panel I/O wires and connect it to the USB 3.0 header on the motherboard (pictures 2 and 3 in the album below). Bend the cable so that there is no tension on the header. Feed the excess wiring back into the drive chamber of the case, laying it along the bottom of the case with the front panel I/O cables.

Feed the other USB 3.0 cable through the lower vertical hole in the case (directly below the SATA ports on the motherboard). Connect it to the USB 3.0 header (which is positioned sideways), and again, run the excess back into the drive chamber. Tie both USB 3.0 cables in with the front panel I/O wires using the existing tie wrap. Use a new white tie wrap to hold the two USB 3.0 cables together at the end of their natural loop in the chassis.

Cooling

To properly install the CPU cooler, we have to first remove the drive cage in the PSU chamber of the chassis. Start by unscrewing the four thumb screws on the back of the case (below the motherboard’s rear I/O panel). Once they are removed, lift the drive bay up and away from the case. The bay will have to remain close by, because the fans attached to it are already tied in with the rest (see last picture in the album below).

Remove the Cryorig H5 Universal CPU cooler from its box, along with the backplate, female-to-male thumbscrews, the support bars for Intel motherboards, the foam square, and the thumbscrew caps. Peel the sticker off of the foam square and attach the foam square to the center square of the backplate (post side).

Set each of the four posts in the backplate to the B position and line it up with the holes near the CPU on the backside of the motherboard (see the 2nd picture above). Hold it in place with one hand as you go to the other side (main chamber) and thread the four female-to-male thumbscrews to the posts in the backplate. At this point, replace the drive cage to its original position by sliding it into the guides and refastening the thumbscrews.

Set the PC on its right side again. Place the mounting bars (labeled “2”) horizontally across the top and bottom thumb screw posts with the numbered metal facing up and the curvature of the bars pointed outward (see slides 1 the album below). Secure them to the female-to-male posts using the thumbscrew caps (slide 3 and 4, below). Make sure the entire assembly is tight.

Grab the provided tube of thermal paste and apply it to the center of the CPU (see slide 1 below). Peel the protective sticker off the contact point of the heatsink and unwrap the fan cable. Lower the large cooler onto the processor (mind the CPU fan cable) and position the spring screws of the heatsink over the center holes in the mounting bars (see slide 6 below).

Slide the included tool (a long Phillips-head screwdriver) down one of the shafts in the center of the heatsink (see slide 4 in the album above) and tighten the screw just enough to thread the mounting bar. Then switch shafts and get the other to thread. Tighten both screws all the way, making sure to alternate shafts after every few turns of the screwdriver until you cannot tighten it anymore. Connect the CPU fan’s cable to the CPU_FAN1 header and tuck the excess away (loop it and feed to the nearby hole in the case).

Power Supply

Set the case upright again (it should start to feel pretty heavy with the cooler attached). Remove the EVGA 850 G2 power supply from its box, along with one of the SATA power cables. Take the cable and attach it to the RGB LED controller using the first lead in the strand. Tie up the excess SATA plugs with the existing wiring (using the existing tie wrap).

Run the 6-pin side of the cable along the sidewall of the case and out towards you. Let it rest, clear of the PSU landing zone. Line up the power supply to the case’s mounting holes, with the fan facing the motherboard (the solid panel facing you, as seen in the 5th slide in the album above). Slide it into position and secure it to the case with the provided screws. Take the previously installed SATA power plug and connect the 6-pin lead to the PSU in the SATA1 port (last picture in the album above).

Grab the power cable with the 4-pin molex connectors, labeled “PERIF” (see 1st slide below), and connect the 6-pin lead to the power supply using the corresponding PSU socket (PERIF). Take the bundle of five molex-to-fan adapters (which are resting at the bottom of the case’s drive chamber) and connect it to one of the 4-pin molex connectors from the PERIF cable. Bunch them together as best as possible and use a longer white tie wrap to bundle them together neatly. Tuck the whole batch into the drive bay, clear of the PSU and other cables (and wires we have yet to run).

Locate the 24-pin ATX power cable (see slide 1 in the album below). Connect it to the motherboard first and feed the cable into the porthole directly next to the plug. Make it look clean by bending the cables (gently; you don’t want to damage the motherboard) so as little excess possible is visible. Go to the other side of the case (drive chamber) and feed the cable to the PSU, plugging it into the ports labeled “MB” (see final slide below).

Find the 4+4-pin CPU power cable (slide 1 below), and feed the cable through the hole in the chassis directly above the plug on the motherboard. Connect the 4+4-pin plugs to the 8-pin CPU power socket on the motherboard.

At this point, you may need to remove the drive cage again to properly guide the CPU cable down to the power supply (even if you do, it would only be for a quick moment to grab the CPU cable), but we got lucky and fed it at such an angle that put it directly to the left of the bay where we could easily grab it from the drive chamber. Either way, continue to run the CPU cable down to the PSU, and connect the 8-pin lead to the CPU1 port. If you removed it, replace the drive cage.

The PCIe power cables are all that remain, and the EVGA 850 G2 comes with a few choices for connecting a GPU. Grab the two cables that only have one single 6+2-pin connector on them (see slide 1 in the album below).

Feed the first cable through the bottom vertical porthole in the chassis from the main chamber and into the drive chamber, VGA lead (PSU side) first. Follow suit with the second cable through the same hole. Feed the cables about half way, so that you have slack on both sides (main chamber and drive chamber).

On the drive chamber side of the case, run the cables to the power supply and connect them to the VGA1 and VGA2 slots (start with VGA2 first, it’s behind VGA1) in the PSU. Let the 6+2-pin connectors on the main chamber side hang down (neatly). We’ll need them for the next step.

Graphics

To prepare the case for the graphics cards, unscrew the thumbscrew holding the PCIe slot cover in place. It's located on the rear of the chassis above the PCIe slots on the motherboard. The panel should pull away easily once you remove the thumbscrew (swing it like a door), exposing the individual PCIe slot plates and their thumbscrews.

Remove the second, third, fifth and sixth PCIe lane plates (from left to right) by using a screwdriver to loosen and remove the thumb screws, then lift the individual plates up and away from the case.

Grab the two EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB ACX 3.0 graphics cards and remove both from their box. Remove all of the protective plastic (EVGA tends to go a bit overboard with this) from the GPU shrouds, fans, and backplate.

Lower the first GPU in the the main chamber of the case, towards the PCIe x16 slot closest to the CPU. Line up the rear I/O plate of the GPU to the appropriate two slots in the case (the second and third), make sure the PCIe connector is lined up with the slot, and push down until the GPU clicks into place. Install the second GPU in the same manner, in the next available PCIe x16 slot on the board. Replace the thumbscrews on the individual PCIe connections to the backplate to secure the GPUs to the chassis.

Reattach the rear panel’s PCIe slot cover (hook it into the case then swing it back into place and screw it back into the chassis with the thumbscrew. Go back to the main chamber and connect the PCIe power cables (which are resting at the bottom of the case) to the graphics cards (one at a time, starting with the GPU closest to the CPU). You can adjust the amount of slack exposed in the main chamber by feeding it into the drive chamber.

SLI Bridge

Similar to our Best $2,000 PC Build, the Glass House is an SLI-enabled platform, which requires a high-bandwidth SLI bridge. It’s not uncommon for these to be included with certain high-end motherboards, which is why we were shocked to find that the MSI Z270 Gaming M5 didn’t include any such bridge. You have to purchase one separately, and it was not considered in the budget when g-unit1111 originally designed the Glass House. However, with the recent price drop of the GTX 1080, you won’t have any issue coming in under $2,500, even with the added expense of a high-bandwidth SLI bridge.

Remove both of the rubber dust covers on the SLI bridge connections of the graphics cards. Take the high-bandwidth SLI bridge out of its package (we opted for an Nvidia-branded bridge) and line it up with the graphics cards. Push down evenly to connect the two graphics cards together.

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Finishing Up

Remember those LED strips we set aside at the start of our build? Now is the time to lay them out and connect those lonely extension leads.

We were pressed for time to complete the entirety of the Best Builds series, so we didn’t take much time to really calculate the best way to connect the case’s RGB LED strips to the extensions we already ran. Our method leaves the majority of the extensions plainly visible along the edge of the motherboard and out to the support beam of the case. However, we feel the placement of the lighting is ideal, so if you can figure out a better way to lay the extensions coming from the control box in order to reach these strips (perhaps feeding it through the same hole as the front-panel I/O cables), feel free to share in the comments.

Peel off the protective plastic on the LED side of each strip. Find the best way to attach one strand of lights to each of the case’s three exposed edges. Once you have your layout figured out, plug each of the RGB LED light strips into the extensions at the bottom of the case.

Peel off the adhesive strip and press the LED lights against the chassis to stick them in place. We opted to lay the excess length of each light strip against the ceiling (top) of the case.

Once you are satisfied with your RGB LED placement, make sure all of the cables (primarily in the drive chamber) are organized as cleanly as possible and clear of any fan blades. You can use the case’s provided adhesive hooks (first picture above), which can hold a sizeable group of wires against the chassis. Use these at your discretion. Once your cables are organized, replace the case’s right side panel by lining up the panel’s posts to the receptors in the edges of the chassis and pressing down evenly.

The Glass House

Remove the two glass panels from their box. Clean them off (they will likely have debris) with some glass cleaner and smooth, lint-free cloth so as to not put streaks or blemishes on your new glass.

Start with the larger tempered-glass panel and line up the holes with the left side of the chassis, with the plastic grommets facing outward (towards you). Use the thin-threaded wide-capped thumbscrews that came with the case to secure the glass panel to the chassis. Follow suit with the front glass panel, laying it in with the Lian-Li logo and plastic grommets facing out.

Setup & Overclocking Tips

First and foremost, download the latest BIOS and drivers from MSI's website using a different computer. Unzip the BIOS file to the root directory of a thumb drive and insert it into the Glass House build. When you first power on the machine it will prompt you to press F1 to enter the BIOS. The EZ UEFI BIOS provides easy ways to update the firmware, overclock, and set the XMP memory profile.

Begin by clicking on the M-Flash button on the bottom left side of the BIOS screen. It will ask if you want to enter flash mode. Click yes. The system will reboot and enter the M-Flash update utility. Select the thumb drive on which the BIOS file is stored, navigate to it, and click on it to begin loading the BIOS. The system may reboot several times.

Once you are met with the "Insert bootable media" command line, restart the system by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete. Hit the DEL key to enter the BIOS again, this time to set the CPU overclock and XMP memory profile.

MSI provides a quick and easy way to achieve a 4.8 GHz all-core overclock for the Intel Core i7-7700K. On the main screen, simply click on the Game Boost button at the top left of the menu. Then, click on the XMP button right next to that to turn on XMP memory profile. Press F10 to save and exit the BIOS. Now you can load an operating system.

Benchmark Results

The Intel Core i7-7700K is overclocked to an all-core frequency of 4.8 GHz, and the 16GB (2 x 8GB) G.Skill DDR4-2800 memory features a CAS latency of 16-16-16-36. The dual EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Superclocked ACX 3.0 graphics cards are running at their stock base and boost frequencies of 1708 MHz and 1847 MHz, respectively.

The Glass House showcases its gaming acumen in the 3DMark Fire Strike tests, with high graphics scores (higher than the $2,000 Best PC Build) thanks to the factory overclocked GPU setup. Physics scores were also high thanks to the beefy CPU overclock. The above-average memory bandwidth (see the Sandra results) and a speedy SSD (see our storage test results) give the Glass House a leg up on our productivity tests, with high PCMark 8 Adobe Creative and Microsoft Office application test scores and impressive Cinebench R15 results.

The Glass House is adequate for top-tier 4K gaming, evidenced by the impressively high average framerates it managed to produce in our array of game benchmarks. It has no issue keeping the average framerate in the triple digits in games like Bioshock Infinite, and it even gives hardware-punishing titles like Metro: Last Light Redux, GTAV, and Rise of the Tomb Raider a fair fight at 3840 x 2160, netting average framerates between 38 and 50 FPS. Backing down on some of the AA settings will alleviate much of the strain on the system, but with everything at the most demanding settings, the Glass House held its ground and proved it's among the best possible gaming setups money can buy.

Final Analysis

Our Best $2,500 PC Build is the culmination of top-tier gaming performance and aesthetics, with a Lian-Li PC-08WX case that features tempered glass panels on the front and left side, RGB LED lighting (with a built-in controller), and sleek black aluminum panels that give access to the hidden components and dust filters. My plea for a windowed case has been answered, perhaps over-zealously, as a large chunk of the budget goes to this monster of a case (over $325).

An Intel Core i7-7700K can easily be overclocked with a MSI Z270 Gaming M5 motherboard and a Cryorig H5 Universal CPU cooler, and 16GB of G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-2800 is enough memory to handle any of the latest AAA games, and two EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Superclocked ACX 3.0 graphics cards can achieve excellent framerates at 4K with punishing settings in some of the most demanding games around. The EVGA Supernova 850 G2 offers plenty of juice to power this beast of a rig, with headroom for overclocking.

Similar to our Best $2,000 PC Build, the designer of the Glass House didn’t anticipate the premium MSI motherboard would lack a necessary high-bandwidth SLI bridge. When our community voted it the Best $2,500 PC Build, the added cost of the bridge would have pushed this over the budget limit by about $25. However, now that the GTX 1080 has dropped in price, you'd now have about $150 extra to play with until you reach the budget ceiling.

With that in mind, we have a few suggestions where the extra money could go.

Although the 525GB Crucial MX300 M.2 SATA SSD does indeed offer impressive speed, g-unit111 was somewhat ambiguous in his assertion that an M.2 interface portends faster performance. The SATA controller on the M.2 SSD limits it to the same 6Gb/s as a similar 2.5” SATA III SSD. If you have a few extra bucks, and want to take advantage of the upper limits of the socket, spring for an NVMe M.2 SSD around the same capacity.

A 525GB SSD, by itself (as it is in this configuration), is not an acceptable capacity for anyone with a sizeable game library. At the very least, a 1TB 7,200RPM HDD would support the 525GB SSD with the necessary storage space.

The graphics setup of the Glass House can achieve higher framerates than a single GTX 1080 Ti (which was not available when our community submitted these builds), but only on games and applications that take advantage of multi-GPU configurations. However, if you prefer the best possible single GPU performance, stepping up to one GTX 1080 Ti is definitely an option at this price point. The savings (about $250) from buying a single GTX 1080 Ti instead of two GTX 1080s could go into the storage (think big), if that’s something you’d like to improve.

Overall, we think that $2,500 is where the aesthetic value and price-to-performance ratio plateaus; spending more than this simply gives you more of everything—higher memory and storage capacities, more CPU cores, more RGB LEDs. These upgrades wouldn’t necessarily improve performance, and upgrades of this nature wouldn't be for the average gaming enthusiast (never mind anyone turning to this article for instructions on how to build it).

The Glass House guts a good chunk of the budget with its pricey Lian-Li case, but you could just as easily cut back on the aesthetics and opt for a more practical chassis, leaving room to improve the total storage capacity, SSD performance, memory capacity, or even a more robust platform (X299 recently became an option, along with X399 for Threadripper). However, none of these options would give you the sleek look and incredible aesthetic value that is the Glass House, and our community seems to approve of the classy and glassy chassis, making it our Best $2,5000 PC Build.

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How To Build A $2,000 Gaming PC

Derek Forrest — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 15:00:01 +0000

With deeper pockets comes greater performance, and our Best $2,000 PC Build is a testament to that notion. A Corsair 200R ATX mid tower case houses an Intel Core i7-7700K processor, kept cool by a Cryorig H7 CPU cooler, all resting on a Gigabyte Z270XP-SLI ATX motherboard. A 16GB kit of G.Skill Ripjawz V DDR4-2666 will handle just about any modern AAA game's recommended specifications. Storage takes a back seat in order to get two top-tier graphics cards in here under the budget, with a 250GB Mushkin Triactor 2.5" SATA SSD and a 1TB WD Blue 7,200RPM HDD providing a modest total volume size. However, the SSD has enough room for your operating system and a few of your favorite games, and a 1TB HDD is a good place to start as you build a respectable game library.

A Gigabyte Z270XP-SLI motherboard may sound like a wise choice to complement the two Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! Edition GPUs (we're fond of its feature set and pricing), but King Dranzer didn't take into account that Gigabyte does not include a high-bandwidth SLI bridge (despite the name of the board's implication), and we had to purchase one after the fact. This is a major oversight, and adding it to the bill would take the PC above our $2,500 budget. However, with the recent price drop of the GTX 1080 (which occurred after our submission period), the $40 for an SLI bridge still makes the cutoff.

Specifications

"i7-7700K GTX1080 SLI Build" by King Dranzer
Case	Carbide 200R
Cooling	Cryorig H7
CPU	Core i7-7700K
Graphics	Zotac GTX 1080
Graphics	Zotac GTX 1080
Memory	Ripjaws V Series DDR4-2666 16GB (2x8GB)
Motherboard	GA-Z270XP-SLI
PSU	MasterBox 5 EATX
Storage	Mushkin Enhanced Triactor (240GB)
Storage	Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5 inch 7200RPM

Now lets build the i7-7700K GTX1080 SLI Build; the Best $2,000 PC Build.

Case

To begin, remove the Corsair 200R case from its box and set it in your work space. Remove the side panels by loosening the thumbscrews on the back edge of the chassis. You may need to use a screwdriver to get them started. Take out the cardboard hardware box inside the top 3.5" drive bay by pushing the tab on the side of the bay away from the box and sliding it out, towards you.

Go to the right side of the exposed chassis (the backside, in reference to the motherboard) and untie the internal wiring. Save the tie wraps you remove and pull the cables to the backside (right side, standing) of the case. Let them hang for now, or tuck them into the 3.5" drive bay (see the 3rd picture in the album below).

Remove the EVGA 750 G2 power supply from its packaging, along with the included screws. Lower the PSU into the bottom of the chassis, fan down, and line up the screw holes to the chassis (see pictures 5 in the album above). There are actually two points in each of the four corners where you can screw in the power supply, and it's not terribly important which of them you choose to secure the PSU to the case.

Motherboard

Take the Gigabyte Z270XP-SLI motherboard out of its box and set it in your work area with its bag underneath it to prevent any damage. Remove the Intel Core i7-7700K from its packaging and set it aside in its plastic case for a moment. Expose the motherboard's CPU socket by lifting the arm away from the ILM and raising the clamp (see the 1st picture in the album below). Carefully remove the CPU from its protective plastic and lower it into the socket, making sure the holes on the sides of the chip line up with the notches in the motherboard. Punch out the plastic cover on the motherboard's CPU clamp, lower it over the CPU and under the bolt on the board, and lower the tension arm back into place.

Remove the 16GB kit of G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-2666 from its package. Unlock the motherboard's memory DIMM clips (both sides) on the second and fourth slot from the left (of the CPU) by pressing down on them. Line up the notches of the memory modules with the motherboard and apply even downward pressure to lock each stick of memory into place.

Installing The Components

Grab the motherboard's rear I/O backplate and install it to the chassis, applying pressure evenly as you force it into place. Set the case on its side (with the motherboard tray and drive bays and PSU exposed), and lower the motherboard into the chassis. The center motherboard post will hold the board in place once you line up the rear ports and backplate, leaving you free to use the case's provided Phillips-head screws (fat head, thick thread) to secure the motherboard to the chassis. There will be some case posts left unused, but that's fine. Set the case upright again.

Untie the PSU's attached cable (the ATX power cable) by peeling the velcro strip away. Save the velcro. Run the ATX power cable into the backside of the chassis using the hole right next to the PSU (as seen in the 1st picture in the album below), and run the cable up to the third (top) hole in the chassis. Feed the excess into the 5.25" drive bay so that the cable is taught against the back of the case, and connect the 24-pin ATX power plug to the motherboard (see the 3rd picture below). Use a tie wrap to secure the cable to the backside of the chassis at the bottom wrung, near the 3.5" bay. Leave this tie wrap lose; you'll be adding more cables to this junction later on.

Untie the rear fan cable and plug it into the SYS_FAN1 pins next to the 4+4-pin CPU power connector on the motherboard (see 1st slide in the album below). Loop the excess fan cable and feed it to the hole in the chassis above the fan and CPU power connectors. Reach back into the PSU box and grab the 4+4-pin CPU cable (see 2nd picture below). Feed it into the main chamber from the backside of the case through the same hole that you just fed the fan cable excess into.

Plug in the cable to the motherboard (4th picture in the album above) , and then run the excess down the case towards the PSU and into the hole next to it. Plug in the CPU cable into the power supply (final picture above) and fasten the CPU cable and rear fan cable excess to the backside of the case using a tie wrap on the second wrung from the top.

Connecting The Front Panel I/O

Run the case's front panel audio plug along the same avenue as the ATX power cable (on the backside of the PC) and feed it into the hole closest to the power supply (the 1st picture below). Run the wire along the bottom edge of the motherboard, between the board and PSU, and connect the HD Audio cable to the appropriate pins on the motherboard (lower left of the board, towards the rear). Loop the excess cable around one time and let it rest on the PSU.

Reach back into the motherboard box and grab the G-Connect front-panel adapter (see 3rd picture above). Match the appropriate pins and polarities of the case's front-panel wiring to the G-Connect adapter and slide them in until they click into place. The text on the cable's connectors can be read (they are pointed outward from the G-Connect adapter) if you've done this correctly.

Feed the G-Connect adapter and connected wires through the same hole as the audio cable (bottom, closest to the PSU) and plug it into the appropriate motherboard pins (last picture above) with the group of connected cables positioned towards the left side (looking from main chamber). Loop the excess around so that it blends in with the existing CPU power cable.

Feed the entirety of the USB 3.0 front panel connector into the hole at the top of the case (see 1st picture below) and into the 5.25" drive bay. Run it along the edges of the bay to use up its length and connect it to the motherboard's USB 3.0 header, next to the memory slots and ATX power connector. Untie the front fan cable, but then use the same tie wrap to secure the front panel I/O, HD Audio, and front fan cable together, towards the top of the chassis.

Feed the fan cable into the main chamber of the case via the lower hole (above 3.5" bay, vertical) and plug it into the SYS_FAN2 port (see 5th picture above). Leave the excess hanging on the backside of the chassis, along with the main cables. Use the EVGA velcro wrap from the PSU to tie the main ATX power, front panel I/O, HD Audio, and front fan cables neatly about midway up the wires (near the middle of the lower vertical hole in the case).

Storage

Remove the 250GB Mushkin Triactor 2.5" SATA SSD from its packaging. The Corsair 200R features two 2.5" drive bays sitting atop the 3.5" bay, so slide the SSD into the one furthest from the "floor" (closest to you) of the chassis. You may need to fight the plastic tab a bit to get it in properly, but once you do, use the case's provided screws (two thin thread, thin head) to secure the SSD to the bay.

Grab a SATA power cable (3rd picture above) from the PSU box and save the velcro strip. Feed the last SATA power connector in the line into the 3.5" drive bay, and through the bay's side wall so that it easily reaches the SATA power plug on the SSD (4th picture above). Connect the power cable to the SSD and run the excess out the backside (right side) of the case and let it hang for a moment.

Take the 1TB Western Digital Blue HDD out of its box and slide it into the 3.5" drive bay (the second slot from the top, as seen in the 2nd picture in the album below), connectors first (so that they are accessible from the backside/right of the chassis), and minding the SATA power cable (you want that to remain above the HDD). Secure the drive in place by making sure the tab on the side of the bay clicks its post into the HDD's mounting hole.

Because we're minimalists when it comes to how many cables we run from the PSU, we'll be supplying power to both storage drives using a single SATA power cable. Take the hanging SATA power cable and connect its last SATA connector into the HDD (you may need to stretch the cable slightly). Run the cable over to the hole at the bottom of the chassis (4th picture in the album above), closest to the PSU (same as the ATX power, audio, and front panel cables), and feed it to the main chamber of the case. Plug the 6-pin SATA power cable into the SATA1 port on the power supply (5th picture in the album above). Move any excess cable to the 3.5" drive bay, tucked under the HDD.

Grab one of the SATA data cable bags from the motherboard. Start with the angled SATA data plug, and feed it though the sidewall of the 3.5" drive bay, the same way as the SATA power cable running to the SSD (see 2nd picture below). Connect the angled plug to the SSD and feed the other end of the cable towards the back of the case (same as the SATA power cable). Run the cable directly to the bottom vertical hole in the chassis (where the EVGA velcro strip is) and feed it into the main chamber of the case. Plug in the SATA data cable to the SATA_0 port on the motherboard (see 4th picture below).

Connect the straight SATA data plug to the 1TB HDD and run the cable up through the same hole in the same manner, and plug it into the SATA_1 (top) port of the motherboard, just above where the SSD is plugged in. Feed the excess to the 3.5" bay (there won't be much) and tie the SATA data cables in with the other wires with the existing velcro strip.

More Wiring

At this point, we decided to run the PCIe power cables for the GPUs, even though we won't be installing them until later. These are the last wires that need to be run, so it's easier to get it out of the way now, before the case becomes even more weighed down with the CPU cooler and graphics cards.

Grab a pair of PCIe power cables from the PSU box and save the velcro wraps. Connect the first cable to the PSU's VGA1 port and feed it to the backside (right side panel) of the case. Follow suit with the second cable, connecting it to the VGA2 port and feeding it out to the back. Run both cables up the chassis with the other cables, and use one of the velcro strips to tie them all together above the original velcro wrap.

Feed the PCIe power connectors to the main chamber of the chassis (above the 3.5" bay) and let them hang. Then add the PCIe power cables to the lower velcro strip. Use another of the spare EVGA velcro strips to wrap up the cables near the power supply in the main chamber of the case. This makes it look a little neater, and despite the lack of a windowed side panel, it makes us feel better (on the inside) having the best possible cable management (on the inside).

Cooler

Remove the Cryorig H7 CPU cooler from its box. Grab the backplate and the long post screws (1st and 2nd picture below). Feed the screws into each of the corners of the backplate using slot B, thread first, with the Intel side of the backplate facing you. Take the backplate and feed the screws into the LGA 1151 holes from the backside of the motherboard. Use the black plastic posts to secure each of the screw posts and the backplate to the motherboard from the main chamber of the case (see last picture below).

Unwrap the CPU fan from the cooler and remove the plastic protective cover of the CPU contact point. Grab the provided tube of thermal paste from the cooler box and twist open the cap. Apply the paste directly to the CPU (see 2nd picture below), in the center of the processor. Lower the CPU cooler into the chassis, towards the processor, with the attached fan facing the memory.

Line up the screw holes in the arms of the cooler to the screws attached to the backplate. The arms move like a pair of scissors, so adjust them, and use a screwdriver from the backside of the chassis to secure the posts to the cooler's arms. Thread each one only a little at first so that its easier to thread the others. Tighten the posts like a car tire once all the posts are threaded to secure the cooler to the CPU. Connect the CPU fan cable to the CPU_FAN port on the motherboard (located at the top, next to the memory slots—see last picture above) and tuck the excess wire towards the hole in the chassis, above the heatsink.

Graphics

You aren't seeing double. There are two Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! Edition graphics cards in this rig. Remove both GPUs from their boxes and peel off the protective stickers and any plastic covers. Remove the case's 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th PCIe slot plates (from the CPU/top) by unscrewing the thumb screws holding them in and lifting them up and away from the chassis.

Lower one of the graphics cards into the PCIe x16 slot closest to the CPU and push down until the PCIe slot clip holds the GPU in place. Do the same with the second GPU, which will occupy the next available PCIe x16 slot closest to the CPU. Secure both of the graphics cards to the chassis by reattaching the thumbscrews.

Grab the hanging PCIe power cables and attach one of them to the first GPU. You'll need to connect both 6+2-pin plugs. Run the second PCIe power cable to the second GPU and plug it in in the same manner.

King Dranzer neglected to add a high-bandwidth SLI bridge to this build, and the Gigabyte Z270XP-SLI motherboard doesn't come with one (despite its name). You'll have to purchase a SLI bridge to be able to get the most out of your graphics configuration, and with the recent price drop of the GTX 1080s, it won't push you beyond the $2,000 budget limit to do so. Make sure to get one that is spaced properly (with one PCIe slot of space between the GPUs). Take it out of its package and attach the SLI bridge to the two GPUs, pushing down evenly so that you don't bend or damage the leads (see last picture above).

Finishing Up

With all of the components installed, make any adjustments or improvements to the cable management, make sure all plugs are connected properly, and replace the side panels of the case. Secure the panels to the chassis using the thumb screws. Setup your new $2,000 Intel Core i7-7700K GTX 1080 SLI build in a space with plenty of airflow, plug in the power cable, peripherals, and display, and enjoy the Best $2,000 PC Build money can buy.

Setup & Overclocking Tips

We've seen the Gigabyte Z270XP-SLI before (with the $1,250 Best PC Build), and setting up this build isn't that different. First and foremost, use a different PC to download the latest BIOS and drivers from Gigabyte's website. Unzip the BIOS file onto the root directory of a USB flash drive. Connect that drive to the new PC, turn it on, and press the End key to access Q-Flash, Gigabyte’s BIOS update and backup utility. Click update, select the thumb drive where the BIOS is located, and run the unzipped BIOS file.

After the PC has finished updating the BIOS, press the DEL key at boot to access the BIOS. Click on the Advanced Frequency Settings in the M.I.T. tab of the BIOS. Click on CPU Upgrade. A list of processor models and target frequencies will appear. The highest possible preset clock rate for the Core i7-7700K is an all-core 5.0 GHz, but the system became unstable at that preset clock speed, so we played it safe with the next highest preset of 4.8 GHz. Select the 4.8 GHz preset and finish up by turning on the XMP memory profile in the same Advanced Frequency Settings menu (click on the Auto button, select Profile 1). Press F10 to save and exit the BIOS.

Benchmark Results

The Intel Core i7-7700K is overclocked at an all-core frequency of 4.8 GHz, and the 16GB (2 x 8GB) G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-2666 features CAS timings of 15-15-15-35. The Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! graphics cards are factory-overclocked to a 1683 MHz base clock and a boost speed of 1822 MHz. They also sport a 10 Gb/s memory clock. We left the GPUs at stock settings for our testing.

The i7-7700K GTX 1080 SLI build makes short work of the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmarks, with especially high graphics scores thanks to the dual GPU setup. The Fire Strike Physics scores are also notably high thanks to the CPU's increased clockrate, a factor that is also responsible for the impressive Cinebench R15 results.

Our storage tests revealed that the 250GB Mushkin Triactor SSD isn't the fastest drive out there, but its also certainly not the slowest, with impressive write IOPS and sequential read speeds. The 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of G.Skill DDR4-2666 provides above-average peak memory bandwidth (as illustrated by our Sandra test results), and the combination of speedy storage and responsive memory gives the Best $2,000 PC Build high marks in the PCMark 8 application benchmarks.

As one could expect, the Best $2,000 PC Build crushes our selected games at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440, with all the bells and whistles turned on to the max. Only at 4K do we start to see less than 60 FPS in Rise of the Tomb Raider, GTAV, and Metro: Last Light Redux, and even then we are given quite playable framerates. This beast was born to dominate 3840 x 2160 with an SLI setup, and King Dranzer was very successful in that endeavor.

Final Analysis

The Best $2,000 PC Build offers top-tier 4K gaming performance, with an Intel Core i7-7700K that we easily overclocked to 4.8 GHz with the built-in presets of a Gigabyte Z270XP-SLI motherboard. The Cryorig H7 keeps the CPU sufficiently cool at that frequency, and the semi-modular 80 Plus Gold certified EVGA 750 G2 gives us just enough juice to power two GTX 1080 graphics cards in SLI. We wouldn't change anything about the choice of CPU, motherboard, cooling, or power supply at the moment. Although we like the layout, ease of access, and look of the Corsair 200R ATX mid-tower case, we're still baffled how windowed side panels continue to be excluded from our Best Builds, especially at this price point.

At the time of our contest, King Dranzer was correct in his assertion that being able to cram two GTX 1080s into a $2,000 PC required some sacrifices. To achieve this goal, the storage capacity of the SSD had to take a back seat, but the 250GB Mushkin Triactor SSD is an adequate starting point for speedy load times. The 1TB HDD is also a bit underwhelming for the price point, but again, with great GPU horsepower comes great (fiscal) responsibility.

Now that Nvidia and its partners have dropped the pricing of GTX 1080 graphics cards (making room for the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and 11 Gb/s memory for a new lineup of GTX 1080s), you have some serious wiggle room in this $2,000 budget, despite the need to also purchase a high-bandwidth SLI bridge (which was originally overlooked in submission). With the present-day pricing of the Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! Edition graphics cards (they were priced at about $575 each when King Dranzer designed the system, now they are roughly $520), you save enough money to purchase the necessary high-bandwidth SLI bridge and still have $50-$70 extra to throw at the storage and aesthetic shortcomings (read: windowed case).

Another consideration to make at this price point is the GPU configuration. When King Dranzer submitted this build, the GTX 1080 was king, and two of them equaled just the best possible graphics setup money could buy. With the advent of the GTX 1080 Ti, there's a new top-tier flagship that can provide better performance in applications that don't take advantage of the dual-GPU setup. We always recommend going with a single graphics card for this reason, and if you're going to spend over $1,000 on two GPUs, you could just as well go for a single GTX 1080 Ti.

This would also open up $200-$250 to play with, allowing you to save some money or invest more in the case's aesthetics (RGB everything), a liquid CPU cooler, or faster and higher capacity PCIe NVMe SSD storage.

Even though the marketplace has significantly changed since our community voted on these Best Builds, the Best $2,000 PC Build still delivers on its original goal and namesake: an Intel Core i7-7700K, GTX 1080 SLI-equipped powerhouse with high-quality components that satisfies the requirements of all games thrown at it, even at 4K.

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Steiger Dynamics Era Reference Desktop Review

Derek Forrest — Sun, 20 Aug 2017 16:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

Steiger Dynamics is about as customized as a custom shop gets, offering unique chassis designs, sound dampening services, and a plethora of other custom innovations. The company sent us its Era Reference PC, a small form factor (SFF) gaming system meant for the living room, and it's anything but reference. It’s a shining example of all of Steiger’s premium customizations, with an overclocked Core i5 processor and GTX 1080 Ti graphics card.

Performance-conscious buyers would likely gasp at the asking price of $2,958 for a system with a Core i5 processor, especially when there are plenty of affordable Core i7 options, but as we’re about to find out, customization isn’t cheap. It’s time to see if the Era is worth the moolah.

Specifications

Exterior

The Steiger Dynamics Era Reference gaming PC resembles large DVD players of olden days (except it’s at least twice as heavy), measuring only 15.4 x 17.1 x 3.25 inches. The hand-brushed aluminum chassis is moderately heavy, but it’s demonstrably one of the most interesting cases we’ve seen in our desktop system reviews. The chassis is custom designed by Steiger, and the MK1 (as Steiger calls it) continually gets tweaked as needed. You certainly won’t find it anywhere else.

The sleek case has a low profile, making it ripe for the living room as a gaming powerhouse that won’t take up a lot of space. The top of the case features two vents. One is an exhaust for the CPU cooler (we’ll talk more about that later) and the other allows air into the chassis near the GPU (which is a blower-style card). The right side of the case is also ventilated to allow air to enter near the CPU.

The underside of the Era Reference is similarly plain, with even more ventilation. An air intake (powered by an 80mm fan) resides under the CPU, and an open vent exists directly below the GPU. To get even cooler air flowing to the GPU, there’s another 80mm fan intake near it. The PSU's air intake is also exposed on the underside of the case, with the power supply partially protruding out of the chassis.

The front of the chassis sports a silver Steiger Dynamics logo, giving it a classy look similar to that of a Mercedes-Benz. Below a slim-profile Blu-ray RW optical drive there's a spring-loaded hinged panel that opens to reveal the front I/O, which consists of two USB 3.0 ports, two 3.5mm jacks (mic-in, headphone out), and an HDMI pass-through port. This makes the Era an ideal choice for a living room VR setup; you can save several inches of precious cable by connecting the HMD to the front of the PC instead of the back. However, the front-panel display connectivity doesn’t come without a price, because Steiger Dynamics charges an extra $49 for this specialized feature.

The rear panel includes four USB 3.0 ports, a PS/2 combo jack, and a USB 3.1 Type-C port capable of 5 Gbps data rates. The motherboard also features dual gigabit Ethernet connectors in addition to 802.11ac Wi-Fi (you can connect the antennas to the rear of the motherboard). The GPU features the standard display outputs for a GTX 1080 Ti: three DisplayPort 1.4 interfaces and an HDMI 2.0 port. The HDMI pass-through cable peeks out of the case near the graphics card so that you can easily connect it.

We were somewhat disappointed that the EVGA GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition GPU in the Era Reference didn’t have a second HDMI port (if the pass-through uses it, what about my monitor?), but Steiger Dynamics reached out about a week after we started our review process to let us know it was now offering a customized EVGA GTX 1080 Ti blower-style GPU with two HDMI 2.0 ports on it in place of the Founder’s Edition, specifically to address the HDMI pass-through feature. The included DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter that was included with the front panel VR HDMI pass-through (for an extra $49) is useful, but two HDMI ports would be preferable for a living room PC.

Interior

Removing the brushed-aluminum panel on top of the Era Reference reveals a chassis that is both spacious yet constricted. Although there are desktop-sized components in a tiny case, the parts have plenty of breathing room, with the corners of the case mostly bare and open, save for the sound-isolating foam. The foam is a nice touch and should reduce the overall noise, but mods such as this generally aren’t an enthusiast favorite (especially for another $49) and seem more suited for a professional music producer or someone easily enraged by the hum of electronic equipment.

The top panel has a slim-profile 140mm fan attached to it directly over the CPU heatsink, so you have to be careful when removing it so that you don’t accidentally rip the fan connector’s pins out of the motherboard. The panel also has sound-isolating foam on it to dampen noise. The CPU heatsink is also manufactured by Thermalright to Steiger Dynamic’s height specifications, and the nickel-plated copper low-profile cooler should be enough to keep the overclocked Intel Core i5-7600K from getting too hot.

The CPU is mounted on a Gigabyte Z270N-WIFI mini-ITX motherboard, which as the name implies, features a 802.11ac Wi-Fi module near the rear I/O panel. The two memory slots are filled with a 16GB (2x8GB) kit of G.Skill Aegis DDR4-3000, which should offer above-average memory performance with its increased frequency. The only downside to this particular memory kit is that doesn’t have aluminum heatsinks (a trait we find in most of our custom shop review units), but because the top is a solid panel of aluminum, you won’t miss them from an aesthetic standpoint (you can’t see them).

The Steiger Dynamics Era Reference we have in the lab features an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition graphics card mounted in an angled riser card to orient it horizontally in the chassis. However, the company reached out shortly after we got started to let us know it has switched to an EVGA GTX 1080 Ti blower-style graphics card, with a custom BIOS from EVGA to make it into what would be equivalent of an SC-branded ("super clock") factory overclock. We decided to push ahead with our review as is, especially because the company overclocked the Founder’s Edition GPU by a sizable amount, and it would likely give us an indication of where the factory overclocked GPU with a similar cooler (and from the same company) would perform. As it’s currently configured, we had to add $49 onto the bill for the increased GPU performance tuning, but we image you’d get extremely close performance without that fee with the new GPU.

The only storage device that you can see is the 3TB Western Digital RED 5,400 RPM HDD, which resides beneath the slim-profile Blueray RW optical drive in the 3.5” bay. This is a decidedly larger capacity secondary storage drive compared what other vendors usually send our way, and it should provide you with plenty of space for all your apps, games, and files. Steiger said that it prefers the slower 5,400 RPM versions of the high-capacity HDD because it is offers “best in class quietness,” but that the company also offers WD Black (7,200 RPM) HDDs, noting that they are substantially louder. It’s easy to see that sound dampening is one of the main appeals of this particular build.

The primary storage is a 500GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD, which resides in the M.2 slot on the underside of the motherboard. We didn’t want to disassemble the entire PC to get to it (the bottom of the chassis is not easily removed), so forgive us for not featuring a picture. You’ll just have to trust us that it’s there.

All of these high-end components are given life by a Silverstone SX600-G 600W 80 Plus Gold certified SFX power supply, which resides towards the front of the case. The back of the PSU isn’t mounted with the power connector exposed through a hole in the chassis like traditional power supplies. Rather, it has a neatly laid extension plug that leads to a power plug mounted on the back of the case, next to the motherboard. This 600W PSU meets the needs of the GTX 1080 Ti and an overclocked Core i5 platform, but it doesn’t offer much headroom. However, 80 Plus Gold certification goes a long way when your peak wattage is the minimum recommended power for your graphics setup, and it should provide plenty of juice for the job.

The interior chassis of the Steiger Dynamics Era Reference isn’t pretty, but it’s about as neat one can make it with a low-profile chassis and mini-ITX motherboard. It’s a little messy (and not particularly pleasing to look at), but this is also somewhat inconsequential; the case is purpose-built (in this build, for reduced sound) and doesn’t have a windowed panel, so it needs to be functional, not pretty. With everything tied down nice and tight, there should be minimal vibration noise from stray cables.

Software And Accessories

The Era Reference came neatly packed with a three-ring binder with all your paperwork, driver disks, and manuals, in addition to a box with all the extra parts from the case, PSU, and motherboard (including the WiFi antennas and extra SATA cables). There’s also a DisplayPort-to-DVI-D adapter, which can free up your HDMI port for the front panel VR pass-through plug. Steiger provides a pair of white cloth gloves so you don’t smudge your hand-brushed aluminum chassis.

Steiger Dynamics doesn’t burden end users with a boat-load of unnecessary application trials or bloatware; the company simply provides the tools needed for the job and a few useful, full-version media players. The Era Reference comes pre-loaded with MSI Afterburner (which is readied with a beefy GPU overclocking profile), Media Player Classic, and Kodi, a free open-source cross-platform media player you can use to organize and view all your photos, music, movies, and TV shows (it can also enable remote control). Again, we see Steiger providing everything you need to make the Era Reference the only device you need attached to the TV in your living room.

The company also sent a special accessory with its review sample—a device simply known as the Couchmaster, a lap desk designed by Nerdytec (a company from Germany) that is exclusively distributed in the US by Steiger Dynamics. For some gamers, living room PCs pose a problem with peripheral connectivity, with many usually opting for wireless keyboards and mice on their laps and at their side. For those who need it, the Couchmaster is a masterpiece of a device.

The Couchmaster Cycon is meant to sit with you on the couch (duh), but unlike some other devices of its kind, it comes with two firm arm cushions that also act as supports for the desk component. We gave it a try, and despite the weight of the desk (which was fairly large), the cushions made it quite comfortable, with room for my legs to move freely and ample space for any wired keyboard and mouse you choose. It has pockets on the outside of each faux-leather armrest/support, and there’s 16' of extension cable for its four-port USB 3.0 hub (which doesn’t require an external power source).

You can get it for $159 (the Couchmaster wasn’t included in the $2,959 total for the Era Reference), and we thought it was a cool accessory offer for those fully committed to the living room gaming PC lifestyle, especially when it’s priced at what some would pay for a high-end mechanical keyboard.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

We recently built a new Z270 reference system for use in our desktop gaming PC reviews, with an Intel Core i7-7700K (clocked at its stock 4.2 GHz with a 4.5 GHz max turbo frequency in lightly threaded applications) in an ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming i7 ATX motherboard cooled by a Deepcool Gammaxx 400 heatsink and 120mm blue LED fan. We have a 16GB (2x8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX Savage DDR4-2133 memory running at the standard CAS latency of 15-15-15-36, and EVGA hooked us up with a set of the top-end Founder’s Edition graphics cards (a GTX 1080 Ti, 1080, and 1070) and a 1000W PSU to power it all. We use data from the GTX 1080 Ti and GTX 1080 for this review, and we run the GPUs at their respective default base and boost clock frequencies. You can check out the full specifications of our beastly test rig below.

Comparison Products

Steiger Dynamics Era Reference

Xidax X-6

Test System Configuration

We also include data from our recent review of the Xidax X-6, which comes in about $800 cheaper but has a Core i7 processor and a GTX 1070 GPU under the hood. We don’t expect it to compete with Steiger’s GTX 1080 Ti and Core i5-7600K-powered platform in a framerate contest in our gaming benchmark suite, but it will give us a good indicator of when hyperthreading (the primary difference between a Core i5 and a Core i7 processor) is advantageous in CPU-intensive workloads, with both the Xidax and Steiger’s review samples sporting a CPU overclock of 4.8 GHz.

The Steiger Dynamics Era Reference features a Core i5-7600K overclocked to an all-core frequency of 4.8 GHz. Its 16GB (2x8GB) kit of DDR4-3000 features a CAS latency of 16-18-18-38, and it should provide above-average memory performance with its higher frequency. The EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition’s core clock is boosted by 120 MHz using MSI Afterburner, and the company also pushed the memory clock up by 200 MHz. This gives the GPU inside the Era a boost clock of 1702 MHz and an effective memory data rate of 11.4 Gbps.

3DMark

The Steiger Dynamics Era Reference starts our benchmark suite off with a moderate bang in the 3DMark Fire Strike tests. Despite its CPU and GPU overclock, the Era trails our stock-clocked Core i7-7700K/GTX 1080 Ti reference system thanks to a lower Physics score (CPU performance), which is to be expected. However, it still manages to net the highest Combined score in the 1080p synthetic workload by a substantial margin.

Fire Strike Extreme and Ultra place the Era at the top of the class, maintaining the highest Graphics and Combined scores throughout the tests but also trailing the pack in the Physics portion of the benchmark. Time Spy’s DX12 API repeats these findings, with the Era ahead in the overall Score and Graphics tests, but significantly behind in the CPU test.

Cinebench R15

Switching to a CPU-specific benchmark, we aren’t surprised to see the Core i7-7700K-equipped reference system and the Xidax X-6 completely blow away the Core-i5 Steiger offering in multi-threaded rendering performance. The X-6 also manages to edge out the Era Reference in single-threaded rendering and OpenGL shading workloads; its overclocked Core i7-7700K matches the Era’s Core i5-7600K core frequency, but it manages to push ahead by a small margin.

CompuBench

Compubench shows us that an overclock can go a long way on a GTX 1080 Ti, with the Steiger Dynamics Era Reference leading the field with the highest Video Processing and Bitcoin mining score. An overclock of 120 MHz nets about 85 MH/s compared to our reference rig with a stock-clocked Founder’s Edition, and we also see the Video Processing results improve by roughly 11 FPS.

Storage Test

The Era’s 500GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD is fast, significantly faster than our reference system’s 960GB SATA SSD and the X-6’s 512GB SATA SSD. The 4K read and write IOPs reaches over 100K each, and the 128K sequential performance is downright impressive, with the Era achieving 1893.56 MB/s reads and 1675.01 MB/s writes. SATA storage devices just can’t compete against NVMe drives of this caliber; it’s like bringing a knife to a bazooka fight.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

The Steiger Dynamics Era Reference once again predictably tops the chart with its higher memory frequency (3000 MHz), which provides a higher peak memory bandwidth over our test rig’s DDR4-2133 and the X-6’s DDR4-2666.

PCMark 8

With its higher memory frequency, overclocked CPU, and speedy storage, the Era Reference achieves an excellent score in the PCMark 8 Adobe application test. However, the Microsoft Office application tests are slightly less receptive to the Era’s Core i5-7600K, which falls behind the Core i7-equipped PCs in the lineup.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Alien: Isolation

The Steiger Dynamics Era Reference gaming PC kicks off the gaming benchmarks with high marks in the Alien: Isolation tests. It maintains a slight lead over our reference-clocked GTX 1080 Ti test rig thanks to its overclocked GPU (the cards are identical otherwise), and it’s clear that the game favors graphics performance. Cranked to the highest settings, Alien isn’t a problem for even GTX 1070 equipped PCs (the Xidax X-6) at 3840 x 2160.

Ashes of the Singularity

The Era Reference again edges out our GTX 1080 Ti test bed in Ashes of the Singularity, however, the difference in performance is minimal, and the overclock nets an extra 2.3 FPS (average) at most, which would be near impossible to see with the naked eye.

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite is another game that doesn’t demand much horsepower at high resolutions, so the GTX 1080 Ti-equipped Era Reference easily takes the lead against the other PCs in the field. However, it only bests our reference GTX 1080 Ti by less than 3 FPS at all tested resolutions, and the overclocked components of the Era don’t appear to offer much of a performance gain in this particular game.

DiRT Rally

The Steiger Dynamics Era Reference starts off the DiRT Rally tests with a sizable lead against our GTX 1080 Ti test rig at 1920 x 1080 thanks to its beefy CPU and GPU overclock. However, this game prefers a more well-balanced platform, and pushing the resolution higher with our settings puts more stress on the processor, and hyperthreading quickly becomes an advantage over clock rates at higher resolutions. This forces the Era into a second-place position at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160, trailing the test rig by no more than 2 FPS.

Grand Theft Auto V

The Era returns to its usual glory at the top of the chart in GTAV, where it manages to edge out our test rig’s GTX 1080 Ti by less than 1 FPS at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160. At 1080p, this lead is slightly less than 2 FPS, and it appears overclocking doesn’t provide much of a performance boost. However, a win is a win.

GRID Autosport

At 1920 x 1080, the Era Reference falls noticeably behind the GTX 1070-equipped Xidax X-6. This is because the CPU is the bottleneck at 1080p, and the X-6’s overclocked and hyperthreaded cores provide much higher framerate minumums, resulting in better averages than the Era and our reference-clocked test rig, despite their faster GPUs. However, turning up the resolution restores the proper GPU hierarchy, with the X-6 back on the bottom and the Era Reference back at the top. The performance gap between all of the systems is minimal at 2560 x 1440 (the CPU is still playing a factor with framerates this high), but when we push it up to 4K the graphics card dictates the pecking order.

Hitman

Using the DX12 API in Hitman shifts the bottleneck to the CPU, evidenced by the Era’s performance at 1920 x 1080. It barely beats out our test rig with a GTX 1080 inside, and it falls significantly behind a Core i7-7700K and GTX 1080 Ti. Increasing the resolution irons out these performance gaps, with the Era increasing its lead against our GTX 1080 test bench and gaining on the GTX 1080 Ti. However, even at 4K, the Era’s Core i5-7600K holds it back from the top of the heap, although it’s by less than 1 FPS.

Metro: Last Light Redux

Switching back to a GPU-intensive workload, the Era Reference makes a comeback and manages to upend our GTX 1080 Ti test rig at all tested resolutions in Metro: Last Light Redux. The overclocking gains aren’t sizable at these settings (SMAA adds a significant performance overhead), and although the Era achieves the best average FPS at all tested resolutions, you can see the Core i5-7600K’s impact on performance with the Era netting the worst minimum FPS in the bunch.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

The Era’s average framerates in Rise of the Tomb Raider are a reflection of the GPU overclock, which puts it above our GTX 1080 Ti reference system at all tested resolutions. These gains are less than 1 FPS each, with ROTR demanding some serious horsepower at its highest settings (even a GTX 1080 Ti nets a sub-30 FPS average at 4K).

The Division

Unlike Hitman, The Division and its DX12 benchmark don’t appear to favor hyperthreaded CPUs, with the Era Reference overpowering our GTX 1080 Ti test rig at all tested resolutions. These gains are more pronounced at 1920 x 1080, where the Era leads the Z270 test system by a 12.5 FPS. At 4K, there is only a 5.8 FPS difference in average framerate performance, but that turns out to be a 12% gain over our test rig.

Thief

The Steiger Dynamics Era Reference finishes our benchmark suite at the top of the class, with the best average and minimum framerates at all tested resolutions in Thief. Similar to other older titles, we don’t see hyperthreading play a role in performance, so the Era’s Core i5-7600K excels with its 4.8 GHz CPU and 120 MHz GPU overclocks.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

Steiger Dynamics sent us a curve ball with its high-priced Era Reference gaming PC, equipping it with an Intel Core i5-7600K processor and an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition graphics card. Many enthusiasts (and perhaps even uninitiated consumers) would see this combination as a mismatch; when you think of the ultimate in graphics cards, you go for a GTX 1080 Ti, but when you look for the best in CPUs, a Core i5 isn’t usually the first chip that comes to mind, especially at a budget of $2,958.

And yet the Core i5-7600K has great value, with the price-to-performance ratio of Intel CPUs plateauing a bit after the $250 mark, unless you are specifically out to gain better multi-core performance. Most games won’t miss the hyperthreading of a Core i7 (especially at higher resolutions), and once you overclock the Core i5, it’s one of the top gaming CPUs on the market. However, if you absolutely must have a Core i7, you can upgrade the Core i5-7600K to an i7-7700 or i7-7700K for an additional $69 or $131, respectively.

The company reached out shortly after we received our review sample to let us know it had changed its base GeForce GTX 1080 Ti offering from the EVGA Founder’s Edition in our review unit to a blower-style card with a custom BIOS from EVGA that effectively makes it an SC-branded factory overclocked GPU. We don’t have that card in front of us, so we don’t know what kind of performance differences we’d see, but Steiger Dynamics speculated that it would be similar to the performance we’re seeing with the overclocked Founder’s Edition GPU we tested. The primary reason for this change of inventory was to accommodate the front-panel HDMI pass-through; the new GPU offering has two HDMI 2.0 ports, giving you the ability to use the front panel and still connect to an HDMI port on a display.

Despite this component change, the sample we have in the lab performed at the top of the heap, with the GTX 1080 Ti providing top-tier performance throughout our benchmark testing. The Core i5-7600K fell behind Core i7-7700K equipped systems in apps and games where hyperthreaded cores can have a noticeable impact, but the Era was still competitive when it did lose out to systems with the pricier processor.

The 16GB (2x8GB) kit of G.Skill Aegis DDR4-3000 memory is more than sufficient for the latest AAA games, and the above-average frequency gives it impressive performance in memory-intensive workloads. The 500GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD is impressively fast (check out our Storage Test results), even if we can’t easily get to it, physically (it’s mounted on the underside of the motherboard). A 3TB storage volume is also gratuitous in capacity, but we’re disappointed it’s the 5,400 RPM version of the WD Red HDD. However, Steiger offers this drive for its quiet operation (a recurring theme with this particular build), and you can easily change to a 7,200 RPM WD Black HDD if you intend to load a large game library on your secondary storage.

We appreciate Steiger’s unique chassis design, which forgoes flashy RGB lighting and offers a more professional look with the hand-brushed aluminum case. The company didn’t shy away from loading our review unit with several add-on components and services, with the aforementioned VR-ready front panel (HDMI pass-through), silencing foam (sound dampening), and CPU and GPU overclocking services each adding $49 to the bill. There’s also a slim-profile Blu-ray RW optical drive, which adds another $117 (for a total of $313).

The pass-through is considered a premium feature, but we’re disappointed it comes at an added price. However, it is worthwhile for those intending to use the Era Reference as their living room VR machine. The sound-dampening foam indeed reduces noise, and even at full load, the Era Reference is no louder than a tower PC at idle, and it’s worthwhile for someone looking for a powerful system that isn’t as loud as a jet engine. We’re not a fan of Blu-ray players (it’s a decidedly old technology, becoming less relevant with all the streaming platforms available with rich movie libraries), but there are some who would welcome replacing a Blu-ray player with a powerful PC that can play Blu-ray disks, but $117 is a lot of money for this optional optical drive.

We’re not thrilled that the processor and graphics card each warrant a separate overclocking fee ($98 is a lot of money to OC), and we’d be happier to see both components moderately overclocked for a flat $49. However, the overclock does indeed give a boost in performance, and for average consumers who don’t tend to tinker, it may be a viable option if they want to get the most out of the hardware under the hood.

Alternatively, you could also go for even more overclocking, with Steiger Dynamics offering an extreme OC service where the company delids and shims your CPU and guarantees up to 5.0 GHz, even on the Core i5-7600K. This unconventional (but really cool) service goes for $199, and Steiger Dynamics surprisingly warranties the CPU, so long as you don’t remove the cooler.

The add-ons in this configuration of the Era may only have appeal to a handful of customers with specific goals for their system, so you could save some money (and easily upgrade to that Core i7 CPU) if you forego the specialized front panel, Blu-ray drive, sound isolation, and overclocking services. However, we haven’t seen many custom shops offering warrantied delidded overclocking services, and Steiger seems to be extremely flexible with its range of practical optional upgrades, appealing to professionals and enthusiasts alike. And that Couchmaster is pretty sweet, too.

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AMD Radeon Vega RX 64 8GB Review

Chris Angelini — Mon, 14 Aug 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction

AMD’s last high-end graphics card launch happened almost 26 months ago. Back then, the Radeon R9 Fury X went toe-to-toe with GeForce GTX 980 Ti and Titan X—the best Nvidia had to offer. And it kept getting better. Subsequent drivers optimized performance, while DirectX 12 helped game developers get more out of the Graphics Core Next Architecture.

Today’s official introduction of the Radeon RX Vega represents the company’s return to high-end gaming, so says AMD. But by its own admission, this isn’t going to be AMD battling for Nvidia’s performance crown. Rather, Radeon RX Vega 64 sets its sights on the performance and pricing of GeForce GTX 1080.

We already know most of what there is to know about Radeon RX Vega 64. AMD made sure of that with a carefully timed sequence of disclosures intended to keep enthusiasts buzzing about its next-gen graphics hardware. In case you missed any of that, check out AMD Teases Vega Architecture: More Than 200+ New Features, Ready First Half Of 2017 and AMD Radeon RX Vega 64: Bundles, Specs, And Aug. 14 Availability.

Today is when we see if the cliffhanger approach to marketing ends with gamers enjoying blissful satisfaction or the pangs of disappointment.

Specifications

Radeon RX Vega 64: At a Glance (Again)

Speeds and feeds are always good to recap, so borrowing from our earlier coverage:

Like the Radeon R9 Fury X's Fiji processor, Radeon RX Vega 64 employs four shader engines, each with its own geometry processor and rasterizer.

Also similar to Fiji, there are 16 Compute Units per Shader Engine, each CU sporting 64 Stream processors and four texture units. Multiply all of that out and you get 4096 Stream processors and 256 texture units.

Clock rates are way up, though. Whereas Fiji topped out at 1050 MHz, a GlobalFoundries 14nm FinFET LPP process and targeted optimizations for higher frequencies allows the Vega 10 GPU on Radeon RX Vega 64 to operate at a base clock rate of 1247 MHz with a rated boost rate of 1546 MHz. Obviously, AMD's peak FP32 specification of 12.66 TFLOPS is based on that best-case frequency. We typically use the guaranteed base in our calculations, though. Even then, 10.2 TFLOPS is still an almost 20% increase over Radeon R9 Fury X.

The liquid-cooled model steps those numbers up to a 1406 MHz base with boost clock rates as high as 1677 MHz. That’s an almost 13% higher base and ~8%-higher boost frequency, pushing AMD’s specified peak FP32 rate to 13.7 TFLOPS. You’ll pay more than just a $200 premium for the closed-loop liquid cooler, though. Board power rises from 295W on Radeon RX Vega 64 to the Liquid Cooled Edition’s 345W—a disproportionate 17% increase. Both figures exceed Nvidia’s 250W rating on GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which isn’t even in Vega’s crosshairs.

Model	Cooling Type	BIOS Mode	Power Profile
RX Vega 64	Cooling Type	BIOS Mode	Power Saver	Balanced	Turbo
	Air	Primary	165W	220W	253W
	Air	Secondary	150W	200W	230W
	Liquid	Primary	198W	264W	303W
	Liquid	Secondary	165W	220W	253W

Speaking of power, our air-cooled sample comes with two BIOS files, and each of those BIOSes supports three power profiles. The primary BIOS at its Balanced power setting is accompanied by a 220W GPU power limit. Dropping to Power Saver cuts GPU power to 165W, while increasing it to Turbo raises the ceiling to 253W. Switching over to the secondary BIOS drops Power Saver to 150W, Balanced to 200W, and Turbo to 230W. We certainly appreciate the granular control AMD enables here, but recognize that most enthusiasts aren't looking for a way to de-tune their $500 graphics card. Regardless, we're planning a follow-up story to explore the effects of each setting on board power, performance, and acoustics.

Each of Vega 10's Shader Engines sports four render back-ends capable of 16 pixels per clock cycle, yielding 64 ROPs. These render back-ends become clients of the L2, as we already know. That L2 is now 4MB in size, whereas Fiji included 2MB of L2 capacity (already a doubling of Hawaii’s 1MB L2). Ideally, this means the GPU goes out to HBM2 less often, reducing Vega 10’s reliance on external bandwidth. Since Vega 10’s clock rates can get up to ~60% higher than Fiji’s, while memory bandwidth actually drops by 28 GB/s, a larger cache should help prevent bottlenecks.

Incidentally, AMD's graphics architect and corporate fellow Mike Mantor says all of the SRAM on Vega 10 adds up to more than 45MB. Wow. No wonder this is a 12.5-billion-transistor chip measuring 486 square millimeters. That's more transistors than Nvidia's GP102 in an even larger die.

As an aside, AMD plans to make its Radeon RX Vega 56 derivative available on August 28th. That 210W card utilizes the same GPU and 8GB of HBM2, but has eight of its Compute Units disabled, eliminating 512 Stream processors and 32 texture units. It'll also run at lower core and memory clock rates. Yet, AMD claims it should outperform GeForce GTX 1070 handily at a $400 price point. Our U.S. lab is in the process of testing Radeon RX Vega 56, and we coverage should follow in the days to come.

Look, Feel & Connectors

AMD’s RX Vega 64 weighs in at 1066g, which makes it 16g heavier than the Frontier Edition. Its length is 26.8cm (from bracket to end of cover), its height is 10.5cm (from top of motherboard slot to top of cover), and its depth is 3.8cm. This makes it a true dual-slot graphics card, even though the backplate does add another 0.4cm to the back.

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Vega Architecture & HBM2

Although we've detailed Vega's architecture before, it's worthwhile to provide it here again as a refresher. Vega represents a new GPU generation for AMD, with a reported 200+ changes and improvements separating it from the GCCN implementation that came before.

HBM2: A Scalable Memory Architecture

Both AMD and Nvidia are working on ways to reduce host processor overhead, maximize throughput to feed the GPU, and circumvent existing bottlenecks—particularly those that surface in the face of large datasets. Getting more capacity closer to the GPU in a fairly cost-effective manner seemed to be the Radeon Pro SSG’s purpose. And Vega appears to take this mission a step further with a more flexible memory hierarchy.

Vega makes use of HBM2, of course, which AMD officially introduced more than six months ago. At the time, we also discovered that the company calls this pool of on-package memory—previously the frame buffer—a high-bandwidth cache. HBM2 equals high-bandwidth cache in AMD parlance. Got it?

According to Joe Macri, corporate fellow and product CTO, the vision for HBM was to have it be the highest-performance memory closest to the GPU. However, he also wanted system memory and storage available to the graphics processor, as well. In the context of this broader memory hierarchy, sure, it’s logical to envision HBM2 as a high-bandwidth cache relative to slower technologies. But for the sake of disambiguation, we’re going to continue calling HBM2 what it is.

After all, HBM2 represents a significant step forward already. An up-to-8x capacity increase per vertical stack, compared to first-gen HBM, addresses questions enthusiasts raised about Radeon R9 Fury X’s longevity. Further, a doubling of bandwidth per pin significantly increases potential throughput.

That’s the change we expect to have the largest impact on gamers as far as Vega's memory subsystem goes. However, AMD also gives the high-bandwidth cache controller (no longer just the memory controller) access to a massive 512TB virtual address space for large datasets.

When asked about how the Vega architecture's broader memory hierarchy might be utilized, AMD suggested that Vega can move memory pages in fine-grained fashion using multiple, programmable techniques. It can receive a request to bring in data and then retrieve it through a DMA transfer while the GPU switches to another thread and continues work without stalling. The controller can go get data on demand but also bring it back in predictively. Information in the HBM can be replicated in system memory like an inclusive cache, or the HBCC can maintain just one copy to save space. All of this is managed in hardware, so it should be quick and low-overhead.

As it pertains to Radeon RX Vega 64, AMD exposes an option in its driver called HBCC Memory Segment to allocate system memory to Vega's cache controller. The corresponding slider determines how much memory gets set aside. Per AMD, once the HBCC is operating, it'll monitor the utilization of bits in local GPU memory and, if needed, move unused information to the slower system memory space, effectively increasing the capacity available to the GPU. Given Vega 64's 8GB of HBM2, this option is fairly forward-looking; there aren't many games that need more. However, AMD has shown off content creation workloads that truly need access to additional memory. Of course, the one recommendation is to have plenty of system RAM available before using the HBCC. If you have 16GB installed, you don't want to lose 4GB or 8GB to the HBCC.

AMD suggested that Unigine Heaven might reflect some influence from enabling the HBCC memory segment, so we ran the benchmark at 4K using 8x anti-aliasing and Ultra quality. With the HBCC disabled, we measured 25.7 FPS. Allocating an extra 4GB of DDR4 at 3200 MT/s nudged that result up to 26.9 FPS.

New Programmable Geometry Pipeline

The Hawaii GPU (Radeon R9 290X) incorporated some notable improvements over Tahiti (Radeon HD 7970), one of which was a more robust front end with four geometry engines instead of two. The more recent Fiji GPU (Radeon R9 Fury X) maintained that same four-way Shader Engine configuration. However, because it also rolled in goodness from AMD’s third-gen GCN architecture, there were some gains in tessellation throughput, as well. More recently, the Ellesmere GPU (Radeon RX 480/580) implemented a handful of techniques for getting more from a four-engine arrangement, including a filtering algorithm/primitive discard accelerator.

AMD promised us last year that Vega’s peak geometry throughput would be 11 polygons per clock, up from the preceding generations' four, yielding up to a 2.75x boost. That specification came from adding a new primitive shader stage to the geometry pipeline. Instead of using the fixed-function hardware, this primitive shader uses the shader array for its work.

More recently, AMD published a Vega architecture whitepaper that revised the geometry pipeline's peak rate to more than 17 primitives per clock.

AMD describes this as having similar access as a compute shader for processing geometry in that it’s lightweight and programmable, with the ability to discard primitives at a high rate. The primitive shader’s functionality includes a lot of what the DirectX vertex, hull, domain, and geometry shader stages can do but is more flexible about the context it carries and the order in which work is completed.

The front-end also benefits from an improved workgroup distributor, responsible for load balancing across programmable hardware. AMD says this comes from its collaboration with efficiency-sensitive console developers, and that effort will now benefit PC gamers, as well.

Vega’s Next-Generation Compute Unit (NCU)

Using its many Pascal-based GPUs, Nvidia is surgical about segmentation. The largest and most expensive GP100 processor offers a peak FP32 rate of 10.6 TFLOPS (if you use the peak GPU Boost frequency). A 1:2 ratio of FP64 cores yields a double-precision rate of 5.3 TFLOPS, and support for half-precision compute/storage enables up to 21.2 TFLOPS. The more consumer-oriented GP102 and GP104 processors naturally offer full-performance FP32 but deliberately handicap FP64 and FP16 rates so you can’t get away with using cheaper cards for scientific or training datasets.

Conversely, AMD looks like it’s trying to give more to everyone. The Compute Unit building block, with 64 IEEE 754-2008-compliant shaders, persists, only now it’s being called an NCU, or Next-Generation Compute Unit, reflecting support for new data types. Of course, with 64 shaders and a peak of two floating-point operations/cycle, you end up with a maximum of 128 32-bit ops per clock. Using packed FP16 math, that number turns into 256 16-bit ops per clock. AMD even claimed it can do up to 512 eight-bit ops per clock. Of course, leveraging this functionality requires developer support, so it’s not going to manifest as a clear benefit at launch.

Double-precision is a different animal—AMD doesn’t seem to have a problem admitting it sets FP64 rates based on target market, and we confirmed that Vega 10’s FP64 rate is 1:16 of its single-precision specification. This is another gaming-specific architecture; it’s not going to live in the HPC space at all.

The impetus for Vega 10's flexibility may have very well come from the console world. After all, we know Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro can use half-precision to achieve up to 8.4 TFLOPS—twice its performance using 32-bit operations. Or perhaps it started with AMD’s aspirations in the machine learning space, resulting in products like the upcoming Radeon Instinct MI25 that aim to chip away at Nvidia’s market share. Either way, consoles, datacenters, and PC gamers alike stand to benefit.

AMD claimed the NCUs are optimized for higher clock rates, which isn’t particularly surprising, but it also implemented larger instruction buffers to keep the compute units busy.

Next-Generation Pixel Engine: Waiting For A Miracle

Let’s next take a look at AMD’s so-called Draw Stream Binning Rasterizer, which is supposed to be a supplement to the traditional ROP, and as such, should help improve performance while simultaneously lowering power consumption.

At a high level, an on-chip bin cache allows the rasterizer to fetch data only once for overlapping primitives, and then shade pixels only once by culling pixels not visible in the final scene.

AMD fundamentally changes its cache hierarchy by making the render back-ends clients of the L2.

In architectures before Vega, AMD had non-coherent pixel and texture memory access, meaning there was no shared point for each pipeline stage to synchronize. In the example of texture baking, where a scene is rendered to a texture for reuse later and then accessed again through the shader array, data has to be pulled all the way back through off-die memory. Now, the architecture has coherent access, which AMD said particularly boosts performance in applications that use deferred shading.

Spoiler alert: AMD's launch driver doesn't unleash the massive performance improvements we were hoping for after reviewing the Frontier Edition board. We'd remind you, though, that Fiji and Hawaii, just like good wine (especially good red wine), took some time to achieve their full potential.

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Disassembly, Cooler & Interposer

Disassembly & Cooler

Some tools are needed to remove the card's cover. Six small screws that hold the shroud in place can be unfastened with a Phillips-head screwdriver. This reveals AMD's cooler, along with a frame responsible for adding rigidity and dissipating thermal energy.

AMD leans on a direct heat exhaust cooler again, and that's not a bad thing. We can see the radial fan sitting in its chamber, which brings in air from the case. This flow passes horizontally though the sink’s body and blows out of the card’s right slot cover.

The backplate is made from black anodized aluminum. Looking good is its only purpose, meaning it doesn't help with cooling. Our attempt to make the backplate functional with thermal pads didn't get us very far; they didn't draw much waste heat away from the board.

Up top, there's a massive cooling frame that helps keep the card's structure rigid. It also looks like AMD implemented some of the design lessons it learned from past generations. Similar to Gigabyte's Aorus GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Edition, the chokes transfer heat to the frame through thermal pads. Indentations in the metal also accommodate voltage regulation circuitry.

With the board completely exposed, all eyes turn to AMD's GPU and the HBM2 mounted together on an interposer, which sits on a large package substrate.

Of course, the GPU can't simply be soldered to the PCB. As with AMD's Fiji-based cards, Vega and its complement of memory go through a packaging process that's handled by specialty tools from companies like ASE. The resulting module is much easier for board partners to handle later on.

In the image below, you see the package as it was presented internally at AMD to its partners. There are deep channels between the GPU and memory modules since all three components are fairly tall. Conversely, the interposer is extremely thin and easy to break. That's why AMD warns everyone who touches the module to be careful when removing its thermal paste.

Leaving the package this way for the automated production line would have risked manufacturing issues. But compare that early shot to the shipping module. AMD appears to have added molding. Filling the area around the GPU and HBM2 with a suitable material increases the package's structural integrity.

You should still be careful when handling AMD's new GPU, particularly if a cooler swap is planned. However, it looks like the company put a lot of effort into making sure its unique layout is just as robust as more traditional designs.

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Board Layout & Components

Board Layout

AMD’s RX Vega 64 and Vega Frontier Edition employ the exact same board and components. The only differences are the package that’s soldered to the board, with RX Vega 64 getting half of the Vega Frontier Edition’s memory and adjusted firmware. The only reason the card needs to be this long is to accommodate the cooler and large radial fan. It could be shortened to the size of a Radeon R9 Nano with ease.

A pair of eight-pin auxiliary power connectors have one coil each; they help smooth out certain voltage peaks. Interestingly, though, there are no large capacitors to be seen.

On the back of the board, we spy a densely-packed area under the GPU/memory, a PWM controller, and several other surface-mounted components.

GPU Power Supply

At the center of it all is International Rectifier's IR35217, a poorly-documented, dual-output, multi-phase controller able to provide six phases for the GPU and two additional phases. A closer look reveals 12 regulator circuits though, not just six. This is a result of doubling, allowing the load from each phase to be distributed between two regulator circuits.

Six IR3598 interleaved MOSFET drivers on the back of the board are responsible for the doubling. These are the parts we pointed out earlier. The following video we created using AMD's Frontier Edition card starts at idle and shows how the PWM controller switches the load back and forth between circuits. This keeps efficiency high by using only one phase, but also avoids overloading a single circuit over prolonged periods of time.

For the coils, AMD went with encapsulated ferrite core chokes that are soldered in the front. At 190nH, their inductivity is a bit lower than the 220nH we often see.

Memory Power Supply

The memory's one phase is supplied by the IR35217 also. One phase is plenty, since on-package HBM2 needs a lot less power. A CHL815 gate driver is found on the back of the board. For the voltage converters, AMD went with ON Semiconductor's NTMFD4C85N, a dual N-channel MOSFET that supplies the high and low sides.

Other Voltage Converters

Creating the VDDCI isn’t a very difficult task. But it's an important one because this regulates the transition between the internal GPU and memory signal levels. It’s essentially the I/O bus voltage between the GPU and the memory. As such, two constant sources of 1.8V and 0.8V are supplied.

Underneath the GPU, there’s an Anpec APL5620 low drop-out linear regulator, which provides the very low voltage for the phase locked loop (PLL) area.

ON Semiconductor's MC74HC238A demultiplexer drives the LED bar that shows the power supply’s load. It’s a fun gimmick, but does get annoying in a dark room at night due to its brightness.

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How We Tested AMD's Vega RX 64 8GB

As far as competition goes, the Radeon RX Vega 64 is rivaled most closely by Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080. Of course, we imagine that hardcore gamers also want to know how Vega 64 fares against the faster/pricier GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and Titan Xp, so we include them in our benchmark results. Similarly, we add GeForce GTX 1070 for a comparison point underneath. Progress relative to AMD's previous-gen graphics hardware is tracked by testing the Radeon R9 Fury X and Radeon R9 390X.

Leading up to today's review, we completely revamped the software side of our platform. Installing the Windows 10 Creators Update caused all sorts of problems with PresentMon, OCAT, and our own custom front-end, but we thought it important to get our operating systems current. As such, we used a combination of OCAT 1.1.0 and PMG 0.9.21 to collect data, along with a fresh build of our log file interpreter to get that information into Excel. All of the Nvidia cards were benchmarked using driver version 384.94, while AMD's previous-gen cards were tested with Crimson ReLive Edition 17.7.2.

It's also worth noting that the air-cooled Radeon RX Vega 64 has two on-board BIOS versions, each with three different power/performance profiles. All of our benchmarks are run in the out-of-box configuration using AMD's more aggressive BIOS and a Balanced profile.

Comparison Graphics Cards

Asus GeForce GTX 1080 8GB

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 8GB

Sapphire Radeon R9 390X

Test Systems

We introduced our new test system and methodology in How We Test Graphics Cards. If you'd like more detail about our general approach, check that piece out.

In this case, only the hardware configuration with CPU, RAM, mainboard, as well as the new cooling system are different, so the summary in table form gives a quick overview of the systems used:

Test System and Configuration
Hardware	Germany Intel Core i7-6900K @ 4.3 GHzMSI X99S XPower Gaming TitaniumCorsair Vengeance DDR3-32001x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming Pro CarbonG.Skill F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ1x 500GB Crucial MX200be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK
PC Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Extension Kit and Mods Configurations: Open Benchtable, Closed Case
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

Our DirectX 12-based Ashes benchmark sees Radeon RX Vega 64 just ahead of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition card, though AMD’s entire line-up experiences higher frame time variance than the Pascal-based GeForce boards.

At least the Vega flagship keeps most of its variance in the 8-16ms range—GeForce GTX 1070 runs into situations where the differences frame-to-frame exceed 16ms.

3840x2160 Results

Pushing Ashes of the Singularity to 4K nudges Vega 64 behind GeForce GTX 1080, though they’re essentially tied with frame rate lines that cross over and under each other during our 150-second run.

Given the Extreme quality preset we’re using, it’s nice to see Radeon RX Vega and GeForce GTX 1080 both landing in performance ranges suited to their respective variable refresh technologies.

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Battlefield 1 (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

Strong performance in DirectX 12 games gives Radeon RX Vega 64 a statistically significant lead over GeForce GTX 1080, pushing it surprisingly close to 1080 Ti at 2560x1440. Excellent (and consistent) frame times from Vega are bested only by Nvidia’s top two GP102-based cards.
Conversely, it actually looks like Nvidia’s 1080 is hampered by frame time spikes through our 80-second sequence, some of which exceed 60ms. These aren’t common (they represent a tiny sliver of orange at the end of our frame time bar graph), but mapping frame time over the run shows where stuttering would be apparent.

3840x2160 Results

Vega 64’s 15% lead over GeForce GTX 1080 at 2560x1440 shrinks to 14% at 4K. And that’s a critical performance range, between 40 and 60 FPS, where 4K can still be considered playable in games that don’t require twitchy movement. Variable refresh technologies make the experience significantly more enjoyable, too.

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Doom (Vulkan)

2560x1440 Results

Although Nvidia’s performance under Vulkan is much improved, AMD continues to dominate in Doom. This actually is a game where quick hand motions are key, so it’s good that we’re seeing 140+ FPS from Radeon RX Vega 64 at 2560x1440 with all of the game’s quality settings cranked up to Ultra.

Our unevenness index tells us the entire test field runs smoothly.

3840x2160 Results

Vega 64’s roughly 10% advantage over GTX 1080 grows to more than 13% at 3840x2160, and a minimum frame rate in excess of 60 means you’re still getting smooth performance.

Notably, Radeon RX Vega 64’s advantage over AMD’s previous-gen flagship is about 24% in this particular benchmark.

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Hitman (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

Despite its DirectX 12 renderer, Hitman favors the GeForce GTX 1080 by a narrow margin at 2560x1440.

Frame time spikes between scenes affect all cards equally, so we’re not particularly worried about the outcome of our frame time over run chart. The unevenness index is perhaps more meaningful in this case, and it shows most of the cards serving up a smooth experience. Only the Radeon R9 Fury X and 390X encounter passages where higher frame times become somewhat palpable.

3840x2160 Results

Naturally, the jump to 4K has a profound impact on performance, and now it’s fairly safe to say that those older AMD cards aren’t going to be as enjoyable in Hitman at the game’s Ultra quality mode. Even Radeon RX Vega 64 and GeForce GTX 1080 can’t be wholeheartedly endorsed at these settings. Scale back quality or snag a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti if Hitman at maximum detail is important to you.

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Metro: Last Light Redux (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

Our Metro benchmark at 2560x1440 uses SSAA, knocking frame rates down perhaps more than you’d want on a Radeon RX Vega 64. Then again, gamers with FreeSync monitors (or GeForce GTX 1080 owners with G-Sync displays) could probably get away with the setting enabled.

The GeForce card is slightly faster, which comes as no surprise in light of Metro’s DirectX 11 engine. More interesting, perhaps, is how close the two cards land to each other (and how well Radeon R9 Fury X holds up to GeForce GTX 1070).

3840x2160 Results

We disable SSAA at 4K, but the workload is still too overwhelming at Metro’s Very High preset. You’d want to dial back quality to make this resolution smoother on a Vega 64 card. Alternately, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and Titan Xp remain powerhouses in DirectX 11-based games.

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Rise of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

Rise of the Tomb Raider at Very High quality settings pushes the Radeon RX Vega 64 and GeForce GTX 1080 hard enough to keep their averages under 60 FPS at 2560x1440. That’s because we’re running the benchmark with SSAA enabled.

3840x2160 Results

Knowing that wouldn’t work at 4K, we disabled anti-aliasing altogether for our next set of benchmarks. Alas, you’d probably want to step back from the game’s highest detail settings as well for a more playable experience. It’d really take a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti or Titan Xp to push RotTR’s top resolution and quality options.

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Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

GeForce GTX 1080’s advantage in Ghost Recon is about 8%, though both cards are playable.

We deliberately avoid this game’s highest quality preset, which enables Nvidia’s Turf Effects feature and hammers performance pretty hard.

3840x1260 Results

Nvidia’s advantage over Radeon RX Vega 64 at 3840x2160 shrinks to 5%. However, neither card offers a consistently smooth experience at Very High details. Even the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and Titan Xp average fewer than 60 FPS.

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Tom Clancy’s The Division (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

Incidentally, Radeon RX Vega 64 leads the GeForce GTX 1080 by almost 13% at 2560x1440 using The Division’s Ultra quality preset. It’s even able to maintain higher frame rates through the benchmark’s most taxing passage.

3840x2160 Results

Don’t let that minimum frame rate dissuade you; Radeon RX Vega 64 spends most of its time above 40 FPS through our 90-second test. One short sequence toward the end drives all of the cards into an isolated dip, but they quickly recover.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is about 20% faster in this scenario. However, it costs 40% more. So when you're talking about performance per dollar, AMD and its GCN architecture fare well.

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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

2560x1440 Results

Radeon RX Vega 64 lands closer to GeForce GTX 1080 Ti than GTX 1080 in our Warhammer benchmark. All of these cards offer playable performance, though.

3840x2160 Results

Vega 64’s >12% lead over GTX 1080 shrinks to almost 9% at 3840x2160, and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti’s advantage over the new Radeon grows to almost 19%. But we’re still looking at playable performance from all three of those cards.

AMD’s position is made stronger by our presumption that this is a DirectX 11-based game, which usually amounts to a slant towards Nvidia.

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The Witcher 3 (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

Our last outing with The Witcher 3 saw us enabling HairWorks, since none of the comparison cards came from AMD. This time around, though, we turn that technology off to even the playing field.

Nevertheless, AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64 struggles at 2560x1440 with an average frame rate just behind Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1070. We don’t observe problematic frame times, and our unevenness index indicates that Vega 64’s frame delivery is smooth. Aside from the competitive mismatch, The Witcher 3 still runs well.

3840x2160 Results

The demands of 4K cause Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1070 to fall back, leaving Radeon RX Vega 64 to compete against GeForce GTX 1080. The two boards trade blows, but keep their minimum frame rates above 40 (and within AMD’s defined sweet spot for FreeSync-capable displays).

If you’re worried about those performance numbers, dropping one quality preset down from Ultra would help with that.

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Ethereum Mining

The latest version of Claymore’s Dual Ethereum AMD/Nvidia GPU Miner (v9.8) includes support for Radeon RX Vega, so that’s what we used for our mining benchmark.

AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 64 isn’t the mining monster many might have hoped, at least right out of the box under Claymore’s current build.

We know that professional mining outfits take these cards, dig into their firmware, alter clock rates and latencies, and coax much higher hash rates from them. But neither AMD nor Nvidia want to talk about how high they’ve seen hashing performance go. Just bear in mind that our results come from stock cards, before they've been tuned for peak mining performance (an understandably critical step when it comes to exploiting all of a card's potential).

Given the price of Radeon RX Vega 64, we suspect that miners will have better luck scavenging Radeon R9 300 and RX 400/500-series cards off of eBay than spending big on $500+ Vega 10-based boards.

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Power Consumption

As mentioned previously, AMD's WattMan pane sports three power profiles: the default Balanced mode, a Power Saver mode that goes easy on power consumption, and a Turbo mode that operates more aggressively. In addition, there’s a second BIOS that decreases power consumption across the board. This might sound great, but ultimately, the Power Saver mode compromises performance and Turbo mode gives up efficiency. We'll cover the different modes in a follow-up article using a custom water-cooling solution. For this piece, however, we used the stock configuration for performance and power testing. In practice, this mode should be the way to go anyway.

Idle and Productivity Power Consumption with Overview

The card consumes 19W at idle, which isn't bad, but still higher than we hoped to see. We don't care for how AMD's Radeon RX Vega 64 handles multi-monitor setups, as power use varies widely depending on your configuration. With two identical displays, consumption sits around 25W, while three different monitors require 40W. This is similar to the Vega Frontier Edition.

Using Balanced mode, the power consumption during daily productivity work ranges from approximately 140 to 150W for 2D drawing and 3D wireframes to almost 285W for gaming.

It’s largely pointless to report the Turbo mode’s numbers. The results we generated are mostly theoretical in nature, since the card runs into its temperature limit very quickly. There’s just not enough time for a valid reading that spans several minutes. And then there’s the noise…

Gaming Power Consumption

Gaming power consumption naturally varies with the GPU’s temperature (and its resulting clock frequency).

If the card is cold, it draws up to almost 300W. There are brief peaks up to a massive 385W. The secondary side of any modern PSU won’t have any problem handling those spikes, though.

Once the card warms up, it draws a little less power, cresting just under 285W. Now, the peaks reach up to 350W. Smoothing these over is up to the PSU once again.

The current curve looks just as expected.

Stress Test Power Consumption

Let’s examine what Power Tune does if the predicted load gets too high.

The graph below shows the clock rate control intervals and how throttling affects power consumption. The periodical fluctuations are decreased by quite a bit.

Again, the current curve doesn’t hold any surprises.

Motherboard Slot Load

Ever since the launch of AMD's Radeon RX 480, new graphics cards are accompanied by this chart. When it comes to Radeon RX Vega 64's current draw over its PCI Express connector, there is no cause for concern. The motherboard slot’s 2.4A maximum doesn’t even amount to half of the specified ceiling.

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Clock Rates, Temperatures & Noise

Temperature & Clock Frequency

A maximum temperature of 85°C is reached fairly quickly due to conservative fan control. At that point, the card loses approximately 6% of its performance compared to when it was still cool. This is almost entirely due to the automatic clock frequency throttling by ~9%. We calculated an average clock frequency across the entire run for every 5°C step. The results ranged from 1533 MHz when the card was cool all the way down to 1401 MHz when it was hot.

Temperature Curves & Power Consumption

This where things get interesting. At the warmed-up card’s 1401 MHz, we measure approximately 285W. However, at the cold card’s 1533 MHz, we measure approximately 310W. This means that a 9% power consumption increase nets us a 9% frequency increase, which, in turn, yields a 6% gaming performance increase. In other words, the efficiency curve is already starting to dip. There’s not much headroom left.

That also means losses due to leakage don’t really play much of a role anymore. The days when 40W could be saved by keeping the card cool at the same frequency are gone.

GPU vs. HBM2 Temperatures

Unless the sensors are lying to us, the GPU’s maximum temperature is 84°C (85°C peak), while the HBM2 gets up to 90°C (94°C peak during the stress test). That latter figure seems fairly high, but it does end up close to the ceiling for GDDR5X. We'll keep an eye on both temperatures during future tests; it's important to ensure the sensor data is 100% accurate.

During the stress test, the card heats up so quickly that the curves for the open and closed PC cases are practically on top of each other.

Board Temperatures

What jumps out to us is that the board just below the GPU reads ~5°C cooler than the inside of Vega 10! The obvious question is why. To answer, remember that AMD's Vega 10 GPU and its HBM2 sit on an interposer attached to a package substrate positioned on top of the PCB. The interposer doesn’t seem to make full contact with this substrate, causing a so-called underfill issue. Air between the layers acts almost like insulation.

During the stress test, temperatures are a little lower due to the fan spinning faster and Vega 10's lower (throttled) frequency.

Noise

Using the primary BIOS and the Balanced power profile, Radeon RX Vega 64 generates a maximum of 48.2 dB(A). Switching to Turbo mode causes the card to exceed 50 dB(A).

We praised AMD’s cooling solution in our Vega Frontier Edition review. However, a pleasant breeze turns into a raging tornado this time around due to power consumption that's way too high. Then again, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition with a 295W maximum power target is almost as loud.

The version of AMD’s cooling solution used on Radeon RX Vega 64 is significantly different from the one we found on Vega Frontier Edition. It’s too aggressive, too hot, and, of course, too loud. Designing a thermal solution to be "good enough" never works out well for thermals or noise.

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Conclusion

Let's get the messy stuff out of the way first. Radeon RX Vega 64 is late. It's hot. It's aimed at the competition's third-fastest product (which is 15 months old, uses a lot less power, and is quieter). And a lot of the architecture's new features are future-looking, rather than beneficial today.

AMD chose a $500 price point to match the 1080, then gave Nvidia enough time to make sure cryptocurrency-inflated prices on its cards were reigned in ahead of Vega 64's launch. So now you have a whole handful of third-party GTX 1080s in stock at $500 online.

Yes, AMD does surprise us with performance that typically exceeds our expectations. Based on the company's earlier hints, we were anticipating Radeon RX Vega 64 to tie GTX 1080, at best. However, AMD enjoys an advantage in Doom, The Division, and Dawn of War III. It roughly matches GeForce GTX 1080 in Ashes of the Singularity, Hitman, Metro, and Rise of the Tomb Raider. And it only really loses in Ghost Recon and The Witcher 3. The card is exceptional for 2560x1440 and respectable at Ultra HD, where you'll need to make quality compromises in certain games for smooth frame rates.

Of course, AMD had to flog its Vega 10 GPU to get there. Gaming power consumption in excess of 280W is particularly painful when GeForce GTX 1080 is 100W lower. Even the much faster GeForce GTX 1080 Ti barely passes the 210W mark, based on our measurements. Obviously this isn't an ideal situation, especially when we factor in the temperature and noise measurements. So Vega 64 includes two BIOSes with three power profiles each, allowing enthusiasts to dial in the right balance between performance and acoustics. We plan to test the various outcomes of these settings, but suspect that enthusiasts paying top-dollar for high-end graphics won't want to readily give up frame rates in exchange for a quieter fan. After all, certain GeForce GTX 1080 partner cards already address Vega's shortcomings and have been sitting on shelves for months.

We're hopeful that miners won't snatch up what stock of Radeon RX Vega 64 is made available at launch, so gamers at least have the opportunity to choose between AMD and Nvidia. The Ethereum hash rates we measured using Claymore's GPU Miner v.9.8 were higher than Radeon R9 Fury X, but not so compelling that we'd expect a rush on these $500 cards. For its part, AMD tries to stack the deck in favor of enthusiasts with its Radeon Packs. But to get the $300 in discounts, you have to also purchase an $850 Samsung CF791 monitor, Ryzen 7 1800X, and 370X-based motherboard. It'd be great to see AMD expand the list of options, and we do recognize the company's attempt to keep miners from pricing out everyone else.

There remain plenty of questions to answer about Radeon RX Vega 64. How might we see the driver-based High-Bandwidth Cache Controller option used on the desktop moving forward? Where does the Draw Stream Binning Rasterizer affect performance most? How long will it take game developers to embrace the idea of primitive shaders, and what real-world impact might they have on geometry throughput? The same goes for Rapid Packed Math; we've already seen demos of 16-bit data types improving frame rates without affecting quality. But when will gamers realize a return on buying into this technology?

You see, there's a lot of interesting stuff happening under the hood of Vega. Some of it, like the inherent pricing advantage of FreeSync-capable monitors versus G-Sync, is accessible today. A lot isn't, though. And the card's environmental weaknesses are certainly palpable in daily use. AMD couldn't leave any performance on the table if it wanted a shot at GTX 1080, and that much is apparent in its many features and settings designed to bring power back the other way. We are glad to now have a choice between GeForce and Radeon at the $500 price point. But we don't see the outcome as a definitive win in any one metric.

What prospective buyers of Radeon RX Vega 64 cards may be hoping for are big gains over time, similar to what we saw from Radeon R9 290X and Radeon R9 Fury X. AMD's driver teams have a knack for extracting additional performance from new hardware designs, and this generation is doubly promising for all of the untapped potential tied to Rapid Packed Math, primitive shaders, the Draw Stream Binning Rasterizer functionality, and Vega 10's HBCC. Potential isn't enough to earn our endorsement, but it's clearly part of AMD's Vega story.

Radeon RX Vega 56 is up next on the bench, and AMD seems far more confident in that card's ability to compete against GeForce GTX 1070 in a price/performance face-off. We're looking to add more power analysis, comparisons in VR, and a week-long look at RX Vega availability. Stay tuned!

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AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X Review

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 13:11:00 +0000

Threadripper Makes An Entrance

AMD's 16C/32T Ryzen Threadripper is likely the biggest processor release of the year, quite literally. And that's saying a lot, given the company's rapid-fire releases addressing almost every facet of the desktop market. Now AMD is attacking Intel's high-end desktop stronghold with up to 60% more cores, 36% more PCIe lanes, and 68% more cache than the comparably-priced Skylake-X models. AMD also doesn't hack and slash at its product stack by culling I/O, so the company offers the same connectivity, even on its least-expensive models.

Impressively, all of the new Ryzen 7, 5, and 3 processors utilize the same underlying modular architecture. Threadripper is no exception, though it borrows some of AMD's EPYC data center DNA to take the design to the next level.

Four years ago, Dr. Lisa Su, now AMD's CEO, tasked her team with building a server processor that could compete with Intel's finest. That was an ambitious goal considering how far the company lagged behind its main competitor. AMD's Zen core, which is a clean-sheet design that provides a 52% IPC boost over the company's previous processors, was already underway and destined to power the new chips.

But processor design is a series of compromises. The company quickly learned that it couldn't construct a single monolithic die able to deliver on its performance, memory, and I/O goals. Instead, AMD's engineers put together modular four-core building blocks (CCXes) married in an eight-core die. And so, Zeppelin was born.

Now AMD uses the same Zeppelin building block in all of its processors. This approach is the epitome of maximizing limited resources; AMD can simply add more dies per package to create massively parallel chips, such as Threadripper and EPYC. Of course, there are trade-offs...

Though AMD faced significant headwinds at launch due to its unique Ryzen design, the complementary platform is much more mature, and game developers are doing better about leveraging the architecture's potential. AMD's efforts are paying off, too: Ryzen CPUs continue taking over our list of Best CPUs. Threadripper brings an entirely new set of challenges, but AMD has already designed in a few new features to help on the performance front.

Threadripper 1950X, 1920X & 1900X

It's important to understand Threadripper's intended audience. AMD geared the design for software developers, video/audio engineers, content creators, and heavy multi-taskers. Though Threadripper isn't aimed directly at gamers, particularly those who play at low resolutions with lightly-threaded titles, the company makes provisions for entertainment. The hefty core count should also boost gaming performance during intense streaming workloads, which we are currently testing for an upcoming feature.

The $1000 Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is the leader of AMD's high-end desktop portfolio with 16C/32T, while the smaller 12C/24T 1920X and 8C/16T 1900X round out the family. Much like the rest of its Ryzen line-up, AMD's Threadripper processors offer more cores than Intel at every price point. This time, however, we also get 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes (four of which are dedicated to the chipset) that outweigh Intel's 44-lane flagship Core i9-7980XE. And that chip isn't even available yet.

AMD includes all 64 lanes with each of its three Threadripper models, whereas Intel reduces connectivity for Skylake-X processors below $1000. Dual graphics cards are becoming more of a rarity in high-end gaming machines, but there are plenty of workloads still constrained by I/O. For instance, many taxing content creation workloads require hefty storage accommodations, and streamers often employ dedicated capture cards.

	Threadripper 1950X	Core i9-7900X	Threadripper 1920X	Core i7-7820X	Threadripper 1900X
Price	$999	$999	$799	$599	$549
Interface/Chipset	TR4 / X399	LGA2066 / X299	TR4 / X399	LGA2066 / X299	TR4 / X399
Cores/Threads	16/32	10/20	12/24	8/16	8/16
TDP	180W	140W	180W	140W	180W
Base Frequency (GHz)	3.4	3.3	3.5	3.6	3.8
Boost Frequency (GHz)	4.0 (4.2 XFR)	4.3 / 4.5 (TB 3.0)	4.0 (4.2 XFR)	4.3 / 4.5 (TB 3.0)	4.0 (4.2 XFR)
L3 Cache (L2+L3)	40 MB	23.75 MB	38 MB	19MB	20 MB
Memory Support	DDR4-2667	DDR4-2666	DDR4-2667	DDR4-2666	DDR4-2667
Memory Controller	Quad-Channel	Quad-Channel	Quad-Channel	Quad-Channel	Quad-Channel
Unlocked Multiplier	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PCIe Lanes	64	44	64	28	64

The Threadripper 1950X offers a 3.4 GHz base frequency that boosts to 3.6 GHz during heavily-threaded workloads. Mainstream Ryzen models feature a dual-core Precision Boost during lightly-threaded tasks, but due to Threadripper's dual-die design (which we'll cover on the following page), that expands to a quad-core 4.2 GHz boost. Much like Intel's Skylake-X series, AMD offers unlocked multipliers for all Threadripper models, but improves overclocking frequency and voltage scaling by selecting the top 5% of Zeppelin dies. That should equate to lower voltage requirements compared to Ryzen 7 models.

Each Zeppelin die also sports 16MB of L3 cache, so the Threadripper 1950X wields a total of 32MB. That's a lot more than the 24.75MB Intel enables on its upcoming 18C/36T Core i9-7980XE. Focusing in closer on the $1000 price range, the 1950X provides 18.25MB more L3 cache than Core i9-7900X. Of course, cache latency and bandwidth can be much more important than capacity, so we'll have to measure each company's balance between size and speed.

AMD's dual-die architecture also comes with a 180W TDP rating, which is comparatively higher than Skylake-X's 165W ceiling. Of course, TDP doesn't map directly to power consumption during all workloads. AMD has an extensive set of power reduction features in its SenseMI suite that should help, and we'll present plenty our findings shortly.

Of course, a large 180W TDP processor is going to require a beefy thermal solution, but there aren't any water-coolers designed specifically for Threadripper's massive heat spreader yet. To that end, AMD includes an Asetek bracket to provide compatibility with a wide range of existing closed-loop coolers. The current solution is an adequate stopgap until custom TR4 solutions arrive, but coverage isn't optimal. There are also several air-cooling options available, including special Noctua TR4 designs with larger bases that cover the entire heat spreader surface.

Threadripper features independent dual-channel memory controllers, one per die, that combine to provide quad-channel support with varying data transfer rates (outlined below) based upon memory configurations. The platform supports ECC memory and a functional limit of 256GB of RAM, though it can support up to 2TB of capacity as memory density increases.

Ryzen Threadripper Memory Support	MT/s
Quad-Channel/Dual-Rank/Two DIMMS per Channel (8)	1866
Quad-Channel/Single-Rank/Two DIMMs Per Channel (8)	2133
Quad-Channel/Dual-Rank/One DIMM Per Channel (4)	2400
Quad-Channel/Single-Rank/One DIMM Per Channel (4)	2677

AMD connects the two Zeppelin die via its Infinity Fabric, so data resident in "remote" memory banks suffers higher latency. The company includes two new settings that help offset disadvantages inherent to the distributed memory architecture, which we'll dive into on the next page. A Creator Mode offers the full heft of compute and memory resources for productivity workloads, while Game Mode tries to keep data resident in "local" memory and restricts processing to a single die. The idea of dedicated modes is certainly new to the desktop, and it requires a reboot after each change, but we found that it does offer tangible performance benefits in gaming workloads.

The X399 chipset also debuts with a new TR4 socket in tow, but it is an enthusiast-class platform that has roots in the data center. That means corresponding motherboards will carry a premium over AMD's AM4 line-up, and may even rival the prices of Intel's X299-equipped boards. Naturally, AMD has a solid roster of motherboard partners ready for its Threadripper launch, thus avoiding the maddening delay we experienced with the first Ryzen processors.

In case you had any doubt, this is a premium product. AMD outdoes Intel's packaging with a custom closed-cell foam design that includes a torque wrench. Head over to our unboxing coverage to see the Threadripper packaging in all its glory.

But we're here for performance testing. Let's see if Threadripper lives up to the hype.

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Game Modes & Architecture, Infinity Fabric Latency Testing

We've covered AMD's Zen architecture in depth, and also covered the Infinity Fabric at length. Head over to those articles for more coverage.

The Zeppelin Die Primer

Threadripper's massive package hides much complexity underneath, but we'll do our best to simplify and outline how it relates to AMD's innovative Creator and Game Mode features.

The Zen architecture employs a four-core CCX (CPU Complex) building block. AMD adorns each CCX with 8MB of L3 cache split into four slices; each core in the CCX accesses all L3 slices with the same average latency. Two CCXes come together to create an eight-core Ryzen 7 die (the large orange blocks in the second image below), and they communicate via AMD’s Infinity Fabric interconnect. The CCXes share the same dual-channel memory controller. This is basically two quad-core CPUs talking to each other over the Infinity Fabric pathway that also handles northbridge and PCIe traffic.

All Ryzen 7, 5, and 3 models feature the same single Zeppelin die. Although each core in a four-core CCX can access the local cache with the same average latency, trips to fetch data in adjacent CCXes incurs a latency penalty. Communication between threads on cores located in disparate CCXes also suffers, which is of particular importance for gaming. Many game engines split out various tasks to different threads, but they are reliant upon constant synchronization between them. Developers can defray some of the communication latency by tuning for the Ryzen architecture.

Building The Threadripper

The graphic below represents AMD's EPYC data center processor die, which shares Threadripper's basic design. We can see four separate Zeppelin dies connected via the Infinity fabric, and the two CCXes inside each die. This creates a 32-core Multi-Chip Module (MCM). Of course, Threadripper is "only" a 16-core processor. To create this configuration, AMD substitutes in two 'dummy dies,' which are non-functional fillers that ensure the heat spreader's structural integrity and consistent mating with the socket's pins. Without these dark dies, the IHS would either cave in when you tighten your cooling solution, or the chip would warp and not make full contact with the pins. AMD notes that Threadripper's functional dies are always placed diagonally from each other, which makes sense considering the fabric's design.

Remember, each Zeppelin die has its own memory and PCIe controllers. That means that if a workload executing on a die needs to access data resident in the memory of the other die (remote memory), it has to traverse a much larger gap. This introduces a level of latency we haven't seen from previous Ryzen models, and its effect on gaming performance is profound. The impact isn't as severe with most professional workloads, but some do suffer.

The New Toggles

To defray the impact of remote memory access, AMD introduces a new memory access mode that you can toggle either in the BIOS or with the Ryzen Master software. The Local and Distributed settings flip between either NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) or UMA (Universal Memory Access).

UMA (distributed) is pretty simple; it allows the dies to access all of the attached memory. NUMA mode (local) attempts to keep all data for the process executing on the die confined to its directly attached memory controller. It establishes one NUMA node per die (visible in the task manager). This reduces, and even possibly eliminates, data fetches from the remote memory connected to another die, though the die can still access it if needed. NUMA has deep roots in the enterprise, but the technique works best if programs are designed specifically to utilize it. It's a rarity on the desktop, but even though almost no desktop applications are designed to support it entirely, there can be performance advantages for non-NUMA applications.

AMD's Threadripper introduces more cores to the desktop than we've ever seen; some programs are caught ill-prepared. In fact, a few games like Far Cry Primal and the DiRT series won't even run when the full complement of Threadripper's threads are brought to bear. That's obviously a problem, so AMD created a Legacy Compatibility mode that disables half of the processor's cores by executing a "bcdedit /set numproc XX" command in Windows that effectively disables half of the processor. Luckily, due to the operating system's core assignments, the command disables all of the cores/threads on the second die. That has a side benefit of eliminating thread-to-thread communication between disparate die, serving as a great solution to the constant synchronization between threads during most gaming workloads.

Because the change is made in software, the "disabled" die still has power fed to it, so the system can still access the memory and PCIe controllers connected to the inactive die.

Game Mode And Creator Mode

So what do you do with all these knobs? There are four separate combinations that will impact each application or game differently, so you have to cycle through them to find the best possible combination for your workload. That's a godsend to tuners looking to squeeze out every last drop of performance, but an absolute nightmare for the other 99%.

AMD decided to simplify the process by specifying two combinations that will either work best for games or standard applications. Creator mode, which is the stock configuration, exposes the full might of 32 threads. It should naturally provide excellent performance for most productivity applications.

Game mode cuts half the threads via compatibility mode and reduces memory and die-to-die latency with the Local memory mode. We're going to test both configurations with our gaming suite, and try another configuration that also offers the full complement of threads.

Infinity Fabric Latency Testing

Die-to-die communication adds another layer of latency to Ryzen’s complicated architecture. As you can see, those same latency metrics don’t apply to the earlier Ryzen models. They also present challenges to some applications, such as those with synchronized threads or frequent fetches from remote memory, but have less impact on others.

Processor	Intra-Core Latency	Intra-CCX Core-to-Core Latency	Cross-CCX Core-to-Core Latency	Cross-CCX Average Latency	Die-to-Die Latency	Die-To-Die Average Latency	Average Transfer Bandwidth
TR 1950X Creator Mode DDR-2666	13.7 - 14.1	39.4 - 43.2ns	157.6 - 171.3	168ns	180.6 - 256.7ns	238.47ns	90.26 GB/s
TR 1950X Creator Mode DDR4-3200	13.8 - 14.9	39.2 - 45.4ns	144.9 - 167.2ns	160.1ns	213.1 - 227.8ns	216.9ns	91.67 GB/s
TR 1950X Game Mode DDR4-2666	13.9 - 14.2ns	39.5 - 42.3ns	149.2 - 164.1ns	159.66ns	X	X	46.58 GB/s
TR 1950X Game Mode DDR4-3200	14.3 - 14.9ns	41.2 - 46.2ns	123 - 150.6ns	145.44ns	X	X	45.52 GB/s
TR 1950X Local/SMT DDR4-2666	13.9 - 14.4ns	39.6 - 43.1ns	168.7 - 175.4ns	171.48ns	232.4 - 240.8	235.38ns	92.7 GB/s
TR 1950X Local/SMT DDR4-3200	13.9 - 14.4ns	39.9 - 44.5ns	146.7 - 159.4ns	153.89ns	209.3 - 220.9ns	212.53ns	91 GB/s
Ryzen 7 1800X	14.8ns	40.5 - 82.8ns	120.9 - 126.2ns	122.96ns	X	X	48.1 GB/s
Ryzen 5 1600X	14.7 - 14.8ns	40.6 - 82.8ns	121.5 - 128.2ns	123.48ns	X	X	43.88 GB/s

The intra-core latency measurements represent communication between two logical threads resident on the same physical core, and they're unaffected by memory speed. Intra-CCX measurements quantify latency between threads that are on the same CCX but not resident on the same core. In the past, we observed slight performance variances, but intra-CCX latency is also largely unaffected by memory speed. However, we've seen a large decrease in cross-CCX latency, which denotes latency between threads located on two separate CCXes, by increasing the memory data transfer rate from DDR4-1333 to DDR4-3200 on Ryzen 5 and 7 models.

The same general trend continues with Threadripper. As we can see, toggling game mode removes the die-to-die latency for threads by effectively disabling one die, but it also reduces host processing resources. It’s an interesting feature that will benefit some workloads, but hamstring others.

We also notice that the Local/SMT combination, which consists of the local setting and leaves all cores active (legacy off), offers the best overall latency improvement via memory overclocking. We also recorded higher Cross-CCX latency with the Threadripper processors.

Processor	Intra-Core Latency	Core-To-Core Latency	Core-To-Core Average Latency	Average Transfer Bandwidth
Core i9-7900X	14.5 - 16ns	69.3 - 82.3ns	75.56ns	83.21 GB/s
Core i9-7900X @ 3200 MT/s	16 - 16.1ns	76.8 - 91.3ns	83.93ns	87.31 GB/s
Core i7-6950X	13.5 - 15.4ns	54.5 - 70.3ns	64.64ns	65.67 GB/s
Core i7-7700K	14.7 - 14.9ns	36.8 - 45.1ns	42.63ns	35.84 GB/s

We are in the midst of a broader set of tests to quantify how these modes impact memory latency and bandwidth, among other factors. Stay tuned.

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TR4 Socket, X399 Chipset & Test Setup

The Threadripper TR4 Socket

Accommodating AMD's massive Threadripper processors required a new interface. Socket TR4 (SP3r2) for X399 motherboards boasts 4094 pins, which is much more complex than Intel's LGA 2066 interface found on X299-equipped motherboards. Socket TR4 socket marks AMD's transition from a PGA (Pin Grid Array) with the first Ryzen models to an LGA (Land Grid Array) implementation.

The processor employs a unique mounting process that should be safer than the normal latching mechanism, all the while remaining simple. Just remove the three Torx screws in a pre-defined order and the retention mechanism swings open. There is another assembly underneath that you also swing open. Pull out an internal plastic cover, and then slide the processor—contained in an orange plastic shroud—into the carriage. It's important to leave the black cover over the socket until you install the processor in the flip-up housing. Those pins are fragile.

After sliding the processor into its carriage, you remove the socket cover and swing the processor down into the socket. Then you swing down the mounting mechanism and tighten the fasteners (in the listed order) with the bundled Torx T20 torque wrench. We've included a picture of AMD's recommended TIM application technique. Heat sink installation requires four additional fasteners.

Socket AM4, like Threadripper, has its roots in the EPYC data center design. But the processors aren't interchangeable.

The X399 Chipset

The X399 chipset supports two USB 3.1 Gen2 and six USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, along with six USB 2.0 connections. Two PCIe 3.0 lanes allow motherboard vendors to add more storage connectivity (four SATA or two SATA Express), and the eight general-purpose PCIe 2.0 lanes accommodate other controllers, such as Ethernet or WLAN/Bluetooth. Eight SATA ports round out the chipset's connectivity options, and you can leverage several RAID configurations with the attached SATA devices. Unfortunately, NVMe RAID isn't supported in hardware yet, though software RAID is still an option.

The Threadripper processor provides an additional eight USB 3.1 Gen1 ports and four SATA connections (hardware RAID supported). The 60 remaining PCIe lanes support up to seven PCIe devices. Overall, the platform provides a wealth of connectivity options.

Comparison Products

Ryzen 7 1800X

Intel Core i9-7900X

Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X

Test Systems

We introduced our new test system and methodology in How We Test Graphics Cards. If you'd like more detail about our general approach, check that piece out.

In this case, only the hardware configuration with CPU, RAM, mainboard, as well as the new cooling system are different, so the summary in table form gives a quick overview of the systems used:

Test System and Configuration
Hardware	Germany AMD Socket SP3 (TR4)AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950XAsus X399 ROG Zenith Extreme4x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 4GB G.Skill RipJaws IV DDR4-2600AMD Socket AM4 WorkstationAMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1600X, 1500XMSI X370 Tomahawk4x 8GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200Intel LGA 2011v3Intel Core i7-6900KMSI X99S XPower Gaming Titanium4x 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4-2400Intel LGA 1151Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2400 MT/sAll SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders EditionNvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)USAMD Socket SP3 (TR4)AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950XAsus X399 ROG Zenith Extreme4x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sIntel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900X, i7-7820XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAMD Socket AM4 AMD Ryzen 7 1800XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium2x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 3200 MT/sIntel LGA 1151 Intel Core i5-7700K MSI Z270 Gaming M72x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3200 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAll EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK
PC Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Extension Kit and Mods Configurations: Open Benchtable, Closed Case
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

Testing Notes

As discussed on page two, Threadripper offers both Creator and Game modes to tailor the processor for different applications. We tested with both to compare the gaming-optimized and out-of-box configurations. Threadripper processors also feature two switches that allow for even more unique configurations, so we also tested with the full complement of cores (legacy off) and memory access set to "local." These “Local/SMT” results provide a nice boost for heavily-threaded games, particularly in overclocked configurations.

Most charts are presented in their entirety. But due to space constraints with our frame time variance graphs, we often include secondary charts with additional Threadripper performance data.

AMD notes that some games prefer different configurations, but we don’t have a detailed list of preferred settings for individual titles. Hopefully our results serve as a guide to gamers looking for the best settings.

Intel also released new microcode for its Skylake-X processors recently, which reduces performance in some titles and lowers the AVX offset by two bins. We also noticed far lower Turbo Boost activation thresholds, though that could separately be the result of MSI's newest BIOS. The changes likely come in response to some of the power and thermal issues we encountered during our extended testing. We consequently retested both Skylake-X processors with the newest microcode.

AMD's Ryzen gaming performance is also a moving target, though it continues to improve over time. Today's story reflects all processors re-tested with the latest chipset, BIOS, GPU drivers, and game patches. We're also deploying a new test image and game suite, so the results contained herein are only directly comparable to our Ryzen 3 1300X review.

VRMark & 3DMark

We aren't big fans of using synthetic benchmarks to measure game performance, but 3DMark's DX11 and DX12 CPU tests provide useful insight into the amount of horsepower available to game engines.

VRMark prizes IPC throughput and frequency. AMD's Ryzen Threadripper processors fall to the bottom of the chart, while the Intel models lead. We suspect that VRMark lacks some of the optimizations incorporated into other games.

The Threadripper 1950X fares much better during the heavily-threaded DX11 physics test, where it leads by a large margin. And it squeezes by the overclocked Core i9-7900X during the DX12 CPU test due to its copious core count. The Core i7-7700K suffers through these two tests due to its quad-core design.

Gaming performance, from a host processing perspective, relies on generating the maximum amount of draw calls (sometimes tens of millions per second) using the relevant API. AMD's Threadripper 1950X shows well in our heavily-threaded DX12 tests. But Vulkan performance suffers with all 32 threads active.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation is a computationally intense title that scales well with thread count. That’s music to Threadripper’s ears as the overclocked configuration leads. Intel's 10-core -7900X puts up a stout defense with 60% fewer cores, though.

The 1950X doesn’t fare as well out of the box; an eight-core i7-7820X manages to beat the 16-core contender.

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Civilization VI, Battlefield 1 & Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

Quad-core processors tend to provide the best results in Civilization VI's AI test, which measures available computational horsepower during a turn-based strategy gaming session.

The Core i9-7900X puts on an impressive show, though, as it vies for supremacy with Intel's -7700K. The overclocked 1950X in Game Mode provides solid performance, though it drops to the bottom of our chart in its stock configuration. Interestingly, the 1950X using Local/SMT settings yields the best results in an out-of-the-box arrangement, though it drops down the chart after overclocking. This is the only game in which we see this repeatable trend.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Skylake-X has a tendency to perform poorly in this test, which is likely due to some of the regressions we encountered with Intel’s new mesh architecture. The stock Threadripper processors outperform Intel’s finest. Notably, the overclocked 1950X with Local/SMT settings also beats the Core i9. You can clearly see a few of the -7900X’s hiccups in our frame time chart. All the while, a tuned Core i7-7700K dominates.

Battlefield 1 (DX11)

The stock Threadripper processors stumble during the first seconds of our test sequence, resulting in much of the frame time variance you see in our chart. The tuned 1950X in Game Mode avoids this early choppiness and provides the best overall performance from AMD. It’s notable that the delta between most of the processors is smaller than we see in other titles, though the overclocked Core i9-7900X provides a bit of extra horsepower to distance itself slightly.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

The eight-core i7-7820X struggles during our benchmark run, though it does beat AMD's stock 1950X in Local/SMT mode. We realize a large improvement from Threadripper simply by toggling into Game Mode. Meanwhile, a decent 3.9 GHz overclock doesn’t provide much extra performance. That stands in contrast to the large overclocking gains extracted from Core i7-7700K and i9-7900X, implying this game might benefit from optimization.

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Grand Theft Auto V, Hitman & Shadow of Mordor

Grand Theft Auto V

We measure performance during Grand Theft Auto V's F-16 flight sequence with the built-in benchmark.

Grand Theft Auto V has always played well with the Intel architecture's high frequencies and IPC throughput, and that trend continues during today's round of testing. Both Core processors respond well to overclocking, while the Threadripper 1950X gains minimal uplift. The overclocked Local/SMT setting enables optimal performance, but it doesn’t significantly affect the finishing order.

The Core i9-7900X provides the best 99^th percentile measurements by a large margin.

Hitman (2016)

We encountered quite a bit of variability with the Ryzen Threadripper processors (particularly from the 1950X) during our Hitman test sequence. Even tuning does little to rectify the frame time outliers. Interestingly, AMD's Game Mode under-performs Creator's Mode by a sizeable margin.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

The overclocked Core i7-7700K carves out a lead in this lightly-threaded game. The more expensive processors all feature similar average frames rates, while we do encounter several frame time outliers with a tuned -7900X. The Ryzen 7 1800X and Threadripper processors provide the most consistent frame time profiles.

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Project CARS & Far Cry Primal

Project CARS

Project CARS is a CPU-intensive title that promotes parallelism by breaking tasks into smaller chunks and spreading them among available cores.

This game is dominated by the overclocked Core i7-7700K. Considering its relatively low price point, the Kaby Lake-based chip continued delivering excellent gaming value.

Much like the -7700K outperforms its high-end desktop counterparts, Ryzen 7 1800X also outpaces AMD's pricier CPUs. The Threadripper 1950X beats Intel's -7820X, and tuning widens the gap.

Far Cry Primal

Far Cry Primal does not initialize when it detects Threadripper's 32 threads, so we tested it with Legacy mode selected.

Intel's stock -7700K suffers several disturbing frame time outliers that manifest as visible stuttering during the benchmark.

Ryzen 7 1800X offers almost the same performance as the tuned Threadripper 1950X, suggesting that it might be a better value if you are strictly interested in gaming. The less expensive Ryzen 7 1700 facilitates similar overclocking headroom, and thus performance, in a majority of our game tests. That translates to additional value for enthusiasts willing to overclock.

An overclocked -7700K delivers the best performance by a significant margin during the benchmark's opening seconds. This translates to a higher average frame rate, but a 99th percentile measurement of 15.6ms. The Ryzen 7 1800X and Threadripper 1950X offer slightly better 99th percentile measurements of 15.3ms and 15.1ms, respectively.

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Rise of the Tomb Raider & The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider has long been a thorn in Ryzen's side due to architectural eccentricities. Recent game patches have cleared up most of the inexplicable anomalies, thankfully.

The tuned Threadripper 1950X in Game Mode provides solid performance in this title, outpacing the less complex 1800X.

Intel's Core i7-7700K continues to leverage a single-threaded performance advantage, though an overclocked -7900X offers similar performance.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

That large frame time spike in the benchmark's early section is a scene transition. All of our contenders suffer to some extent during this switch, though AMD's Threadripper 1950X stumbles more than the others.

Regardless, the overall delta between processors in our test pool is relatively small, and the 1950X offers a competitive 99th percentile frame time measurement.

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DTP, Office, Multimedia & Compression Performance

Although we usually don’t run our application benchmarks on overclocked processors, we're including the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X at stock and overclocked frequencies this time, since we wanted to know how AMD’s architecture scales in different scenarios.

To be fair, we also added a (reasonably) overclocked Intel Core i9-7900X to our results. This makes for an interesting comparison, especially when we see later that both AMD’s and Intel’s flagship processors break the 250W barrier during a rendering workload.

DTP & Presentation

Adobe’s Creative Cloud gives us a look at single- and multi-core performance. As such, it beats synthetic benchmarks as a productivity test.

After Effects CC is a classic when it comes to parallelized tasks, with the number of cores easily being more important than frequency. Conversely, InDesign CC shows Intel’s Skylake-X in the back of the pack, whereas Core i7-7700K scores major points with its high clock rate. Likewise, AMD’s Ryzen 7 beats Ryzen Threadripper, regardless of frequency.

Adobe’s Illustrator CC leaves us scratching our heads in confusion: the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X lands in dead last. Overclocking doesn’t make much of a difference.

Encoding & Multimedia

It’s Threadripper’s time to shine in our HandBrake benchmark. AMD’s processors just crunch those numbers no matter the selected quality setting (even though Intel’s Core i9-7900X ends up right between the Threadripper CPUs with HandBrake set to normal quality).

The order changes at the more demanding high-quality setting. Intel’s large processor can only keep up if it’s overclocked quite a bit first.

Compression & Decompression

AMD's Threadripper processors continue their number-crunching winning streak when it comes to compressing large files. Again, they leave Intel’s Core i9-7900X in the dust, until it gets overclocked.

Intel’s Core i7-7700K easily beats the entire field in our decompression benchmark due to its higher frequency. Still, AMD’s Threadripper processors do well, and they once again best Intel’s Skylake-X flagship at stock clock rates.

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2D & 3D Workstation Performance

2D Workstation Performance

Tom’s Hardware Synthetic 2D Benchmarks

We take a look at direct device write throughput first. The graphics driver uses the CPU heavily for this task, but doesn’t employ many threads. There hasn’t been true 2D hardware acceleration since the introduction of the unified shader architecture, after all. Microsoft's Windows driver model provides a huge obstacle for 2D hardware acceleration as well.

The results are surprising: AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper dominates the field, including the Core i7-7700K that’s usually a strong contender.

AutoCAD 2016 (2D)

3D Workstation Performance

AutoCAD 2016 (3D)

Clock rate trumps core count. AMD’s Ryzen 7 and Ryzen Threadripper end up fairly close to each other. AutoCAD’s performance turns out to be close to that of older games, since it uses DirectX and isn’t really optimized to take advantage of multiple cores.

Cinebench R15 OpenGL

The Cinebench R15 OpenGL benchmark demonstrates what happens when software isn’t optimized for AMD’s Ryzen processors. Clock rate edges out core count, and Cinebench R15 OpenGL retains its tendency to favor Intel processors.

SolidWorks 2015

The same goes for SolidWorks 2015. Even a Threadripper 1950X processor overclocked to 3.8 GHz loses to a Ryzen 7 1800X. Changing the memory access setting in the BIOS would result in parity. However, doing so would also negatively impact most compute tasks. It’s one or the other, and we can’t have both. This is a hard decision that comes down to which of the two is more important.

Creo 3.0

The trend continues with Creo 3.0. For AMD’s Threadripper processor, core count edges out clock rate this time around. Still, it ends up at the bottom of this 3D benchmark heap. Optimized BIOS settings would push it up to the middle of the field, but would also negatively impact the CPU composite score, which can be found on the next page.

Blender (Real-time 3D Preview)

Notwithstanding Intel's Core i7-7700K, the Blender benchmark results are acceptable. Taken together with the fantastic rendering performance, which is shown on the following page, things look good.

Catia V6 R2012

This is one of the graphics benchmarks that has been optimized time and again (it’s part of the free SPECviewperf 12 suite). Clock frequency is important to this metric.

Maya 2013

The same can be said for Maya 2013. Note that the real-time 3D output numbers don’t tell the whole story. AMD’s Threadripper processors fare a lot better when it comes to final rendering.

For pure design and drafting work, AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is a respectable option. It isn't great either, though. In the end, it can be used for these professional tasks if you simultaneously hit it with other workloads that need to be completed at the same time. Otherwise, fewer cores operating at higher clocks tend to offer better performance.

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CPU Computing & Rendering Performance

CPU Workstation Performance

Many modern suites include modules that are based exclusively on computing and simulations. This means we need to go beyond just 3D workstation performance to form our opinion of these high-end CPUs.

SolidWorks, for instance, doesn't scale well with increasing core count, which means that even quad-core processors with high IPC (and SMT) do well. AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper processor keeps up with respectable results.

Frequency is what matters in Creo 3.0, so long as your CPU offers at least eight threads.

Clock rate and core count matter in 3ds Max 2015. Intel’s Core i7-7700K performs surprisingly well due to its high frequency. It would fare a lot worse if we turned off Hyper-Threading.

The CPU composite score includes rendering, which has its own separate section right below. Consequently, AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper processor does really well.

CPU Performance: Photorealistic Rendering

Final rendering doesn’t require a CPU that's good at everything. Rather, this task wants efficiency and fast parallel computation.

Nobody beats AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper when it comes to rendering in 3ds Max 2015. Core count is much more important than clock rate, and performance scales beautifully with added on-die execution resources.

The console version of LuxRender confirms these results. The 1950X is in a league of its own.

Last but not least, we take a look at Blender. The usual workload (with a sample size of 200 pixels) confirms what we saw in the preceding benchmarks. The Threadripper 1950X finishes way ahead of the field.

The results obtained from SPECwpc’s Blender loop look very similar, even though this benchmark presents a somewhat different task consisting of more than just rendering.

With the rendering portion of the workload easing up, a stock Intel Core i9-7900X rejoins the party.

This trend gets stronger once multiple factors play a role in the benchmark loop, not just photorealistic rendering. It’s not exclusively up to core count anymore, but IPC’s important as well in this scenario.

Intel’s Core i9 CPUs offer acceptable performance for the semi-professional field. However, practically the same can be said for AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper processor. Depending on the task, it ranges from being able to keep up reasonably well to beating the competition hands-down. We’ve waited a long time to say that. The accolades are well deserved!

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Scientific & Engineering Computations, & HPC Performance

Rodinia

The pre-Euler3D CFD test (Computational Fluid Dynamics benchmark) runs very well, with AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper posting great results. It’s interesting to see that the overclocked processors don’t really improve performance all that much.

Convolution

In this benchmark, a mathematical operation is performed on two functions (convolution), which results in a third function. Performance scales similarly well with core count and clock rate.

CalculiX

This test is based on the finite element method for three-dimensional structural computations. The Ryzen Threadripper 1950X does edge out Intel’s Core i9-7900X flagship.

Poisson's Equation

Poisson's Equation is a second-order partial differential equation widely used in physics for boundary value problems.

Overclocking AMD’s Threadripper processors doesn’t yield much of a performance increase. Meanwhile, Intel’s Core i9-7900X dominates the field. The Threadripper chip posts better results than Intel’s remaining Core i9 CPUs, but it needs a lot more cores in order to keep up.

Sequential Reweighted Message Passing (SRMP)

These are algorithms for discrete energy minimization. None of AMD’s processors do well. However, the Threadripper CPU is able to compensate to some degree using core count, whereas the Ryzen 7 CPUs fall way behind.

Kirchhoff Migration

The earth’s subsurface structure can be determined via seismic processing. One of the four basic steps in this process is the Kirchhoff Migration, which is used to generate an image based on the available data using mathematical operations. This benchmark and its underlying computations turn out to be a great fit for AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper processor.

The Threadripper 1950X is a good choice for these tasks. The only exceptions are software packages that just aren't well-optimized for it, such as the SRMP test. Surely, developers will be more cognizant of AMD's hardware moving forward, now that the company has a competitive architecture designed to tantalize this market.

Consequently, negative outliers should become a less and less frequent, just as they have on the desktop with Ryzen 7, 5, and 3. Bottom line: the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is a great choice when computing power and easily parallelized tasks are involved.

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Overclocking, Cooling & Temperature

The Right Cooling Solution

AMD doesn't use thermal paste between the Ryzen Threadripper processors’ dies and integrated heat spreader. Instead, it went with good old solder. This decision should prove critical during our overclocking efforts.

Most reviewers (us included) received all-in-one liquid coolers for their Threadripper CPUs. They're made by Thermaltake and include a flat 360mm radiator with three 120mm fans.

Fully assembled, and sitting next to the motherboard and RGB-lit memory sticks, the whole kit lights up like a Christmas tree. At least it was (almost) fully functional. The only exception was the original thermal paste on Asetek's pump. There was simply not enough of it. Even without overclocking, AMD’s new processor can hit 180W under heavy load, and its heat spreader is relatively large. This combination requires a different approach. Instead of the usual centered blob, we drew a thick line with the thermal paste. We then put the pump in place and gently rotated it back and forth while manually applying some pressure. Only then did we screw it in place.

Installing Your Own Water Cooler

We’ve already reported how AMD changed its interface for Socket TR4 (SP3r2). One of the most important alterations involves the screws. AMD went with M3.5 screws, an uncommon size with a fine thread. You won’t find these at your local hardware store. The difference can easily be spotted in the picture below, with our purchase on the left and an original AM4 screw on the right:

Simply shipping brackets of a different size won’t do the trick here. The acquisition of suitable screws is also necessary. The socket’s threads don’t go all the way through, which is to say that they aren’t open in the back. So, the screws also need to be of the correct length. We tried 20mm screws, and they turned out to be too long. Then we experimented with fitting spacers. A good length for the screws would have been 15mm, but this might vary depending on the bracket’s thickness.

The next question, which is even more important than the first one, is how much pressure to apply. We used a special torque wrench with very small steps and M3.5 screws with internal hexagonal threads, and started with a reasonable 0.1Nm. From approximately 0.25Nm, we couldn’t detect any further gains in cooling performance, so that's where we stopped. A sensible maximum pressure is approximately 0.35Nm.

The picture below shows our completely installed cooling solution. The CPU block’s an Alphacool XPX with a bracket for AMD’s Socket TR4 (SP3r2). The polyamide washers are used as spacers and take the place of springs. The top washers are made of steel to keep the head of the cylinder from boring into the much softer washer material during the CPU block’s installation.

Overclocking

Our Ryzen Threadripper 1950X sample overclocked to 3.9 GHz and 1.35V. However, the all-in-one water cooling solution in our kit couldn’t keep the system stable at that level. This was due to the processors’ power consumption rising to more than 250W during rendering.

And so we went back to our Chiller to achieve some better comparisons. This way, there’s one true constant to our measurements: a water temperature of approximately 20°C, which can be held constant, even topping more than 300W of waste heat.

For everyday use, a normal water-cooling solution will definitely suffice thanks to the soldered heat spreader, which makes AMD’s processor much less of a challenge than Intel's Core i9-7900X. Our approach simply allows us a bit more sophistication in our overclocking endeavors.

Using the Chiller, AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 1950X achieved 4 GHz at 1.45V. Just don't expect to see those results from your own overclock. Even the Chiller started to fall behind the CPU's thermal output as temperatures crept too high for comfort. This is why the processor is overclocked to more reasonable levels for our benchmarks, with Threadripper running at 3.9 GHz.

Maximum Temperatures: Stock Clock Rate

AMD circulated a 27°C addition to the Tctl values, which is supposed to amount to the average core temperature. This sounds about right to us after taking a look at the temperature difference between Tctl and Tdie (the latter being the chip temperature). Between this and the fact that a huge cooler made it practically impossible to conduct our own heat spreader measurements, we're forgoing the delta measurements you saw in our Ryzen 3, 5, and 7 reviews.

We stick with the water cooling solution that AMD provided for our first results. As a bit of a power consumption spoiler, the motherboard limits the two CPUs between 179 and 180W. This upper boundary can’t even be exceeded for short periods of time using normal motherboard settings.

Here are the temperature curves:

The CPU temperature values reported by HWInfo64 through Asus' separate sensor loop are between 6°C and 12°C lower than the Tctl values, and they rise more slowly. The voltage converter temperatures of just under 60°C, achieved without any additional cooling, are great.

Maximum Temperatures: Overclocked

Increasing voltages to guarantee stable operation pushes the processor well beyond its sweet spot. Consequently, power consumption goes through the roof. Operating well beyond 300W poses a challenge for any cooling solution. That's why we're using the Chiller. We did try a normal water-cooling loop though, resulting in the Tctl and Tdie values going up by ~10°C to 15°C. This is well within an acceptable range.

The overclocked 1950X peaks at a hefty 320 to 325W. Using the Chiller, this level of power consumption is accompanied by Tctl values of 87°C. That’s actually not as severe as it seems once the offset and Tdie values are taken into account. A real temperature of approximately 60°C serves as a great demonstration of why solder is superior to thermal paste. Intel's Core i9-7900X could have had so much potential if the company hadn't taken the easy way out.

Voltage Converter Temperatures

We’ll conduct a separate test with different loads and X399 motherboards in the future. As for the Asus X399 ROG Zenith, its voltage converters generally stay under 100°C without any additional air cooling, even as AMD's CPU consumes well over 300W.

Asus set its throttling temperature threshold to 105°C. Even a bit of airflow helps, though. This is demonstrated quite nicely by the temperature curves for the overclocked configuration above. The fan that’s installed right above the I/O shield doesn’t really have any effect, unless you count its unnecessarily high noise level. Asus should have done without this gimmick.

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Power Consumption

We establish the package’s power consumption results by using a special sensor loop. This way, our values represent the exact amount of power that goes into the CPU and then reemerges in the form of power loss, which is to say waste heat dissipated by the cooling subsystem. We check our sensor readings using shunts and measuring overall power consumption directly at the EPS connector (current probe and direct voltage measurement).

The CPU values supplied by the voltage converters on the motherboard via HWinfo64 are sufficiently precise for our purposes, even though the measurement intervals are longer than those of our oscilloscope. We retested Intel’s Core i9-7900X after overclocking it to 4.5 GHz and added its results to the graphs to provide a fair comparison.

We need to note that AMD’s Threadripper CPUs use different partial voltages for the SOC and SMU rails at different clock rates. These partial voltages, which, again, depend on the frequency, do have an influence on the overall package’s power consumption results. AMD recommended that we use the profile included with their 32GB DDR4-3200 kit. If the memory was operated using the standard SPD values for DDR4-2133, then the power consumption would be 15W lower!Both of AMD’s CPUs are designed for a maximum power consumption of 180W at their default settings. If the memory’s overclocked, then the CPU gets 15W less, which might affect performance in usage scenarios that employ all of the cores and, consequently, get too close to the limit.

Idle Power Consumption

Compared to AMD’s Ryzen 7, the Threadripper’s idle power consumption is just over twice as high. However, Threadripper also hosts two dies instead of one, and it also hits higher clock rates under occasional loads. The overclocked version utilizes higher voltages as well, and we just mentioned the memory’s role in power consumption.

CAD Workload Power Consumption

AutoCAD 2016 rarely uses more than two or three cores for its usual tasks. In fact, most of the time it's limited to a single core. Thus, it's not surprising that the CAD power consumption only adds a maximum of 15W to the idle power numbers, especially since the latter’s not truly idle power consumption to begin with.

The two overclocked versions add another 14W, which makes for an almost 30W difference compared to the idle power consumption. And then there’s the memory, of course.

Gaming Power Consumption

When it comes to gaming, we see an issue where Threadripper’s many cores get in each others' way. Consequently, overall performance ends up lackluster. The power consumption’s on the same level as that of Intel’s Core i9-7900X, even though Skylake-X fares much better in the benchmarks. The results are similar to those we reported for the real-time 3D CAD benchmarks.

Stress Test & Maximum Power Consumption

Power consumption goes through the roof during our stress test. This is especially true for the overclocked configurations.

In the case of a stock Intel Core i9-7900X, the motherboard has to shoulder some of the blame for this. It doesn’t lower the processor’s clock rate in accordance with the rules, but leaves them at a much higher level.

AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper doesn’t have those kinds of issues. The Asus X399 ROG Zenith Extreme motherboard limits power consumption to exactly 180W, just as it should, when using the default settings. Things look a whole lot different once the processor is manually overclocked to maximize its frequency, though. The 1950X needs 1.35V to achieve 3.9 GHz. At that point, AMD's new processors join Intel's overclocked Core i9-7900X well beyond 300W.

Bottom Line

Depending on the task, Threadripper's two dies sometimes consume more power than other processors’ single dies. This is to be expected when all cores are operating at full load. The high power consumption’s okay if it’s put in the context of correspondingly high application performance, as long as the work that’s being done has been parallelized well and the software is optimized for AMD's architecture.

Unfortunately, Threadripper's efficiency during gaming turns out to be significantly worse than Intel’s. Skylake enjoys notably higher IPC, after all. A large portion of Threadripper's higher power consumption comes simply from a baseline that notches up from Ryzen 7. Even at idle, it draws an additional 15W or so. If those 15W are subtracted from Threadripper's gaming power consumption, then the results look a lot better. It brings their lower power consumption increase compared to idle in line with their lower gaming performance.

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Final Analysis

AMD’s mainstream Ryzen CPUs heralded the return of competition in the desktop processor market. Now, AMD brings the same Zen architecture and strategy to the high-end desktop, and we’ve already seen Intel’s reaction in the form of lower prices for its (still-pricey) Skylake-X line-up.

First, the elephant in the room: AMD positions Threadripper for creators, heavy multi-taskers, and gamers who stream to services like Twitch. It also specifically states that the processor isn’t intended for low-resolution gaming, particularly under lightly-threaded titles.

We are going to explore more intense use-cases in an upcoming feature, but were unable to complete streaming testing due to the usual time constraints we face during a launch window. We did run some ad hoc tests and were able to easily play Mafia 3 at 4K while encoding a video and running a virtual machine, which we could still access via remote desktop. We didn’t experience any significant performance degradation via our own subjective measure. Still, we prefer hard data and will work at putting definitive results behind the experience.

High-resolution gaming is unequivocally a niche, according to Steam's Hardware and Software Survey, but it's clearly growing in popularity. Of course, enthusiasts who spend $1000 on a processor are far more likely to use high-resolution monitors. But testing at 1440p or 4K very obviously pushes the bottleneck back over to the GPU. And because we're testing CPUs in these reviews, we deliberately use 1080p as a tool to emphasize broad differences between architectures and more specific deltas separating models. As GPUs evolve, higher resolutions should become more processor-bound, and hopefully by then we'll see more optimization for lots of cores.

It’s clear that Intel's Core i9-7900X offers better average frame rates during purely gaming workloads, but our standard practice of focusing on 99^th percentile metrics takes performance and smoothness into consideration. We’re looking at a five FPS delta between the stock -7900X and Threadripper’s best stock configuration in all games, and six FPS for new games. That gap becomes seven and four FPS, respectively, after overclocking both processors. You can imagine that gap will shrink at higher resolutions.

We didn’t add platform costs to our price efficiency charts because all high-end parts drop into obviously premium platforms, and X399 is no exception. But be mindful that you'll pay a lot more for a HEDT platform than the two mainstream configurations we tested. Cheaper alternatives like the Core i7-7700K and Ryzen 7 series are likely better for the folks who are interested in gaming, first and foremost. Much like our recommendations for Intel’s high-end desktop processors, we don’t recommend AMD’s flagship 1950X for strictly gaming, either.

If your workloads are CPU-bound, though, Threadripper shines in our benchmarks written to exploit as many cores as you can throw at them. Threadripper outpaces the similarly-priced -7900X in rendering, encoding, and compression. As expected, it isn’t quite as nimble in lightly-threaded applications, such as decompression and portions of the Adobe suite. Those applications continue to favor Intel’s IPC throughput and frequency.

After the Ryzen launch, AMD was faced with the challenge of quickly maturing its motherboard ecosystem and convincing game developers to optimize existing titles for the new architecture. The company has met with success on many fronts in a relatively brief time (it’s hard to believe it’s only been five months), and enablement continues. Threadripper is a unique product that introduces even more complex challenges. No doubt, AMD is ready to take action on those, too. Case in point: Threadripper offers so many cores that some games won't even load. No doubt, Intel will face the same conundrum in the future as it scales out its architectures as well.

AMD is obviously aware of the challenges it faces. Using a combination of BIOS switches and Windows-based utilities, it exposes several knobs that ensure compatibility and address the architectural eccentricities of a data center-inspired desktop product. We’re sure to see well-heeled enthusiasts work through the settings to find the best combinations, even if most want to use Threadripper the way it ships. Of course, we like to experiment, so we’ll spend the coming weeks working on more stressful use-cases and finding the best combinations for different workloads.

Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is a solid entrant for AMD, and the company knows it's going after a niche market here. Those who need what Threadripper offers likely already know. And if that's you, we have to imagine you're elated to know there's an alternative to Intel's steep buy-in, particularly now that AMD is winning in benchmarks it hasn't won in a very long time.

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Xidax X-6 Desktop Review

Derek Forrest — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 01:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

Custom PC builder Xidax was eager to send us the newest version of its X-6 desktop, so we configured a new Z270 test bed and put the tempered-glass-adorned gaming rig through its paces. With extras, including LED lighting, sleeved power cables, and overclocked components (CPU and GPU), the Xidax X-6 looks the part of a beastly gaming system, but can the flashy chassis and boosted performance justify a $2,094 price tag on a Core i7 and GTX 1070-equipped PC? Let’s find out.

Specifications

Exterior

Xidax has a floating inventory of configurable components, meaning that month to month, or even week to week, the company often changes its configurators to reflect the parts it can currently offer. This mostly occurs with storage, GPU, power supply, and case options, and the pricing for the machines doesn’t vary; if something is on the configurator one day but isn’t the next, it’s usually replaced with an option at the same price.

The same holds true for its cases; the X-6 unit we received features the Xidax Vertex chassis (which is really just a Bitfenix Aurora case), and it’s currently unavailable on the company’s website (however, a white version is in stock). We reached out to Xidax to see what this was about, and we were told that the black version of its Vertex case would return to the configurator once the company gets more stock.

Despite the company’s tricky inventory system, the Xidax X-6 we have is gorgeous. The chassis features a steel and plastic construction, with the top of the case sporting a smooth surface and slim, styled exhaust vents on the lengthy edges of the panel. Tempered-glass side panels on either side of the case give it a sleek look, and the left side panel prominently bears a Xidax logo and gives you a full view of the interior components, made even more visible with the glow of a green LED strip and fans. The glass panel on the right side is tinted dark black on one side (the interior side of the glass) so that you don’t see the cables underneath.

The front I/O resides on the top of the case. There are two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, in addition to mic-in and headphone-out 3.5mm audio jacks (one of each). The rear motherboard I/O panel four USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.1 Gen2 ports (a Type-A and a Type-C), and a PS/2 combo port. Although the Type-C interface supports transfer speeds up to 10 Gb/s, Thunderbolt 3 connectivity isn’t part of the package.

The motherboard also features an RJ-45 Ethernet port (powered by an Intel i219-V gigabit Ethernet NIC), in addition to a DVI-D and HDMI 1.4 interface for display output. However, you won’t need the ports on the motherboard for your monitor; the primary GPU provides plenty of display connectivity with DVI-D, HDMI 2.0, and three DisplayPort 1.4 interfaces.

Interior

Opening the Xidax X-6 was as easy as it gets, with four thumbscrews (one in each corner) holding the glass side panels in place. We noticed that the chassis becomes a little wobbly once you remove one of the heavy tempered glass panels (the other makes it unbalanced), so it’s best to remove both panels if you want to work on the inside.

With the tempered glass panels removed, we’re greeted by a plethora of high-performance hardware and a handful of aesthetic bonuses. An Intel Core i7-7700K processor is socketed in an MSI Z270 SLI Plus ATX motherboard, with 16GB (2x8GB) of G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-2666 memory.

We were hard-pressed to find this motherboard in Xidax’s configurator as we finalized this review; the company swapped it out for an Asus TUF Mark II ATX motherboard for around the same price several weeks ago, after we received our review unit. However, with pricing largely unaffected and these types of inventory changes a regular occurrence for Xidax, we stuck with the previously available motherboard rather than starting over (although Xidax did offer to send us an updated model immediately).

The CPU is cooled by a 240mm Asetek 570LX all-in-one liquid cooler, which is mounted behind a pair of 120mm Thermaltake Riing Green LED fans at the front of the chassis (acting as an air intake). We were somewhat disappointed in this configuration considering that the light is mostly hidden by the solid front panel (which has only thin slits on the sides that act as air intakes). Mounting the radiator directly to the case and putting the fans on the inner side of it would have at least provided light to the interior. As is, the lighting seem to go to waste. Three more of the green LED fans are mounted in the case (two at the top exhaust, one rear exhaust), giving the internal components a gentle green glow and plenty of airflow with a total of five fans.

An MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Aero OC Edition graphics card resides in the motherboard’s primary PCIe x16 slot. It features 8GB of GDDR5 with an effective memory clock of 8008 MHz, in addition to a modest factory overclock. However, Xidax also overclocked the GPU (for an extra $25) to give it even more performance. This GPU should provide impressive 1080p and 1440p gaming performance.

The X-6 configuration Xidax sent us doesn’t have a lot of storage space, with a single 512GB Sandisk X400 SATA SSD (decorated with a Xidax logo) residing in one of the visible 2.5” drive bays. The capacity isn’t ideal for a gaming enthusiast looking to load their entire library into a new PC, but additional storage can be added in the company’s configurator, and Xidax told us it preferred not to include huge HDDs in a review unit “for the sake of it.” It makes sense to us, given that we don’t test secondary storage. We would, however, recommend filling the 3.5” bay at the bottom of the case with some kind of secondary storage. There's also an empty M.2 interface on the motherboard and a 5.25" drive bay, but there's no panel to expose an optical drive at the front of the chassis.

The Xidax X-6 we received gets its juice from an 850W Corsair RM850i 80 Plus Gold certified modular power supply, which is plenty of power for the GTX 1070 and Core i7 platform. It even gives you headroom to upgrade to an SLI configuration down the line. However, you could shave about $77 off the price tag if you go with a 550W PSU, which would also provide plenty of power for the components inside.

Curiously, the configurator no longer offers the RM850i option, replacing it with an RM850X at the same price. The latter doesn’t feature the i-series PSU’s USB connector, which allows the power supply to interface with Corsair Link, the company’s monitoring and control software. However, Xidax didn’t connect or install this feature, and we likely just got the last bit of the company’s previous 850W PSU stock.

The cable management is as good as possible in this chassis, with the main chamber clean of any excess wires and the backside (right side) neatly organized and tied down. The modular cables feeding into the back of the main chamber (right side) of the case are the stock Corsair cables, but they link to green, individually braided cable extensions that plug into the 4+4-pin CPU, 8-pin GPU, and 24-pin ATX power connectors on the motherboard. For an extra $40, Xidax offers a variety of colored cables that can bring a definite wow factor to any gaming PC.

Speaking of aesthetic add-ons, there’s a green LED light strip mounted to the case’s interior ceiling (top panel), and the single strand normally adds another $40 to the bill. Howver, Xidax is currently offering both of these eye-catching bonuses at no charge (so we didn't include it in our total).

The only aesthetic bonus factored into the $2,094 price tag is the green LED fans, which cost an additional $85. It’s clear Xidax chose to showcase most of its mod shop add-ons with the flashy (or static, or breathing) eye-catching options. These add-ons won’t improve your system’s performance (except, perhaps, if the stock fans don’t perform as well as the LED replacements), but it certainly makes the Xidax X-6 look the part of a beastly gaming PC.

Software & Accessories

Xidax took the liberty of providing an edgy company-centric desktop background for its X-6 gaming PC, but aside from that, there isn’t any “bloatware” to speak of. However, the company did install Chrome, Adobe Reader, and MSI Afterburner (for the GPU overclock), which could hardly be considered bothersome (depending on your feelings about Chrome, we suppose).

The accessory box comes with the motherboard’s user manual and driver disk, along with the power cable and all of the paperwork for your order. Also included is the PSU's extra modular cables and a free Xidax T-Shirt.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

We recently built a new Z270 reference system for use in our desktop PC reviews, and it’s quite the impressive specimen. An Intel Core i7-7700K rests on an ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming i7 ATX motherboard, cooled by a Deepcool Gammaxx 400 CPU heatsink and 120mm blue LED fan.

Kingston provided us with the storage and memory: a 960GB HyperX Savage 2.5” SATA SSD and a 16GB (2x8GB) kit of HyperX Savage DDR4-2133. We ran the memory at 2133 MHz with CAS timings of 15-15-15-36, instead of overclocking to the Z270 memory controller’s standard 2400 MHz. We felt the baseline tests of our reference rig were better served by comparing how a vendors’ choice of memory stacked up against this minimum expected DDR4 performance.

EVGA was gracious enough to lend us three Founder’s Edition graphics cards for our test bench: a GTX 1070, 1080, and 1080Ti. All three GPUs sport Nvidia’s reference design base and boost clock frequencies. The company also provided its 1000W Supernova G2 modular power supply so we could test SLI configurations. Zotac supplied us with reference-clocked GTX 1060 graphics cards (both a 6GB and 3GB model) so we could see differences if our review subject required it.

All of this is enclosed in a Rosewill Viper-Z ATX mid-tower case, and you can check out the full specifications below.

Comparison Products

Gigabyte BRIX GB-GZ1DTi7-1070-NK

Xidax X-6

Test System Configuration

We ran our Z270 test rig at its stock settings, with the Intel Core i7-7700K processor sporting a base 4.2 GHz clockrate, with a max turbo frequency 4.5 GHz in lightly threaded applications. We used data from the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 Founder’s Edition GPUs, with both set at their respective base and boost clock frequencies (1506/1683 MHz for the GTX 1070, 1607/1733 MHz for the GTX 1080). Our 16GB kit of HyperX Savage DDR4-2133 was set to the DDR4 standard CAS latency of 15-15-15-36. We also used data from our recent review of the Gigabyte Gaming GT desktop to see how a value-driven GTX 1070-equipped PC fared against the custom shop powerhouse (this system employs a Core i7-6700K CPU).

The Xidax X-6 features a Core i7-7700K overclocked to an all-core frequency of 4.8 GHz using the built-in features of the MSI motherboard (OC Genie). It’s 16GB (2x8GB) kit of DDR4-2666 features a CAS latency of 15-15-15-35, and it should provide above average memory performance with its tight timings and higher speed. The MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Aero OC Edition graphics card has a base and boost frequency of 1531 MHz and 1721 MHz, respectively, but Xidax used MSI Afterburner to add 100 MHz to that, for a peak boost frequency of 1821 MHz. However, the memory speed remained untouched, operating at its stock 8 Gb/s.

The CPU and GPU overclock don’t come without a price; Xidax charges $25 for each overclocked component, putting an extra $50 on the price for the performance boost. For users who don’t want to mess with that, we can see the value, but it's certainly difficult for us, as enthusiasts, to fathom paying for something that's pretty easy to configure for ourselves.

3DMark

The Xidax X-6 is at the top of the GTX 1070-equipped heap in the 3DMark Fire Strike tests, with the overclocked CPU netting the best Physics scores of the bunch (which is no surprise, given that our test bed and the Gaming GT are at stock CPU settings). The Gigabyte Gaming GT’s factory overclocked GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming OC graphics card gives it a slight edge against the X-6’s overclocked GPU.

Looking closer, the MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Aero OC Edition graphics card in the X-6 reaches a peak boost clock frequency of 1821 MHz (1721 MHz factory overclock, then +100MHz with OC service), whereas the Gaming GT’s GPU reaches 1822 MHz. This shouldn’t create that much of a delta, but our observations with GPU-Z showed the X-6 hitting a thermal ceiling (because of the overclock) and peeling off the boost frequency for short increments. This is enough to give the Gaming GT a slight edge in graphics-intensive workloads. However, the difference is as negligible as the contesting GPU clockrates in Time Spy, where only two points separate the Gaming GT and the X-6 (with the GT coming out ahead) in the Graphics test. The higher-clocked CPU of the X-6 secures the overall win in this benchmark, too.

Cinebench R15

The CPUs are under the microscope with the Cinebench R15 tests, putting the Xidax X-6 ahead of the stock-clocked competition. The X-6 maintains a steady 4.8 GHz throughout the single-threaded Rendering benchmark, whereas our test rig floated around 4.5 GHz (the stock Core i7-7700K turbo frequency). Switching to multi-threaded rendering, the Xidax takes a larger lead, with our test bed staying at 4.2 GHz on all four cores. The Gigabyte Gaming GT’s Core i7-6700K can’t contend with the newer Kaby Lake CPUs due to its lack of overclocking capabilities.

CompuBench

Again, the Xidax X-6 pushes past the other GTX 1070-equipped systems thanks to its overclocked components. The MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Aero OC Edition graphics card manages to mine over 60 MH/s more than the reference-clocked GPU in our test rig, and X6’s CPU overclock does the same for the Video Processing performance.

Storage Test

We’ll be the first to say that a second-place finish in the storage benchmarks against our test rig isn’t a bad thing. The 960GB HyperX Savage SSD in our reference system will naturally be faster than a good majority of SATA SSDs with less capacity (higher capacities and densities of NAND flash perform better), but the Xidax 512GB Sandisk X400 SSD performs admirably, besting the Gaming GT’s M.2 SATA-based storage in both 4K IOPs and 128K sequential performance. However, the X400 is rated for slightly higher speeds than we’re seeing here; those performance ratings are meant for its 1TB version (“up to” is usually a dead giveaway), however.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

Our test rig’s baseline DDR4-2133 memory settings places it above a similar configuration sporting SODIMM memory (the Gaming GT), and it’s a great baseline performance metric for DDR4-equipped desktop PCs. The Xidax X-6 easily outperforms both of the other platforms with its DDR4-2666 memory featuring a CAS latency of 15-15-15-35. The increased speed and tight timings give it a higher peak memory bandwidth, and memory-intensive workloads will see performance gains because of it.

PCMark 8

Speaking of performance gains, the Xidax X-6 puts all of the other systems in the field to shame with its PCMark 8 benchmark results. The overclocked CPU, high-speed memory, and SSD storage all play a vital role in elevating the X-6 above even our GTX 1080-equipped test bench in the Adobe Creative application tests. However, the gains are less pronounced in the Microsoft Office application benchmark (in which the GPU is even less relevant), and the X-6 finishes ahead of our test rig by only 18 points.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Alien: Isolation

The Xidax X-6 starts our gaming benchmark suite off at the head of the class for GTX 1070-equipped systems in Alien: Isolation. The overclocked components lend to excellent average framerates (even at 3840 x 2160) that are slightly ahead of the pack. However, it falls short of GTX 1080 performance (as it should). It does bridge the gap between stock GTX 1070 and 1080 framerates quite well.

Ashes of the Singularity

At 1920 x 1080, the Xidax X-6 and the Gigabyte Gaming GT average the same 54.1 FPS in the Ashes of the Singularity benchmark. However, moving to higher resolutions (which shifts the bottleneck to the GPU) shows the X-6 pulling ahead of its GTX 1070-equipped competition by narrow margins at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160 thanks to its higher CPU clockrate. This game favors a bit more CPU horsepower.

Bioshock Infinite

The Xidax X-6’s overclocked components give it a narrow edge against the other GTX 1070-equipped PCs in the Bioshock Infinite benchmarks. At 1920 x 1080 and 3840 x 2160, the X-6 achieved the best minimum framerates of the GTX 1070 bunch, but it fell behind at 2560 x 1440. However, it still achieved the best average framerate for a GTX 1070 system in our comparison set.

DiRT Rally

The DiRT Rally benchmark results tell a similar story, with the Xidax X-6 achieving the best minimum and average framerates at all tested resolutions. At the most demanding settings, this game takes even a GTX 1080-equipped system below 40 FPS, and the GTX 1070-equipped PCs are barely able to keep it over a playable 30 FPS. However, backing off some of the more demanding settings (MSAA, in particular) will help smooth things out (and we’d undoubtedly see the GTX 1080-equipped test rig much further ahead of the pack).

Grand Theft Auto V

The Xidax X-6 has a less pronounced lead over its similarly configured competition in the GTAV benchmarks, taking a hit with the lowest minimum framerate at 3840 x 2160 and relinquishing its minimum framerate lead to the Gaming GT at 2560 x 1440 and 1920 x 1080. However, the X-6 still narrowly defeats the other GTX 1070 PCs with its average framerate. Naturally, the our test rig bests the bunch with a GTX 1080 under the hood.

GRID Autosport

With the most punishing settings enabled at 1920 x 1080, the CPU is the bottleneck in GRID Autosport, putting the Xidax X-6 ahead of all the systems in the field (including our GTX 1080-equipped test rig). However, the test rig’s stock-clocked CPU (4.2 GHz base, 4.5 GHz max turbo frequency) seems to cap the average framerate somewhere around 133 FPS at 1080p, despite using both a GTX 1070 and 1080. Moving up to 2560 x 1440 puts the Xidax X-6 in a familiar place, leading the GTX 1070 pack and trailing the GTX 1080-equipped test rig. At 4K, the bottleneck shifts entirely to the graphics card, with the GTX 1080 on top by a larger margin and the GTX 1070s falling in line according to best GPU clock rate (which, in this particular game, was the Gaming GT by a narrow margin).

Hitman

The Xidax X-6 returns to its regularly scheduled GTX 1070 dominance with the DX12 Hitman benchmark, with the best minimum and average framerates of its similarly equipped competition thanks to its higher-clocked CPU. The test rig enjoys a healthy lead against the X-6 with a GTX 1080 inside.

Metro: Last Light Redux

The Metro: Last Light Redux benchmark is great for differentiating pure graphics performance, and not surprisingly, the Xidax X-6 and the Gigabyte Gaming GT net the same average framerates at 1920 x 1080 and 3840 x 2160 due to their near-identical (a 1 MHz difference) GPU clockrates. However, we see the X-6 pull slightly ahead of the GT at 2560 x 1440, a win highlighted by better minimum framerates (which it consistently achieves at all tested resolutions, even against the GTX 1080 test rig).

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Again, the Xidax X-6 outperforms the other GTX 1070-equipped systems in Rise of the Tomb Raider, with the best average framerates at all tested resolutions. Although a win is a win, the differences in performance at the most crushing settings are minuscule, with less than 3 FPS between our last place GTX 1070 test rig and the X-6. Backing off some of the higher detail and AA settings will make ROTR much more playable (and the GTX 1080 stand out much further ahead), but we wouldn’t consider a GTX 1070 to be a comfortable 4K graphics card in this particular game, unless you’re willing to sacrifice all the sweet eye candy.

The Division

The Division benchmark results are akin to what we saw in ROTR, with the Xidax X-6 besting the other GTX 1070 PCs and falling short of the GTX 1080 test rig. Again, 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440 is the optimal resolution to play the game with all of the eye candy turned up high, and the 4K results show that you’ll have to turn down a lot of the bells and whistles in order to get decent framerates with a GTX 1070.

Thief

The Xidax X-6 finishes our test suite the way it began, with a slightly higher average framerate over the other GTX 1070-equipped gaming systems in the field thanks to its moderate CPU and GPU overclock. The X-6 also nets the best minimum framerate (even against the GTX 1080 test configuration) at 1920 x 1080, a lead it maintains at 2560 x 1440 against the other GTX 1070 systems. However, it falls slightly behind the Gigabyte Gaming GT’s minimum framerate at 4K (0.2 FPS to be exact), but it still pulls a better average (by 0.1 FPS).

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The Xidax X-6 gaming PC is not identifiable by any particular configuration, but this high-priced version we have before us today holds nothing back with its aesthetic focus, with tempered-glass side panels that showcase green braided cables, green LED fans, and a green LED light strip. We weren’t crazy about the color, but you can choose any color you want (or go RGB for a little more money), and we like a PC that stands out from the crowd.

All of these aesthetic bonuses don’t come without a price, and the flashy bling would normally put another $165 on the bill. This isn’t that bad considering Xidax asks just about retail pricing for the Thermaltake Riing LED fans, and the braided cables are less expensive than what many other competing custom shops charge. A $40 fee for a single LED strip could be questionable, but Xidax is currently offering the colored cables and LED strip as an optional freebie, making the fans ($85) the only aesthetic expense applied to our total. Many enthusiasts would sneer at a $25 per component overclocking fee, but for the uninitiated, these services can make a good gaming PC into a great gaming PC. Xidax even warranties its work even with overclocks applied.

Under the hood, Xidax provides an impressive specimen of a Z270 platform, with the kind of performance you would expect from a custom builder. The overclocked components may cost you another $50, but for the uninitiated, the performance boost and use of high-performance components makes the difference between a real PC and the big-brand store-bought options out there. Our benchmark testing showed it performs exactly as an overclocked gaming rig with an Intel Core i7-7700K and GTX 1070 graphic card should, and it’s capable of excellent framerates at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440.

The asking price of $2,094 is a lot of money, and we’ve reviewed systems with GTX 1080 GPUs inside that weren't much more expensive. This was also before the graphics card price boom from the latest crypto-currency craze, and you'd be hard pressed to find a gaming PC with a Core i7-7700K, liquid cooling, a high-capacity SSD, an overclocked GTX 1070, an 80 Plus Gold certified 850W PSU, and a tempered-glass case for less. Taking all this into account, in addition to Xidax’s lifetime warranty, you realize that although it may cost a bit more, you are indeed getting what you pay for in a pre-built, customizable gaming system.

(And yes, as always, we understand you can build your own for less.)

Without any of the mods, fans, or tuning, this configuration of the X-6 would go for a more reasonable $1,959 (keeping the tempered glass). You could also shave another $77 by dropping to a 550W PSU. This particular setup seemed like a business card tailored for a reviewer instead of a something a customer would order (it also needs more storage capacity), but it does give us a clear look at the value Xidax can offer to gamers who aren't necessarily PC enthusiasts. A custom-built, no-strings-attached overclocked gaming PC with all the bells and whistles could be exactly what some consumers are looking for, and Xidax won’t let those buyers down.

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Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X Review

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Features & Specifications

What we've seen of Intel's newest HEDT platform so far hasn't inspired much excitement. First, there were complaints of high temperatures and limited overclocking, addressed in The Skylake-X Mess Explored: Thermal Paste And Runaway Power. Then we collectively scratched our heads, wondering what the company was thinking in our Intel Core i7-7740X Kaby Lake-X Review.

But there are plenty of options between the quad-core Core i5 and Intel's 36-thread Core i9 flagship. In fact, the X-series includes nine models this time around, more than any other HEDT family to date. And it's the mid-range Core i7s that we expect to be most popular due to their tamer price points.

In yet another sign of a renewed fighting spirit, Intel's $600 Core i7-7820X slots in below the $1000 Core i9-7900X. That big $400 step down from the 10-core model is uncharacteristic for Intel. Its older eight-core Core i7-6900K bore a shocking $1100 price tag. No doubt, Intel is looking to stave off AMD's Ryzen 7 models. While the $500 "savings" versus its previous generation is certainly nice, however, Intel continues to struggle against AMD's disruptive pricing scheme and looser approach to segmentation.

The Core i7-7820X has eight Hyper-Threaded cores, so comparisons to AMD's Ryzen 7 models are inevitable. The $600 -7820X does battle against the $500 Ryzen 7 1800X. And as a result of unlocked multipliers up and down AMD's portfolio, even the $330 Ryzen 7 1700 is a viable competitor. Intel continues to enjoy an advantage in most lightly-threaded workloads, but the company just can't match Ryzen 7's value, particularly in workloads able to exercise all eight cores. It also helps that AM4-based motherboards are a lot less expensive.

Of course, Core i7-7820X drops into an LGA 2066 interface on motherboards with the X299 "Basin Falls" platform controller hub. We already discussed how processor choice can severely limit this chipset's connectivity in our Core i7-7740X review. And fortunately, Core i7-7820X doesn't suffer nearly as much as Kaby Lake-X. However, you do have to tolerate a "mere" 28 lanes of PCIe 3.0. Last generation, Core i7-6850K in roughly the same price range gave you 40 lanes, so we consider the drop to 28 a regression. Granted, AMD only exposes 16 lanes with Ryzen 7, so Intel does end the PCIe comparison ahead.

Core i7-7820X features a 3.6 GHz base clock that boosts up to 4.3 GHz across two cores in lightly threaded workloads. That's a marked increase over what the Broadwell-E-based Core i7-6900K could do. Further, -7820X supports Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, which can push the CPU's two "best" cores up to 4.5 GHz using a piece of installed software. In theory, that should allow Skylake-X to dominate single- and multi-threaded benchmarks alike.

Intel also officially supports up to DDR4-2666 across the -7820X's quad-channel memory controller. Compared to Ryzen 7's dual-channel design, Skylake-X can theoretically move a lot more data, which is useful in certain prosumer applications.

Similar to the Core i9-7900X we already reviewed, -7820X is rated for up to 140W. If you're curious about what that number means to power consumption, heat, and overclocking headroom, check out the aforementioned deep-dive (The Skylake-X Mess Explored: Thermal Paste And Runaway Power) for more.

And if you'd like some more background on Intel's 14nm Skylake-X architecture, we'd encourage you to read through Intel Core i9-7900X Review: Meet Skylake-X, where we introduce the new mesh topology, cache hierarchy (-7820X boasts 8MB of L2 and 11MB of L3), and fresh ISA extensions (unfortunately, -7820X loses one AVX-512-capable unit per core compared to -7900X).

Speed Shift, which allows the processor to handle power-state transitions autonomously, also makes its debut on the high-end desktop. The tactic eliminates latent operating system commands and provides faster resumption times from lower power states. That equates to a snappier experience. Intel also includes support for the vROC (Virtual RAID on CPU) feature that allows you to coalesce up to 20 SSDs into a single bootable volume, though you'll have to buy an upgrade key to unlock it. Intel remains curiously silent on pricing, and keys aren't available yet.

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Test Setup & Overclocking

Test Systems

We're using MSI's X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC for testing. We disabled the all-core Turbo Boost feature to ensure a level playing field.

Skylake-X processors can scale beyond DDR-4000, but we settled on DDR4-3200 for our overclocked config to match the transfer rates of AMD's overclocked Ryzen CPUs.

In the U.S. lab, we attained a 4.6 GHz overclock at 1.28V. This proved stable for 12 hours under AIDA's FPU, cache, and CPU tests. Temperatures hovered ~85°C during the non-AVX load. We were also able to run Prime95 for extended periods, but the processor frequently engaged in aggressive throttling due to thermal constraints. As such, we used an AVX offset to lower the clock rate during AVX-enabled workloads.

Trying to push beyond 4.6 GHz required excessive voltage, which in turn generated even more heat. That's no good with Skylake-X, so we stuck with the safer, more stable settings. Budget in a closed-loop liquid cooler at the very least to keep Core i7-7820X from throttling at stock frequencies. More aggressive overclocking begs for a custom open loop.

We introduced our new test system and methodology in How We Test Graphics Cards. If you'd like more detail about our general approach, check that piece out.

Intel Core i9-7900X

Intel Core i7-7700K

Intel Core i7-6900K

The only updated components in our German lab are the CPU, system memory, motherboard, and new cooling solution, so we'll just provide a quick overview in the following table:

Test Equipment & Environment
System	Germany Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900X, i7-7740XCore i5-7640X, Core i7-7820XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 4GB G.Skill Ripjaws 4 DDR4-2600AMD Socket AM4AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1600X, 1500XMSI X370 Tomahawk2x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200Intel LGA 2011v3Intel Core i7-6900KMSI X99S XPower Gaming Titanium4x 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4-2400Intel LGA 1151Intel Core i7-7700K, i5-7600KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @2400 MT/sAll SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition (Gaming)Nvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power Supply Unit (PSU)Windows 10 Pro (All Updates)Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power Supply Unit (PSU)Windows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900X, Core i7-7820XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2666 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sIntel LGA 2011v3Intel Core i7-6900KASRock X99 Extreme44x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2666 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAMD Socket AM4 AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 5 1600XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium 2x G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ 2666 (stock), and 3200 MT/s Intel LGA 1151 Intel Core i7-7700K MSI Z270 Gaming M7 2x G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ 2400 All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)USCorsair H115iCorsair H100i v2Arctic MX4
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK (Workstation, Office, HPC)
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

VRMark & 3DMark

We aren't big fans of using synthetic benchmarks to measure game performance, but 3DMark's DX11 and DX12 CPU tests provide useful insight into the amount of raw horsepower available to the game engine.

The VR test rewards a mixture of per-core performance and parallelism, so the tuned -7820X carves out a small lead over the Core i9-7900X due to its better overclock.

Conversely, the heavily-threaded CPU and physics tests score higher on a 10-core -7900X. The Ryzen processors fare well in metrics optimized for parallelism, but Skylake-X's higher performance per clock cycle goes unmatched.

Core i7-7820X has a higher base and overclocked frequency than the -7900X, which helps explain its performance advantage in the API tests. However, a few extra frequency bins shouldn't overshadow the -7900X's extra cores in our threaded DX12 and Vulkan tests. Perhaps fewer cores generating traffic across the mesh is a good thing in latency-sensitive workloads?

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation scales exceedingly well with core count, so the Core i7-7820X trails Intel's -7900X in our results.

The Ryzen processors still can't overtake Skylake-X. However, they do dispatch Core i7-7700K with relative ease. This Kaby Lake-based chip is similar to Core i7-7740X, which Intel inexplicably shoehorned into X299 alongside our Skylake-X models. Because the -7740X makes so little sense, we're focusing our comparison on the more popular -7700K.

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Civilization VI & Battlefield 1

Civilization VI AI Test

Core i9-7900X suffered tremendously during our Civilization VI graphics test, but it clings onto a leading spot in the more CPU-focused AI benchmark. This is surprising considering the metric's preference for quad-core processors.

Even more surprising, Core i7-7820X falls to the bottom of our field. We retested several times with varying parameters, but there is no clear answer to explain the -7820X's lackluster performance. Overclocking helps the -7820X overtake a stock Ryzen 7 1800X, but it embarrassingly trails the tuned six-core Ryzen 5 1600X.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Core i7-7820X joins Core i9-7900X at the bottom of this chart, while the 8-core Broadwell-E-based -6900K takes pole position. The Ryzen models are very competitive; they outperform both Skylake-X processors.

Intel suggested to us that some programs might require optimizations to accommodate its new mesh topology. Civilization VI appears to be among them.

Battlefield 1 (DX11)

The Core i7-7820X shows up ahead of Core i7-6900K on our chart, though the difference is tiny. Although Ryzen takes the bottom positions, again, we're talking about a slight loss of average frame rate compared to much more expensive CPUs. Without question, our Battlefield 1 benchmark is mostly graphics-bound.

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Grand Theft Auto V, Hitman & Shadow of Mordor

Grand Theft Auto V

We measure performance during Grand Theft Auto V's F-16 flight sequence with the built-in benchmark.

Core i9-7900X boasts 25% more cores than Core i7-7820X, but due to the vagaries of scaling, it only enjoys a 12% performance advantage at stock clock rates. Still, that's pretty darned good in the world of CPU benchmarking. Both models easily outpace Core i7-6900K and AMD's Ryzen processors. Meanwhile, Core i7-7700K shows why we consider it to be a strong value in gaming PCs.

Hitman (2016)

Intel's Core i7-7700K beats the stock Core i7-7820X, which is an impressive feat considering their similar Turbo Boost frequencies. A bit of tuning propels the -7820X further up the chart, but the Core i9-7900X reigns supreme at both stock and overclocked settings. Tuning also greatly benefits the Ryzen 7 1800X, but it and the overclocked Core i9-7900X also suffer the most frame time outliers.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Once again, the Core i7-7820X bests a pricier -7900X. But the nimble Core i7-7700K outpaces both Skylake-X CPUs.

Broadwell-E serves as a baseline to underline Skylake-X's improved performance in applications able to utilize Intel's reworked architecture.

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Project CARS & Rise of the Tomb Raider

Project CARS

The Core i7-7700K and overclocked Ryzen 5 1600X nudge past Intel's stock Core i7-7820X. The -7820X enjoys a 15% speed-up after we overclock it. However, it's noteworthy that a Core i7-7700K averages 115.7 FPS at 5 GHz. We simply didn't have room for it in our chart. That's a much higher frequency than what you can reasonably attain on Skylake-X.

Also, the Core i7-7820X offers a marked improvement over Intel's 8-core -6900K.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Performance scaling drops off as we ascend the hierarchy of high-end CPUs. Clearly, there's a graphics bottleneck at play.

The Ryzen CPUs are very competitive in the benchmark's initial stage, but there's a significant performance drop as we move into the test's CPU-intensive section. This penalizes the Ryzen processors with a lower average frame rate.

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Workstation & HPC Performance

2D Benchmarks: DirectX and GDI/GDI+

If you want to know more about our HPC benchmarks, check out the AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU Review. We didn't just copy results from that story, though. Rather, after a number of BIOS updates and software configuration changes, we retested everything. This gives us a more up-to-date picture, reflecting improvements of up to 15% that AMD worked hard to enable.

Intel's Core i7-7820X outstrips the -7900X in our AutoCAD 2D workload due to its frequency and IPC throughput advantage. The Core i9-7900X wins in the GDI/GDI+ benchmarks, though. Both processors provide more performance than a Broadwell-E-based Core i7-6900K.

2D Benchmarks: Adobe Creative Cloud

Per-cycle performance plays a role in these lightly-threaded applications, giving the -7820X an advantage in several tests. Both Skylake-X models suffer lower performance than we'd expect in the Photoshop Heavy and InDesign workloads. Hopefully Adobe is planning an update that'll address this anomaly.

3D Benchmarks: DirectX and OpenGL

The Core i7-7700K vigorously cuts through most of these workloads, indicating that prefer high clock rates, all else being equal.

Both Skylake-X-based chips trade places through several of the tests; the distance between them remains small, though.

CPU Performance: Workstation

Broadwell-E leads the Skylake-X-based processors in a few of these workloads, reminding us that Intel's mesh topology may lead to performance regressions in some cases.

The Ryzen 7 1800X is incredibly competitive during this round of testing.

CPU Performance: Photorealistic Rendering

Rendering benefits from brute-force parallelism, so the 10-core Core i9-7900X naturally provides the best performance.

The workload utilizes all cores fully, so it also provides a good multi-threaded comparison between the eight-core -7820X and Ryzen 7 1800X. Intel's processor takes the lead due to its per-cycle performance advantage, but Ryzen is surprisingly competitive given its lower price and value-oriented platform. It also doesn't require a custom water-cooling loop to reach its potential, whereas Skylake-X does.

CPU Performance: Encoding & Compression/Decompression

The -7820X falls into a predictable place during our threaded encoding workload. Nipping at its heels is AMD's nagging (and much less expensive) Ryzen 7 1800X.

Core i7-7820X struggles mightily with our lightly-threaded decompression workload. Its place in the chart is much lower than we'd expect, given the way Intel implements its Turbo Boost technology.

High Performance Computing (HPC)

Complex HPC applications largely benefit from the -7820X's high clock rate and beefy core count. But aside from the SRMP workload, AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X again proves to be the fly in Intel's high-priced ointment.

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Power Consumption & Thermals

Intel isn't using a soldered integrated heat spreader (IHS) for Skylake-X or Kaby Lake-X. Instead of the solder most enthusiasts clamor for, heat moves from the die to the IHS through thermal paste. This decision has implications for both our power consumption measurements and overclocking efforts, as you no doubt saw in our Skylake-X Mess Explored: Thermal Paste And Runaway Power article.

We measure power consumption after the voltage converters and CPU, using points on the motherboard.

Power Consumption

These numbers are generated using stock motherboard settings; any significant under-volting has no effect, except to cause stability problems.

Core i7-7820X consumes significantly less power at idle than Broadwell-E, and it also provides a small benefit compared to the ten-core Core i9-7900X.

AMD's Ryzen processors use quite a bit more power during idle, and that doesn't change much between the eight- and six-core models. Its Zeppelin die is a unified four-core building block, so it makes sense that AMD still feeds the disabled silicon with power.

AutoCAD is lightly threaded, but even mundane workloads trigger Skylake-X's aggressive Turbo Boost frequencies. Less than one watt separates the Core i7-7820X and i9-7900X. Meanwhile, the previous-gen Core i7-6900K doesn't hit the same clock rates, conveying a slightly lower power figure.

The Ryzen models are in a class of their own, though we have to point out that they (along with Core i7-6900K) underperform Skylake-X. So, our power measurements aren't indicative of overall efficiency.

The Skylake-X processors draw more power than competing CPUs during our Metro Last Light gaming loop. We do observe a ~6W reduction going from Core i9-7900X to Core i7-7820X, though. Surprisingly, the -6900K is the most frugal Intel processor in the group.

Kicking off a Prime95 run unleashes the Core i9-7900X's hideous power consumption. Core i7-7820X is a little more civil, likely due to its disabled FMA units. But it still draws a lot more power than the Broadwell-E-based -6900K or Ryzen 7s.

Thermal Performance

Thermal output was recorded during AIDA and Prime95 stress tests at stock frequencies. We used the Corsair H100i v2 cooler, which provided enough headroom to keep up with these CPUs.

As expected, we observe a slightly lower average temperature from Core i7-7820X compared to Core i9-7900X.

Speaking of, the Core i9-7900X encountered difficulties during the Prime95 AVX workload. We use AIDA's system stability test window to monitor temperatures during our test run, and it detected thermal throttling. Typically, AIDA provides a percentage to quantify the severity, though we don't know what caused the slow-down.

The system generates bit-coded throttling flags based on three variables: Tcore, Tpackage, and VRM temperatures. AIDA detects these flags, but doesn't specify which one the warning is based on. We suspect the VRMs are to blame in this case.

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Final Analysis

Intel's designed its X-series line-up to hit (almost) every budget. Prices in the high-end desktop family range from $242 to $2000. Unfortunately, expensive X299-based motherboards and the need for liquid cooling make it difficult to find value in an Intel HEDT package, particularly compared to AMD's Ryzen 7 and the Skylake-S models.

Adopting a mesh topology for Skylake-X was necessary to pave the way for greater scalability in the future. But the move causes some complications. Core i7-7820X offers great frame rates through our gaming suite. However, we did encounter those same performance peculiarities observed during our Core i9-7900X review. We're told that software optimizations could ameliorate this in the future, and hopefully Intel delivers as quickly as AMD did after launching Ryzen.

Regardless, if gaming is your primary use case, we still recommend Core i7-7700K as the best option, even in high-end PCs. Intel's Z270 chipset is more affordable and more mature than the still-evolving X299 platform. It also leaves you more room to budget for a flagship-class graphics card.

In the past, Intel's HEDT portfolio offered the strongest performance in threaded workloads thanks to lots of cores. It couldn't keep up in single-threaded benchmarks, though, due to lower clock rates. Skylake-X changes this with higher base and Turbo Boost frequencies. The addition of Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 even introduces a 4.5 GHz ceiling that matches the Core i7-7700K. Of course, when you need greater parallelism, the clocks spin down to allow all eight cores to do their work in game streaming, rendering, and semi-professional apps.

Ryzen 7 1800X typically can't beat the -7820X in those scenarios. But it's certainly competitive. AMD's CPU is also $100 cheaper. On top of that, X370-based motherboards cost a lot less than Intel's X299 platform, and liquid-cooling isn't a requirement in Ryzen's case. Without question, the 1800X on an X370 motherboard presents a compelling alternative to Intel's overpriced combo.

Overclocking is a mixed bag on Skylake-X. The Core i7-7820X appears to enjoy quite a bit of frequency headroom. Thermal throttling jumps up to bite you long before the CPU's true potential is realized, though. Although enthusiasts would like to see solder between Intel's die and heat spreader, at least thermal paste isn't as big of a problem for overclockers on the lower-power Core i7-7700K. It's a much bigger issue with the fire-breathing Skylake-X design.

We don't know what to say about vROC, other than charging a premium for hardware keys to unlock RAID functionality won't go over well on the desktop. Intel remains silent on vROC pricing and availability, so for now, the storage redundancy feature lurks inside, waiting to be enabled.

Intel should probably feel lucky that Core i7-7820X won't be going up against AMD's Threadripper, since the cheapest model will sell for $800. As it stands, this $600 CPU has a hard time justifying its premium over Ryzen 7 1800X, which currently sells for as little as $420. Moving forward, Intel may have to get even more aggressive about winning over enthusiasts. Don't lop off PCIe connectivity. Leave the FMA units intact. Don't nickel-and-dime for storage functionality. Use solder under the IHS. We like the big dies with lots of cores able to clock up when most of them aren't active. But the competition is heating up and Intel is looking a little flat-footed.

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Intel Core i7-7740X Kaby Lake-X Review

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Kaby Lake Paddles Into HEDT

Last month, Intel's Skylake-X processors debuted at lower price points than we might have expected, given the company's previous high-end desktop CPU launches. The new chips also feature hefty core counts, higher Turbo Boost frequencies, a revamped implementation of Turbo Boost Max 3.0, a realigned cache hierarchy, and a new mesh topology. If you haven't read our review yet, check out Intel Core i9-7900X Review: Meet Skylake-X.

Interestingly, the seven new Skylake-X models are accompanied by two quad-core Kaby Lake-X SKUs. In the past, Intel's entire HEDT portfolio lagged at least a generation behind the mainstream offerings. But Kaby Lake-X puts Intel's most modern architecture in the LGA 2066 interface.

It's only unfortunate that this attempt at rejuvenating the high-end desktop leads to a confusing mix of features on the X299 platform, many of which Kaby Lake-X simply does not support. Fewer PCIe lanes and a dual-channel memory controller are an obvious mismatch with expensive LGA 2066-equipped motherboards, and that's bound to create a dubious value proposition.

Kaby Lake-X Becomes Core i7-7740X

There are slight differences between the familiar Core i7-7700K (Kaby Lake-S), which drops into LGA 1151, and the new Core i7-7740X (Kaby Lake-X) designed to complement the X299 chipset.

Intel increases the -7740X's base frequency by 100 MHz to 4.3 GHz, but leaves the 4.5 GHz Turbo Boost clock rate and 8MB of last-level cache unchanged. The chip's TDP does jump from 91W to 112W, but that's not from any gain in host processing resources: we're still looking at four IA cores and the GT2 configuration of Intel's graphics engine with 24 EUs.

Although the HD Graphics 630 hardware is physically present, Intel fuses it off. This eliminates many of the multimedia features that benefit the mainstream market. Perhaps they won't be as missed in the enthusiast space, though. You do lose Quick Sync, which is useful for accelerating streaming, along with HEVC encode/decode and PlayReady 3.0 "enhanced content protection" support. On the other hand, X299 enables a more robust power delivery system, so cutting out HD Graphics could prove beneficial to our overclocking efforts. After all, the disabled hardware serves as dark silicon, absorbing waste heat from the active on-die components.

Purportedly, a larger heat spreader and package add to Core i7-7740X's capacity for dissipating thermal energy. Since CPUs vary in their ability to sustain Turbo Boost clock rates depending on their thermal headroom, the -7740X might also enjoy a larger window of higher frequencies, improving performance in our benchmarks compared to Core i7-7700K. It's too bad that Kaby Lake-X uses the same thermal interface material as the mainstream models, instead of indium solder.

The -7740X shares a 16-lane PCIe 3.0 controller with Intel's Core i7-7700K, and we'll dive into that liability shortly. DDR4 memory support is officially extended to 2666 MT/s, at least. That's a small improvement over the S-series’ sanctioned 2400 MT/s ceiling. The speed-up isn't related to any architectural enhancement. Rather, Intel tells us it adjusted the dual-channel controller's spec based on “significantly more test and manufacturing data” that suggested an increase was safe.

Surprisingly, the Core i7-7740X bears the same price as Core i7-7700K. So, in short, it looks like Intel took an existing CPU, tweaked a couple of knobs, and adapted it for the larger LGA 2066 interface with different packaging. The end product does overclock a little better than Core i7-7700K, we've noticed.

The Motherboard Land Of Confusion

The new X299 chipset, code-named Basin Falls, goes hand-in-hand with the LGA 2066 interface. Intel moved away from its normal tactic of recycling an enterprise-oriented platform controller hub and instead built X299 to be a beefed-up version of the Z270 chipset.

The Core i7-7740X's 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0 and two memory channels present issues, though. X299 must naturally accommodate Core i9-7900X with its 44 lanes of PCIe 3.0 and quad-channel DDR4 controller, but has to be flexible enough to take the Core i7-7740X, too. That means the lower-end CPU limits you to using four of the eight DIMM slots found on corresponding motherboards. Moreover, some PCIe or M.2 slots might not work when you drop in a -7740X.

The processor still features a DMI 3.0 link to X299, which is similar to a four-lane PCIe 3.0. The chipset supports a hefty 30 HSIO (High Speed I/O) lane allotment that vendors can carve up for expanded functionality. X99 did not support HSIO lanes, so that's a significant addition.

With Core i7-7740X, there isn't a difference between the features you can use on the X299 platform compared to what is already available from the Z270 chipset. X299-based motherboards are undoubtedly high-end parts, and they bear the price premium (~$150) to prove it. That means you're paying for features that you cannot use, which is never a positive selling point.

To reduce costs, Intel tells us that motherboard partners can build Kaby Lake-X-specific platforms with only four DIMM slots to accommodate the new processors. We haven't seen any, though, and we haven't had a single vendor tell us they're working on one.

To make matters worse, none of Skylake-X’s unique features are available from Core i7-7740X, including Turbo Boost Max 3.0, AVX-512 support, the integrated vROC (Virtual RAID on CPU) controller, or Intel's mesh/cache adjustments.

All of these factors combine to create a questionable addition to Intel's high-end desktop portfolio. The company tells us that Kaby Lake-X offers a cheaper way into X299 with an upgrade path for later. We don't think many enthusiasts are interested in paying more now for the potential to upgrade later, though. Can Intel prove us wrong?

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Test Setup

Test Systems

We're using the MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC for testing. We disabled the all-core Turbo Boost feature to ensure a level playing field.

There were several demonstrations of memory overclocking beyond DDR4-4000 with Kaby Lake-X processors at Computex, but we settled on DDR4-3200 for our overclocked config to match the memory data transfer rates of our Ryzen models.

We introduced our new test system and methodology in How We Test Graphics Cards. If you'd like more detail about our general approach, check that piece out.

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X

AMD Ryzen 7 1700X

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X

The only updated components in our German lab are the CPU, system memory, motherboard, and new cooling solution, so we'll just provide a quick overview in the following table:

Test Equipment and Environment
System	Germany Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900X, i7-7740X Core i7 7740X, Core i5-7640X Core i7 7740X, Core i5-7640XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 4GB G.Skill Ripjaws 4 DDR4-2600AMD Socket AM4 WorkstationAMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1600X, 1500XMSI X370 Tomahawk2x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200Intel LGA 2011v3Intel Core i7-6900KMSI X99S XPower Gaming Titanium4x 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4-2400Intel LGA 1151Intel Core i7-7700K, i5-7600KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @2400 MT/sAll SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition (Gaming)Nvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power Supply Unit (PSU)Windows 10 Pro (All Updates)Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power Supply Unit (PSU)Windows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2666 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sIntel LGA 2011v3Intel Core i7-6900K, Core i7-6950XASRock X99 Extreme44x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2666 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAMD Socket AM4 Workstation AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 5 1600XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium 2x G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ 2666 (stock), and 3200 MT/s Intel LGA 1151 Intel Core i5-7600K, i7-7500 MSI Z270 Gaming M7 2x G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ 2400 All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)USCorsair H115iCorsair H100i v2Arctic MX4
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK (Workstation, Office, HPC)
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

As expected, we notice slight variation between the stock Core i7-7700K and its near-identical -7740X counterpart. Testing at each chip's default memory settings (DDR4-2400 for the -7700K and DDR4-2666 for the -7740X) likely contributes some of the difference. And we notice the same behavior with the stock and overclocked settings.

3DMark's DX11 and DX12 tests follow a similar pattern. The beefier multi-core CPUs leverage their extra threads to take commanding leads in these compute-intensive tests. But tuning brings the -7740X within striking range of the overclocked six-core Ryzen 5 1600X. Intel's Kaby Lake-X model enjoys a greater lead over the -7700K in the DX11 physics test, which we chalk up to an extra 200 MHz of overclocking headroom.

We encountered some strangeness during the 3DMark API overhead test. Core i7-7740X lags its -7700K sibling by a large margin during the DX12 and Vulkan sequences; overclocking does little to correct the disparity. We suspect that this is a 3DMark-specific issue, since most of our DX12-based gaming benchmarks don't concur with these results. The API test is relatively new and has received a few recent updates. It's possible that we see another patch to address this unexpected measurement.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation favors core count over other factors, so we observe the expected variance between 4C/8T Core i7 CPUs and the more well-endowed processors.

Core i7-7740X exhibits a minor gain compared to the -7700K at both stock and overclocked settings. Interestingly, we encounter less variability and frame time outliers with the -7740X than the -7700K, which could be a result of slightly more aggressive memory settings. The slight bump in overclocked frequency only equates to a 2.34% advantage, though.

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Civilization VI & Battlefield 1

Civilization VI AI Test

Clock rate and IPC throughput tend to win the day in this test, so it isn't surprising to find both Core i7s vying for supremacy.

It was less expected to find the 10-core Core i9-7900X mixing it up. Surely, a tuned Core i7-7700K would be faster at 4.9 GHz, right? The new Skylake-X model likely benefits from to its reworked cache hierarchy.

Again, the differences are slight between Kaby Lake-X and Kaby Lake-S. They're such similar processors, after all.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Speaking of the -7900X's reworked cache hierarchy, as we noticed in our initial review, the processor does suffer from mesh-imposed performance limitations in some titles. That comes into play during this benchmark.

The 10-core Broadwell-E-based chip leads, but both tuned Core i7s are competitive with the rest of our contenders. The difference between Core i7-7700K and -7440X is negligible at stock settings, and therefore unnoticeable during gameplay. But the -7740X's extra bit of frequency headroom yields a larger delta when we overclock.

Battlefield 1 (DX11)

Our armor-laden walk through the O La Vittoria scene in Battlefield 1 yields large performance variations when we test less-powerful processors. The differences shrink as we benchmark higher-end CPUs, mostly because we're graphics-bound.

We encountered an almost-predictable variance between the two Core i7s in most tests, and that plays out in Battlefield 1 when we measure the stock configurations. A 0.2 FPS delta is simply imperceptible.

The story changes with the application of a robust overclock, though. Try as we might, we simply could not get Intel's -7740X to match the -7700K in an overclocked state. That's particularly baffling due Kaby Lake-X's higher overclocked frequency. Nevertheless, the results for both overclocked Core i7s are repeatable, so it's possible that BIOS updates or chipset drivers could improve performance down the road.

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GTA V, Hitman & Shadow of Mordor

Grand Theft Auto V

We measure performance during Grand Theft Auto V's F-16 flight sequence with the built-in benchmark.

A now-familiar pattern emerges during the Grand Theft Auto V test sequence. There's a slight difference between the two Core i7s at stock settings, which widens as we dial in the -7740X's higher overclock. We're looking at a 2% advantage favoring Kaby Lake-X; the 2 FPS gain certainly doesn't warrant a step up to the much more expensive X299 platform, though.

The Core i9-7900X is brutally competitive in this test, which runs counter to our expectations of Intel's massively-parallel HEDT CPUs that historically prioritize core count over clock rate. If the -7900X could consistently deliver this level of performance in all titles, it would be even more impressive.

Hitman (2016)

A stock Core i7-7740X trails the -7700K, though tuning changes that dynamic. Both Core i7s stand out from the pack at higher frequencies.

AMD's Ryzen processors lag notably behind their Intel competitors. Still, they average more than 110 FPS.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

The graphics bottleneck is apparent in Shadow of Mordor. A 1.7 FPS delta between the fastest and slowest processors doesn't give us much to comment on. It's most notable, then, that even an affordable Ryzen 5 1600X can push EVGA's beefy GeForce GTX 1080 FE to its fullest in some games.

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Project CARS & Rise of the Tomb Raider

Project CARS

We spot a bit more variation between the stock Core i7s, perhaps suggesting some sensitivity to memory frequency. Project CARS scales very well with increased host processing resources, so the brawny Core i9-7900X unperforms our expectations. Again, the -7740X's gain over the -7700K from overclocking is a mere 1.4%.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider recently received a patch that significantly improves Ryzen's DX12 performance, making this one more title optimized for AMD's latest platform. We're still sticking to DX11-based testing, though, to keep the playing field as level as possible.

A stock Core i7-7740X loses by 1.3% to the -7700K, but a bit of overclocking turns the tables by 1%. That certainly isn't worth the X299's price premium.

We clearly see the delta between AMD's Ryzen and Intel's Core processors grow at the test sequence's tail end, where it becomes more CPU-intensive. Core i7-7740X encounters a notable frame time outlier towards the end of the test. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 1600X briefly spends time under the 90 FPS mark.

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Workstation & HPC Performance

Preamble

As we dig through these results, remember that semi-professionals almost never overclock their systems. Also, CPUs like Intel’s Core i9-7900X can be hard to keep cool. Consequently, our CPUs are now running at their stock frequencies.

2D Benchmarks: DirectX & GDI/GDI+

Adding Intel’s new CPU to our AutoCAD 2D and GDI/GDI+ graphics benchmarks doesn’t yield any surprises. The newcomer falls into place exactly where you’d expect based on its clock rate.

2D Benchmarks: Adobe Creative Cloud

The outcome depends on frequency again in this next round of benchmarks.

Interestingly, the Kaby Lake-X CPU lands right behind Core i7-7700K, if only by a hair. This won’t be the last time we see this inexplicable phenomenon.

3D Benchmarks: DirectX & OpenGL

In some instances, Core i7-7740X pulls ahead of the -7700K. In others, it's beaten slightly. Either way, the performance differences are generally very small and within the measurement error range. The only discernible pattern seems to be that Kaby Lake-X leads when compute tasks run in parallel with graphics output. This means the differences could be platform-oriented.

CPU Performance: Workstation

The 3D graphics performance we just measured isn’t all that matters to professional rendering titles. Applications run many other tasks (like simulations, compute jobs, preview rendering) on the CPU simultaneously. The full picture’s only achievable by looking at both of them together.

Intel's Core i7-7740X does well in workloads that emphasize high clock rates over core count.

CPU Performance: Photorealistic Rendering

Final rendering doesn’t need a jack of all trades. Instead, efficiency and fast parallel computation are key. This is why photorealistic rendering gets its own test section.

AMD’s Ryzen CPUs do really well, while Kaby Lake-X doesn't. Hyper-Threading keeps Core i7-7740X from losing sight of the field, but we have to wonder whether it deserves a place in Intel’s high-end desktop line-up.

CPU Performance: Encoding & Compression/Decompression

The Kaby Lake-X-based processor fares reasonably well when asked to perform simple decompression. However, all of the other tasks in this category end in total defeat.

High-Performance Computing (HPC)

This final benchmark discipline spells doom for Intel’s Core i7-7740X. Its designation as a high-end desktop part suggests it should do well, but that's just not the case. With four Hyper-Threaded cores, the -7740X carves out a spot in the back of the field.

Intel’s Core i9 processors might be decent options for the workstation space, but the same cannot be said for Core i7-7740X. This is a consumer CPU that was given the wrong moniker. Despite its lower price point, the expensive X299 platform negates a lot of those savings.

Furthermore, the new Kaby Lake-X-based model doesn't really outperform the mainstream version. Core i7-7700K is positioned correctly, and its successors should have continued along those lines instead of pretending that they are something they're not. Case in point: the performance differences between -7740X and -7700K in the workstation and HPC space are even smaller than in our gaming benchmarks. So, an expensive platform doesn't get you very far.

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Power Consumption & Overclocking

Intel isn't using a soldered integrated heat spreader (IHS) for Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X. Instead of the metallic solder most enthusiasts want to see, heat moves from the die to the IHS through inexpensive thermal interface material, which is just a fancy name for common thermal paste. This decision has implications for both our power consumption measurements and overclocking efforts. Fortunately, in light of the lower amount of waste heat produced by Core i7-7740X compared to Core i9-7900X, this isn't as much of a problem.

In order to produce comparable results, we used our industrial-grade Alphacool Eiszeit Chiller 2000 cooler that was needed for the Skylake-X review. A decent all-in-one liquid cooler would have been fine, though.

Power consumption is measured after the voltage converters and CPU, using points on the motherboard. These numbers need to be part of the equation for sizing your PSU. And depending on the motherboard you pick, they can differ by up to 30W. Consequently, our numbers are for the CPU only.

Power Consumption

At idle, Intel’s new Kaby Lake-X model does a lot better than -7700K. It also pulls ahead of AMD's Ryzen processors. Most likely, a lot of this is due to the disabled HD Graphics engine.

AutoCAD 2015 doesn’t stress CPUs all that much, since it can't fully utilize their available resources. Still, Intel’s Core i7-7740X consumes more power than its predecessors. Admittedly, the difference isn't huge. However, it is larger than our measurement error range and completely reproducible.

The situation is similar in our gaming workload. Interestingly, the average frame rates are almost identical as well.

The stress test produces somewhat surprising results. Intel’s Kaby Lake-X model edges out the -7700K. We don't know why the pattern reverses under full load. However, the delta is almost imperceptible in the 2W range.

Overclocking & Stability

Does a larger heat spreader and disabled graphics engine yield a meaningful advantage to Core i7-7740X's overclocking headroom? Before we start tweaking, we’d like to provide some background by showing a graph based on a motherboard manufacturer’s binning program. The voltages needed for Core i7-7740X are very informative:

The Core i5-7640X we'll be reviewing soon made it all of the way to 5.1 GHz, putting it in the middle of the pack. In other words, we have a thoroughly average sample.

We tested for stability at every frequency step using Cinebench R15, The Witcher 3, LuxRender, and Battlefield 1. Notice the deliberate exclusion of the AVX-heavy Prime95.

The Core i7-7740X's curve stays fairly straight, which means that power consumption doesn’t explode as clock rate goes up. Rather, the CPU chugs along until it just quits all of a sudden.

A closer look at the performance and power consumption curve shows that performance scales in an almost completely linear fashion with frequency, whereas power consumption increases faster, but not extremely so. Relating single-core performance to the necessary power yields a very similar picture. The resulting waste heat isn’t as bad as some might have feared. At 5.1 GHz, we’re looking at 90W. A good closed-loop liquid cooler should be able to handle this.

In spite of our sample being average, it yielded a good overclocking experience, especially since performance gains and power consumption increases never drifted too far apart.

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Temperature Curves & Delta Values

Cooling Nuclear Option: The Chiller

Again, we used our Alphacool Eiszeit Chiller 2000 to produce results that are comparable to those from our Core i9-7900X review. We also used this cooler in all of our AMD Ryzen reviews, which means that those results can be compared as well.

High Temperature Differences Challenge Cooling Performance

Kaby Lake-X suffers from Intel's use of thermal paste between the die and heat spreader. Solder would have been the way to go. The difference between the water block’s temperature, which is held at a constant 20°C, and the CPU temperature (according to its sensors) demonstrate this point nicely.

The curve below shows clearly that waste heat isn't dissipated quickly enough. Just as we did in our AMD Ryzen and Intel Core i9 launch articles, we used a very thin copper plate to measure the heat spreader's temperatures as well.

The next graph represents the temperature difference between the top of the CPU's heat spreader and cores.

Our cooling solution is one of the best you can buy. Nevertheless, we measure a 48°C difference between the top of the Core i7-7740X's heat spreader and its cores. This isn't a horrible result, but it could have been a lot better.

Leakage

Next, we measured power consumption at an identical load using different cooling solutions. The leakage currents were below our measurement equipment’s accuracy range. For this reason, we didn't bother with a graph. Kaby Lake-X doesn't have a problem with leakage currents that could increase power consumption in a meaningful way.

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Final Analysis

Superficially, Intel’s idea to transplant Kaby Lake onto its high-end desktop platform seems like it'd make sense. But ultimately, X299's excessive cost hamstrings Kaby Lake-X. In many ways, the Core i7-7740X reminds us of Intel’s Core i3-7350K. It's a great chip forced into a platform that doesn't match up with its price point.

Core i7-7740X is nearly identical to the existing -7700K; even its price is similar. At stock settings, the -7740X performs a lot like its mainstream counterpart, despite slightly higher base and Turbo Boost frequencies. We noticed the same performance characteristics as -7700K in lightly threaded workloads, such as gaming and most common desktop apps. But the -7740X pales in comparison to the brawnier Skylake-X models in heavy application tests. Lower idle power consumption numbers are likely a result of the -7740X's disabled graphics engine. However, the overall power and thermal measurements come out to be almost the same. Though we still don’t approve of the thermal paste Intel uses between its die and heat spreader, at least closed-loop liquid coolers are fine for this 112W chip.

The “X” in Kaby Lake-X promises extreme overclocking action, and we did eke out a few hundred megahertz over Core i7-7700K. That extra headroom is nice, but it doesn't translate to large gains in our gaming suite. In fact, at stock settings, the -7700K achieved higher average frame rates, while overclocking gave the -7740X a 1.19% advantage. The 99^th percentile variances between the chips both fell under 1%, with the advantage going to Core i7-7700K in stock and overclocked configurations. In either case, the difference between these two CPUs is imperceptible, even after overclocking them both. Perhaps that'll improve as X299-based motherboards receive more fine-tuned firmware.

Intel's Core i7-7700K is one of the fastest gaming processors we've ever tested, so matching it is a good thing. But the -7740X doesn't make sense as an equal when we factor in the X299 platform. You are going to pay an extra ~$150 for an X299 motherboard compared to a more mature Z270-based setup, and gain exactly zero features. In fact, you lose the integrated GPU that could be useful for other tasks, such as Ultra HD Blu-ray playback. Dropping the -7740X into LGA 2066 actually disables motherboard features you're paying for like extra DIMM slots, Skylake-X's more robust power delivery, and hamstrung chipset functionality.

Our motherboard contacts have expressed a general reluctance to create Kaby Lake-X-specific motherboards, and unless that changes, there is little reason to jump up to the X299 with a Kaby Lake-X chip. Certain enthusiasts will pursue a stouter overclock from the Kaby Lake architecture, and -7740X delivers in that regard. Intel's pitch is that Core i7-7740X serves as an entry point to X299 that paves the way for upgrades to Skylake-X later. We don't believe there's a big market for an expensive path like that, though. For those with the upgrade itch, either stay with the Z270 and spend bigger on a high-end GPU, or splurge on a true HEDT-class processor.

Intel has its Coffee Lake CPUs coming to market later this year, and we've heard rumors of a six-core model landing on the mainstream desktop. Consider waiting for more information on that prior to going the X299/Kaby Lake-X route, if you're still interested in Core i7-7740X. Also, AMD's Ryzen Threadripper is coming soon. There are just so many reasons not to buy this thing...

Core i7-7740X doesn’t give you anything new. Yes, it's one of the fastest gaming chips ever made, but you can get similar performance from the mature Z270 platform for significantly less money. We appreciate the higher overclocking ceiling, but that doesn't translate into enough benefit to justify the extra investment.

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Intel Core i9-7900X Review: Meet Skylake-X

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Intel’s new Skylake-X processors span the Core i7 and i9 families, but all drop into the same LGA 2066 interface, enabled by the X299 chipset. They're aimed specifically at high-end desktop users who need anywhere from four to 18 physical cores. Meanwhile, existing Skylake-S processors soldier on, popping into LGA 1151-equipped motherboards for mainstream desktops.

The company claims that several architectural enhancements to Skylake-X provide as much as 15% more performance than Broadwell-E in single-threaded workloads, while heavily-threaded tasks should be up to 10% faster.

Dominance in the high-end desktop segment began a decade ago for Intel. Since then, the CPU market has largely been a lopsided affair. Without much competition challenging its position, Intel never saw fit to cut prices or innovate aggressively. AMD's return to the table with Ryzen changed that with more cores, SMT, and unlocked multipliers, all for less money.

Now Intel is looking to defend its flagship against the recently-announced AMD Threadripper CPU, sporting 16 cores, 32 threads, and 64 lanes of third-gen PCIe connectivity. Of course, the enhancements to Skylake-X aren't any sort of knee-jerk reaction. These were in the works for years. Still, Intel moved on today's announcement with unfamiliar speed (tripping on its laces in the process). It also adjusted pricing in a way we haven't seen before. Enthusiasts, enjoy.

Specifications

The 12+ core Skylake-X models are still on the distant horizon, and our Core i7-7440X was inexplicably delayed in shipping. That leaves us with the 10-core Core i9-7900X for today's review. But first, let's discuss the complete line-up of high-end options:

Kaby Lake-X

We aren't accustomed to seeing current-gen architecture in the HEDT portfolio. Typically, the top models lag the mainstream chips by a generation or two. Dropping a pair of Kaby Lake-based chips into LGA 2066 changes this. Fortunately for fans of familiarity, everything else complementing the X299 platform controller hub is Skylake-based...though that could change soon. Earlier this year, Intel announced its 'Data Center First' strategy, which will see the newest processes coming to Xeon products before the desktop. Considering that the HEDT line-up consists of re-purposed data center dies, HEDT may become leading-edge.

In an unprecedented expansion, Intel grows its HEDT family from four models to nine, including those two Kaby Lake-X models. They're a curious addition, supporting two DDR4 memory channels, whereas Skylake-X exposes four. That means you can only use half of your motherboard's DIMM slots with a Kaby Lake-X CPU installed. Fewer PCIe lanes also result in restricted I/O options. Intel disables the on-die HD Graphics 630 engine, allowing the unused silicon to absorb heat and purportedly improve overclocking headroom. Aside from slightly higher base clock rates and a higher 112W TDP, the Core i5-7640X and i7-7740X are otherwise similar to their Skylake-S counterparts, right down to pricing.

In our opinion, matching "affordable" processors with expensive motherboards evokes images of the Core i3-7350K, which isn't popular due to the same sort of imbalance. Intel tells us that motherboard manufacturers can build low-cost X299 platforms specifically for Kaby Lake-X, but we don't see any of them scrambling to create such a niche product as of yet.

Core i5-7640X

Core i7-7740X

Core i7-7800X

Skylake-X

Intel supports DDR4-2666 on every Skylake-X CPU except Core i7-7800X, up from Broadwell-E's official DDR4-2400 specification. It deliberately disables ECC in order to dissuade the Xeon crowd from adopting more enthusiast-oriented platforms.

Intel hasn't released detailed specifications for the higher-end CPUs, but we expect it'll expose similar memory specifications. We also expect frequencies to decline as core counts increase.

Active Cores	1	2	3	4	Cores 5-10
Intel Core i9-7900X (GHz) Turbo Boost	4.3	4.3	4.1	4.1	4.0

The Core i9-7900X features the same Turbo Boost 2.0 technology enabled on previous-generation processors, except that clock rates are notably higher this time around. Expect 4 GHz with 10 active cores. Intel also arms six of the Skylake-X models with Turbo Boost Max 3.0. The company improved this technology to target the two fastest cores running lightly threaded workloads. In Broadwell-E, Turbo Boost Max 3.0 only accelerated a single core. Both favored cores max out at 4.5 GHz. Naturally, IPC throughput should be up quite a bit, addressing the big disadvantage Intel's big HEDT chips sometimes suffered compared to its nimbler quad-core desktop SKUs. Currently, Turbo Boost Max 3.0 requires a driver on some motherboards. But Intel plans native Windows 10 support to eliminate this in the future.

We also get partial AVX-512 support, meaning the upcoming 18-core flagship should be the first desktop host processor enabling 1 TFLOPS+ of compute performance.

Skylake-X is notably different from Skylake-S in that its cache hierarchy is completely re-worked. Core i9-7900X sports more L2 and less L3, which should improve performance in most applications. A new 2D mesh architecture makes its debut as well. Like AMD's Infinity Fabric, this architectural element isn't a universal win, we're finding (more on this shortly).

Whereas enthusiasts were dismayed to discover that the 10-core Core i7-6950X would sell for $1700+, they should be happy to learn of the 10-core Core i9-7900X's $1000 price tag. Paying a cool grand is the only way to get 44 lanes of PCIe 3.0; stepping down to Core i7-7820X drops you to 28 lanes. As storage migrates to the PCIe bus, those extra lanes could come in useful for SSDs since multi-GPU configurations aren't as popular these days. Intel does expose a new PCIe Virtual RAID on CPU (VROC) feature that allows you to coalesce up to 20 SSDs into a single bootable volume. Notably, you can assemble the RAID array on any available PCIe slot, whereas previous RSTe RAID implementations required a connection to the chipset. Sidestepping the chipset circumvents the bottleneck presented by DMI. This comes at a price, unfortunately. You're forced to purchase an upgrade key that plugs into the motherboard to unlock VROC functionality. Server customers are familiar with this practice, but it's not going to be popular among enthusiasts. We don't even know what the key will cost yet.

Intel does reinstate DMI and PCIe bus overclocking, which should please power users. A new memory controller-PLL trim voltage setting is designed to increase ratio-based memory overclocking capabilities, while a new AVX-512 ratio offset joins the standard AVX offset to control thermals during taxing AVX-enabled workloads.

We encountered a few odd performance anomalies as we tested Core i9-7900X during the past week. This launch certainly feels rushed, and though motherboard firmware updates (from multiple vendors) addressed some of the oddities, others persist. It appears that Intel's Skylake-X models will require a period of optimization, much like AMD's Ryzen processors. Let's take a look at the factors affecting Skylake-X's performance.

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Weaving The Fabric

Again, as you'll see in our benchmarks, we ran into some strange performance trends that didn't add up. Given Skylake-X's frequency advantage, reworked cache, and 2D mesh topology, we didn't expect Broadwell-E to stand a chance. But in some cases, the previous-gen flagship outperformed Core i9-7900X. Asked about these anomalies, Intel responded:

...we have noticed that there are a handful of applications where the Broadwell-E part is comparable or faster than the Skylake-X part. These inversions are a result of the “mesh” architecture on Skylake-X vs. the “ring” architecture of Broadwell-E.Every new architecture implementation requires architects to make engineering tradeoffs with the goal of improving the overall performance of the platform. The “mesh” architecture on Skylake-X is no different. While these tradeoffs impact a handful of applications; overall, the new Skylake-X processors offer excellent IPC execution and significant performance gains across a variety of applications.

We covered Skylake-X's mesh architecture in Intel Introduces New Mesh Architecture For Xeon And Skylake-X Processors. Check that piece out for more detail. Of course, there's a lot more to this story, and much of it remains under embargo. But this is a huge change to an already effective design, so it comes as no surprise that the mesh topology doesn't yield extra performance in all of our metrics.

The Background

Interconnects are pathways for moving data between key components inside of a processor, including cores, caches, and PCIe and memory controllers. They affect latency and power consumption, which in turn affects performance and thermal design power.

Intel's ring bus debuted in 2007 with Nehalem, and AMD's HyperTransport was introduced in 2001. Both technologies evolved, but higher processor core counts, more cache, and greater I/O throughput have strained the interconnects. There are a number of ways to improve their performance, though this often requires bumping up data rates, and thus voltage, in order to realize large performance gains.

Intel's bi-directional ring bus, pictured above in red on a Broadwell low core-count die, serves as a good example of the challenge. Data travels a circuitous route to reach the components, and latency amplifies as core count increases. The second image shows the Broadwell high core-count die with 24 cores. Aligning the building blocks into a monolithic bus imposes penalties that make it impractical, so Intel divided the larger die into two separate ring buses. This increases scheduling complexity, and the buffered switches that facilitate communication between the rings add a five-cycle penalty, limiting scalability.

In contrast, AMD introduced its Infinity Fabric with the Zen microarchitecture, currently implemented as two quad-core processor complexes communicating over a 256-bit bi-directional crossbar that also handles northbridge and PCIe traffic. They also share a memory controller. The trip across the Infinity Fabric to the other quad-core CCX and its accompanying cache results in increased communication latency. We detailed the design and measured its latency in our AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Review. We also found that higher memory frequencies can improve the Infinity Fabric's latency characteristics, which is likely one of the key reasons that Ryzen's performance increases with faster memory data transfer rates.

AMD contends that software and platform optimizations can defray some of the performance oddities we've noticed in our testing, and from what we've seen, that is true. AMD's efforts, and an unrelenting string of BIOS, chipset, and software updates, have led to much better performance than we recorded in our inaugural Ryzen 7 review.

AMD's work continues. And now Intel faces the same challenge.

What A Mesh

Intel's 2D mesh architecture made its debut on the company's Knights Landing products. The mesh consists of rows and columns of interconnects between the cores, caches, and I/O controllers. As you can see, the latency-killing buffered switches are absent. The ability to 'stair-step' data through the cores allows for much more complex, and purportedly efficient, routing. Intel claims its 2D mesh features a lower voltage and frequency than the ring bus, yet still provides higher bandwidth and lower latency.

Intel moved the DDR4 controllers to the left and the right sides of the 18-core high core-count die, similar to its Knights Landing design. Previously, they were at the bottom of the ring bus-based designs. The Skylake-X die shot suggests there are six memory controllers (second row down on the right and left columns), so it appears Intel disabled two controllers by default. The company likely uses its smaller LCC die for the Core i9-7900X, though representatives won't say for sure.

Things Get Meshy

Intel designed the mesh to increase scalability. There are trade-offs, however. We turned to SiSoftware Sandra's Processor Multi-Core Efficiency test, which measures inter-core, inter-module, and inter-package latency. The software offers Multi-Threaded, Multi-Core Only, and Single-Threaded metrics. We use the Multi-Threaded test with the "best pair match" setting (lowest latency).

The test measures performance between cores with all possible thread pairs, and for Intel's Core i9-7900X, that results in 189 separate results. We employ a data parser to boil the measurements down into average values.

Processor	Intra-Core Latency	Core-To-Core Latency	Core-To-Core Average Latency	Average Transfer Bandwidth
Core i9-7900X	14.5 - 16ns	69.3 - 82.3ns	75.56ns	83.21 GB/s
Core i9-7900X @ 3200 MT/s	16 - 16.1ns	76.8 - 91.3ns	83.93ns	87.31 GB/s
Core i7-6950X	13.5 - 15.4ns	54.5 - 70.3ns	64.64ns	65.67 GB/s
Core i7-7700K	14.7 - 14.9ns	36.8 - 45.1ns	42.63ns	35.84 GB/s
Core i7-6700K	16 - 16.4ns	41.7 - 51.4ns	46.71ns	32.38 GB/s

The intra-core measurement quantifies latency between threads that are resident on the same physical core, while the core-to-core numbers reflect thread-to-thread latency between two physical cores. Core i9-7900K is most comparable to the 10-core Core i7-6950X, but we included the four-core models as a reference point.

We recorded slightly higher intra-core latency and a larger 10.92ns average latency delta between the Skylake-X and Broadwell-E models. Despite Core i9-7900X's increased latency, we recorded a 17.54 GB/s advantage in average transfer bandwidth. That's a solid 26.7% increase. After generating our first set of -7900X results with DDR4-2666, we followed up with several DDR4-3200 tests and noticed an increase in mesh latency. But we also recorded higher average transfer bandwidth. These results are preliminary, and we are conducting further latency and game testing with different memory transfer rates and timings to provide a more in-depth analysis.

Processor	Intra-Core Latency	Intra-CCX Core-to-Core Latency	Cross-CCX Core-to-Core Latency	Cross-CCX Average Latency	Average Transfer Bandwidth
Ryzen 7 1800X	14.8ns	40.5 - 82.8ns	120.9 - 126.2ns	122.96ns	48.1 GB/s
Ryzen 5 1600X	14.7 - 14.8ns	40.6 - 82.8ns	121.5 - 128.2ns	123.48ns	43.88 GB/s

AMD's Ryzen processors employ a vastly different architecture that yields different measurements. The intra-core latency measurements represent communication between two logical threads resident on the same physical core, and they're unaffected by memory speed. Intra-CCX measurements quantify latency between threads on the same CCX that are not resident on the same core. In the past, we observed slight variances, but intra-CCX latency is also largely unaffected by memory speed. However, we've seen up to a 50% decrease in cross-CCX latency, which denotes latency between threads located on two separate CCXes, by increasing the memory data transfer rate from DDR4-1333 to DDR4-3200.

Fabric Bandwidth

We also plotted the fabric bandwidth results from our tests. Core i9-7900X establishes a large advantage over its Broadwell-E predecessor. The Ryzen processors dwarf Intel's quad-core models, but provide far less average bandwidth than the 10-core Intel CPUs.

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Caching Up & IPC, AVX, Cryptographics

For Skylake-X, Intel shrunk Skylake-S' shared last-level cache and transitioned from an inclusive to a non-inclusive scheme. Efficient caching algorithms that maximize the L2 cache hit rate are a key component of this change. The 'rebalancing' reduces per-core L3 cache to 1.375MB; further, Intel modified it to operate as a victim cache that fills with data evicted from the private L2 cache.

Intel also quadrupled each core's L2 cache from 256KB to 1MB. More lower-latency storage space should have a positive effect on performance, though Intel hasn't said how it implemented the silicon-level changes to its Skylake architecture.

Cache & Memory Latency And Bandwidth

Of course, the mesh's latency and bandwidth have an impact on cache and memory throughput, so we conducted a series of tests to compare our contenders, again using SiSoftware Sandra.

We did spot slightly higher L2 latency from Core i9-7900X compared to Core i7-6950X during the in-page random test, but Skylake-X's L2 latency dropped below Broadwell-E during the sequential access pattern. The multi-threaded cache bandwidth test reported a large performance advantage favoring Core i9-7900X.

IPC, AVX, Cryptographics

Due to limited time with Skylake-X ahead of its launch, we ran a preliminary set of IPC-oriented benchmarks. It's possible that further optimizations, or a more expansive set of workloads, might return different results, but we'll be sussing that out in the days to come.

We set a static 3 GHz clock rate for the following tests. It's important to note that Intel didn't specifically call out increased IPC as the source of its 15% single-threaded and 10% multi-threaded performance gains over Broadwell-E. Instead, the company based its claims on a comparison to Core i7-6950X with pre-silicon Spec*int_rate_base2006 tests (subject to a +/- 5% margin of error).

The single-threaded Cinebench test doesn't show a performance difference between Skylake-X and Skylake-S. However, there is a 1.54% improvement over Broadwell-E. The Ryzen processors clearly don't get as much done per clock cycle, and both trail.

Switching to the multi-threaded Cinebench benchmark exposes a larger difference between Intel's 10-core contenders and the rest of our pool. Core i9-7900X and Core i7-6950X remain the focus, though: we record a 1.93% delta between them.

Core i9-7900X employs two 256-bit AVX FMA units per core that operate in parallel, whereas Ryzen's Zen architecture divides 256-bit AVX operations across two FMA units per core. Intel deactivates one FMA per core on the sub-10-core Skylake-X models. As such, Core i9-7900K has an inherent advantage in the y-cruncher benchmark, a single- and multi-threaded program that computes Pi using AVX instructions. We tested with version 0.7.2.9469, which includes Ryzen optimizations.

The -7900X's single-core SHA2-256 test results are nearly twice that of the two previous-generation models due to Intel's targeted AVX2 optimizations for hashing performance. That same advantage carries over to the threaded test. Intel offers AVX-512 support with the Skylake-X processors but doesn't employ all 11 features in the desktop models. Instead, the company targets specific feature sets at different market segments.

The Zen architecture includes two AES cryptographic accelerators for each core, so it isn't surprising to see Ryzen dominate the single-core AES-256-ECB tests. Intel's processors leverage their core count advantage to turn the tables in the threaded AES workload.

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The X299 Basin Falls Chipset & Test Setup

The Basin Falls X299 Chipset

The Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X processors drop into an LGA 2066 interface, supported by Intel's X299 chipset. Curiously, the platform controller hub isn't repurposed from Intel's server portfolio this time around. The 14nm, 6W piece of core logic features a four-lane DMI 3.0 connection, which is similar to a PCIe link between the processor and chipset. That's a nice doubling of throughput compared to X99's 2 GB/s DMI 2.0.

Basin Falls, Intel's code-name for X299, supports 30 HSIO (High Speed I/O) lanes that vendors can carve up into eight SATA 3.0 and 10 USB 3.0 ports, but lacks native Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 support. Intel plans to add support in future chipsets, naturally.

X299 supports up to three RST PCIe 3.0 x4 storage devices, though the reduced PCIe lane allocations on many Skylake-X SKUs will limit connectivity options. Intel's I218 Jacksonville LAN PHY and Optane Memory support also make an appearance, but most HEDT systems will likely have an SSD. That’s a better option than Optane Memory, which merely serves as a cache for an HDD.

Although LGA 2066 incorporates more pins than LGA 2011v3, it shares many of the same dimensions. As a result, it's physically compatible with existing LGA 2011v3 coolers. However, Intel recommends water cooling as a minimum requirement due to Skylake-X's TDP rating. Skylake-X processors also have an integrated voltage regulator (IVR) that is similar to the FIVR implementation on Broadwell-E parts.

Like all of Intel's unlocked SKUs, the Core i9-7900X doesn't come with a bundled cooler. The company does sell its $85-$100 Liquid Cooling TS13X as an option, but as we'll discuss shortly, invest in a beefy custom loop if your plans for Skylake-X include overclocking.

Test Systems

X299-based motherboard firmware is evolving rapidly, right up through Skylake-X's launch. Reports indicate spotty Turbo Boost Max 3.0 support, which could lead to dissimilar test results from one review to the next. We tested our MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC extensively and found that it implements Turbo Boost correctly. We also disabled the all-core Turbo Boost feature to ensure a level playing field.

There were several demonstrations of memory overclocking beyond DDR4-4000 with Skylake-X processors at Computex, but we settled on DDR4-3200 to match the memory data transfer rates of our Ryzen models.

We introduced our new test system and methodology in How We Test Graphics Cards. If you'd like more detail about our general approach, check that piece out.

The only updated components in our German lab are the CPU, system memory, motherboard, and new cooling solution, so we'll just provide a quick overview in the following table:

Test Equipment and Environment
System	Germany Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 4GB G.Skill Ripjaws 4 DDR4-2600AMD Socket AM4 WorkstationAMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1600XAsus X370 Crosshair Hero VI2x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200Intel LGA 2011v3Intel Core i7-6900K, Core i7-6950XMSI X99S XPower Gaming Titanium4x 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4-2400Intel LGA 1151Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @2400 MT/sAll SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders EditionNvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power Supply Unit (PSU)Windows 10 Pro (All Updates)Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power Supply Unit (PSU)Windows 10 Pro (Creators Update)USIntel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2666 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sIntel LGA 2011v3Intel Core i7-6900K, Core i7-6950XASRock X99 Extreme44x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2666 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAMD Socket AM4 Workstation AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 5 1600XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium 2x G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ 2666 (stock), and 3200 MT/s Intel LGA 1151 Intel Core i5-7600K, i7-7500 MSI Z270 Gaming M7 2x G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ 2400 All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)USCorsair H115iCorsair H100i v2Arctic MX4
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

Comparison Processors

Intel Core i7-6950X

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X

Intel Core i7-6900K

VRMark & 3DMark

In spite of its higher Turbo Boost Max 3.0 frequencies and new cache hierarchy, the Core i9-7900X lags behind two Broadwell-E processors at stock settings. Even a 4.5 GHz overclock does little to rectify its position. Core i7-6950X takes the lead here.

The Core i9-7900X fares better during the DX11 and DX12 benchmarks. At its stock clock rate, it even leads the overclocked Core i7-6950X under DirectX 12. This series of benchmarks sets the tone: when Core i9-7900X can leverage its strengths, it provides impressive performance; but in some games it loses out to Broadwell-E.

Raw horsepower doesn't seem to be the problem. After all, -7900X leads in the API tests as well. This could just point back to isolated shortcomings of the mesh topology that Intel conceded to previously.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation became the poster child for game updates after AMD's Ryzen launch. We've endured seemingly weekly patches, which necessitate constant retesting. As a result, Ryzen 7 1800X offers much better performance now than it did at launch. In fact, the 1800X registers impressive gains in most games at stock and overclocked settings compared to our last round of testing.

Optimized game code doesn't help Intel's Core i9-7900X, though. With 10 Hyper-Threaded cores at its disposal, we expect the processor to lead in workloads optimized for threading. But again, it falls behind the overclocked Core i7-6950X in spite of its frequency advantage. The rest of the field falls in according to core count. The Core i7-7700K and Ryzen 7 processors account for a majority of frame time outliers.

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Civilization VI, Battlefield 1 & Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Civilization VI AI Test

The stock Core i9-7900X benefits from its dual-core 4.5 GHz Turbo Boost Max 3.0 setting to score well in Civilization VI's AI test. An overclock buys us very little in this situation.

This benchmark typically favors clock rate and IPC throughput over core count, and the Core i7-6950X scales well with increased frequency. Intel's stock Core i7-7700K falls into the middle of the pack, though a bit of tuning would likely propel it into a lead.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

The Core i9-7900X at stock settings tumbles to the bottom of our chart, which runs counter to our expectations. Even 10 cores, 20 threads, lots of L2 cache, and Turbo Boost Max 3.0 can't break past the six-core Ryzen 5 1600X at 4 GHz. Overclocking to 4.5 GHz does little to help. It's clear that the mesh-imposed performance penalty will have a profound effect on some titles.

Battlefield 1 (DX11)

On the other hand, Core i9-7900X wields its Turbo Boost frequencies and adjusted cache hierarchy well in other workloads. The stock Skylake-X CPU leads the test pool, even surpassing an overclocked Core i7-6950X.

Looks like Core i9-7650X is shaping up to have a split personality, right? It'll be interesting to see which one dominates in our application testing.

The Ryzen 7 1800X and Core i7-7700K contribute most to the somewhat messy frame time chart.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

The Dues EX: Mankind Divided benchmark results filter into two distinct camps. The Ryzen processors land up top, while Core i9-7900X joins its IA-based counterparts at the bottom.

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Grand Theft Auto V, Hitman & Shadow of Mordor

Grand Theft Auto V

We measure performance during Grand Theft Auto V's F-16 flight sequence with the built-in benchmark.

Intel's stock Core i9-7900X beats the Core i7-7700K by a large margin, and a bit of tuning pushes it past the overclocked Broadwell-E model.

An overclocked Ryzen 7 1800X surpasses Core i7-6900K. The Ryzen 7 1800X won't face a significant pricing challenge from the new eight-core Skylake-X chip, but it will be interesting to see them head to head when we get our hands on one.

All of these processors provide a smooth gaming experience. However, the stock Core i9-7900X experiences some frame time variability in the early stages of this benchmark. The -7700K also encounters a familiar spike near the end of the flight sequence.

Hitman (2016)

The Core i9-7900X leads in both its stock and overclocked configurations. Oddly, as we go through our results, it's evident that this processor tends to provide solid performance in lightly threaded games, but struggles in some heavily-threaded titles. Of course, we would have expected the opposite to be true.

The overclocked -7900X suffers a frame time variance spike in the opening stages of this test that's rivaled only by the overclocked Ryzen 7 1800X.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

We expect the Core i7-7700K to lead in lightly threaded games, and for once, it does.

Core i9-7900X scales well with some tuning to take second place. The overclocked Ryzen processors also fare well in this benchmark, though their stock configurations contribute the only notable frame time outliers. All the CPUs provide solid performance, but it's notable that the lowest-cost processors only trail the leaders by a few FPS.

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Project CARS, Rise of the Tomb Raider & The Division

Project CARS

AMD's Ryzen processors trail most of the Intel competition during this test, while the overclocked HEDT Core processors deliver 100 FPS+ on average.

The overclocked Ryzen 7 1800X and Ryzen 5 1600X offer nearly the same performance as a stock Core i7-6950K. That chip sets itself apart once we crank up its clock rate, though. Only an overclocked Core i9-7900X is faster.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider recently received a patch that significantly improves Ryzen's DX12 performance, making this one more title optimized for AMD's latest platform.

Nevertheless, Core i9-7900X performs well in our DX11-based test, taking first and second place in its overclocked and stock configurations. Broadwell-E is bested just slightly.

The Division

Ryzen 7 1800X trails the Core i7-7700K in its stock form, though a bit of tuning propels it into a lead. The Core i9-7900X beats its predecessor, but trails the less expensive AMD chip and Intel's own Core i7-7700K.

The Ryzen 5 1600X and Core i7-6900K contribute a majority of frame time outliers. However, all of these CPUs provide a smooth gaming experience.

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Workstation & HPC

2D Benchmarks: DirectX and GDI/GDI+

Adding Intel’s new CPU doesn’t yield any surprises in our AutoCAD 2D and GDI/GDI+ graphics benchmarks. The newcomer falls in place exactly where you’d expect based on its frequency.

2D Benchmarks: Adobe Creative Cloud

The same is true in Adobe's CC apps. Again, performance comes down to clock rate. The Intel Core i9-7900X does well in workloads that challenge more than four cores. However, two of the individual scores do show some need for optimization on Intel’s part, which may be weaknesses related to the mesh topology.

3D Benchmarks: DirectX and OpenGL

The Core i9-7900X’s graphics performance across individual applications and suites is consistent with our previous findings. Turbo Boost plays a big role here, since few of the popular applications are (yet) able to utilize more than two cores. This calls for a high IPC, which the Core i9-7900X has a much easier time supplying than the Core i7-6950X.

CPU Performance: Workstation

AMD’s Ryzen CPUs look good here, which is to say that the Core i9-7900X has to go all-out, and even then has a hard time justifying its price tag.

CPU Performance: Photorealistic Rendering

Final rendering doesn’t need a jack of all trades. Instead, efficiency and fast parallel computation are key. This is why photorealistic rendering gets its own test section. Intel's Core i9-7900X does really well, beating some of the contenders by huge margins. Only the much less expensive AMD Ryzen 7 1800X can keep up every now and then, which is a nice surprise. The Core i7-6950X can’t compete.

CPU Performance: Encoding & Compression/Decompression

These types of tasks also fall into the Core i9-7900X's wheelhouse. Decompression is the only field where Intel’s new processor slows down a bit. It's in good company, though. In the end, this workload is only lightly threaded, preventing the -7900X from really shining.

High Performance Computing (HPC)

Intel’s Core i9-7900X shines once again. However, we also have to call out the Ryzen 7 1800X for its exceptional performance, particularly given a much more affordable price tag.

In most tests, Intel’s new processor does dominate the field. This makes it an interesting alternative to expensive Xeon workstations for semi-professional work.

In the end, Intel’s Core i9-7900X is a good choice for enthusiasts running well-threaded professional tasks, particularly when a Xeon-based workstation might be overkill. Thanks to Turbo Boost, the new processor also performs well when only a small number of cores are in use, emphasizing IPC and clock rate more than parallelism.

This means that the Core i9-7900X kills two birds with one stone by providing high frequencies when just a few cores are active and great multi-threaded performance when dealing with well-threaded tasks. The same certainly can’t be said for its predecessor, the Core i7-6950X.

To be fair, the significantly less expensive AMD Ryzen 7 1800X keeps up with Intel's latest in a number of places. This comes as a surprise, since the numbers we generated when Ryzen launched were markedly worse. Power users who want top performance across the board will definitely get it from Intel, but this choice won’t always result in a speed-up commensurate with Core i9's price premium.

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Power Consumption & Overclocking

First, we had to use our industrial-grade Alphacool Eiszeit Chiller 2000 cooler to achieve meaningful test results. Air cooling is out of the question for Core i9-7900X, and even a decent all-in-one liquid cooling solution won’t get far.

Power consumption is measured after the voltage converters and CPU, using points on the motherboard. The 230A we saw during our overclocking tests prompted us to add a fan to the motherboard. We only had one platform for this story, so we played it safe with extra cooling around the LGA interface.

Power Consumption

These numbers are generated using stock motherboard settings; any significant under-volting had no effect, except to cause stability problems.

At idle, the Core i9-7900X comes in below its predecessor and AMD’s Ryzen models. Getting there required a firmware update to correct problems with P-states, among other issues plaguing this platform right up until launch.

Even lightly threaded workloads like AutoCAD 2015, which uses just a few of the Core i9-7900X’s cores, catapult Intel’s -7900X to the back of the pack in power consumption metrics.

This is almost certainly due to higher clock rates than previous-gen HEDT CPUs like the Core i7-6950X. Taking into account Skylake-X's increased performance, though, the Core i9-7900X remains a more efficient solution. One percent more power consumption gets you 29 percent more 2D performance and a massive 39 percent more 3D performance. Both tasks profit from Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 in a big way.

If more than three cores are used, the Core i9-7900X’s advantage shrinks considerably. It still beats the Core i7-6950X by approximately 17 percent, but the power consumption increase is a lot larger (around 10 percent).

Pushing all of the Core i9-7900X’s cores with Prime95 or LuxRender propels power consumption to incredible heights. You do get 48 percent more rendering performance in LuxRender, but at the expense of 58 percent-higher power use. This approach has the elegance of a sledgehammer. Then again, if you need speed at any cost, Core i9-7900X is top-notch.

Overclocking and Stability

We now know that the Core i9-7900X’s performance to power consumption ratio turns negative as you utilize more of its on-die resources. Of course, this has to be factored into your overclocking plans, since many coolers can't cope with the heat dissipated by a >200W processor.

Stable overclocking, defined as reliable operation under Prime95 for prolonged periods of time without hitting a temperature limit, wasn’t possible beyond 4.4 GHz. Reports of >5 GHz with all cores active should be taken with a grain of salt. We did boot into Windows at 5.1 GHz, but running actual applications resulted in either a BSOD or a motherboard emergency shutdown.

We did manage to achieve a stable 4.8 GHz overclock under the single- and multi-core Cinebench R15 benchmarks. However, our cooling solution was probably the decisive factor there. Realistically, 4.5 GHz should be achievable with an all-in-one liquid cooler. Let’s take a look at the comparison curves for Cinebench R15 with all cores active:

At a Vcore of 1.4V, the system stayed stable for 10 benchmark runs. Intel's Core i9-7900X consumed an average of 261W, while individual peaks jumped as high as 293W. A test at 4.8 GHz using 20 instances of a year-long shading computation for a rooftop photovoltaic array, including profit calculation, pushed power consumption all the way to 335W. The motherboard shut down after we started Prime95 without limiting AVX. The last recorded value was 364W.

The performance and power consumption curves yield some interesting findings. Performance scales with clock rate in an almost linear fashion. Power consumption increases faster, but not as rapidly as we feared that it might.

The more pronounced curve is due to relatively high values at lower frequencies, where the “background noise” (load caused by other system components) is more noticeable.

So, what’s the final verdict on overclocking Intel's Core i9-7900X? It depends on the quality of your cooler and its ability to move heat off the CPU as quickly as possible.

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Temperature & Thermal Problems

Cooling Nuclear Option: The Chiller

As mentioned, we had to use Alphacool's Eiszeit Chiller 2000 to achieve usable overclocking results. More conventional thermal solutions just wouldn't cut it. All-in-ones like Corsair's H100i and Enermax's LiqTech 240 hit their limits at stock frequencies under Prime95. The custom loop threw in the towel at 4.6 GHz.

Why can't those liquid coolers keep up with a CPU like the -7900X? Back in the day, a normal all-in-one was good enough to keep the Core i7-5960X running cool, even overclocked to 4.8 GHz. We measured power consumption numbers of up to 250W back then. So, why did we have to force a constant 20°C in the loop to even start experimenting?

High Temperature Differences Challenge Cooling Performance

The reason that Skylake-X is so much harder to cool traces back to the thermal paste Intel chose to use instead of solder between the processor die and heat spreader. Although paste is cheaper, it's also less than ideal for cooling performance.

Intel’s digital temperature sensors report reliable results from 35 to 40°C and up, prompting us to only include values above that range in our analysis. The difference between the water cooling block's temperature, which is held at a constant 20°C, and the CPU temperature reported by Intel's sensors shows just how bad of a choice thermal paste really was.

We measured the CPU heat spreader’s temperature the same way we did when AMD launched Ryzen 7 1800X, by using a thin copper plate. The resulting curve shows very clearly that waste heat can't be dissipated quickly enough. A solution good enough for a thermal lightweight like Intel's Core i7-7700K just doesn’t work for Core i9-7900X.

This curve represents the temperature delta, which is to say the thermal difference between Core i9-7900X’s cores and the top of its heat spreader. The outcome is shocking:

In the end, the delta between the cores and top of the heat spreader reaches 71°C, and that's using one of the best cooling setups money can buy. Naturally, lesser thermal solutions start running into trouble at stock frequencies when you run a stress test.

To illustrate our point, we plotted the temperature for all of the Core i9-7900X’s cores at stock settings running Prime95 or LuxRender. A good custom water-cooling loop does fairly well, which shouldn't come as a surprise. However, no other thermal solution will be able to keep up. Even the motherboard manufacturers we spoke to agree, telling us about their all-in-one liquid coolers running out of headroom as soon as they ran Prime95 without limiting AVX.

A Tcore of up to 65°C and a heat spreader temperature of approximately 24°C make for a difference of more than 40°C. That's at 230W. Once the 300W line is crossed, even the Alphacool Eiszeit Chiller 2000 taps out. This isn’t even difficult to do: with a Core i9-7900X running at 4.6 or 4.7 GHz, using the voltages needed to get there, even simple rendering applications trigger those levels. The highest power consumption numbers we saw were just north of 300W, which had the CPU hitting its 100°C thermal limit consistently. An emergency shutdown followed soon after.

Leakage

Next, we measured power consumption under a constant load using different coolers. For a temperature increase of approximately 40°C, power consumption increases by five percent. This isn’t just an acceptable result, but a really good one. The values above 100°C are not as reliable due to throttling. Consequently, we made an exception and used a low-pass filter that smoothed out the brief decreases.

Everything could have been great, if it wasn't for the thermal paste between Intel's die and heat spreader. Admittedly, most workstation or semi-pro users won't overclock, cutting down on the number of customers affected by this problem. But we all know that affluent enthusiasts attracted to Skylake-X's balance between high frequencies and core counts will have to face a significant cooling challenge. Your choices come down to high-end all-in-one packages or a custom water-cooling loop. Air cooling is completely out of the question if you expect the -7900X to run comfortably under full load.

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Conclusion

Intel’s market dominance burdens the company with certain expectations when it launches new hardware. Naturally, we expect more performance. And although we're quick to deride incremental updates, forward progress is what we want to see. At no point is a step backward alright in our books, and we saw a handful of those in today's tests.

Intel's mesh fabric and AMD's Infinity Fabric demonstrate how highly parallel architectures require more sophisticated interconnects. In some cases, they introduce performance regressions compared to simpler configurations that connect subsystems more directly. Remember, both companies used their previous-generation layouts for over a decade, and early implementations weren't without weaknesses that were later improved.

Most recently, Ryzen faced some puzzling performance issues at launch. More than three months later, a steady stream of firmware, chipset, and software updates has rectified a lot of the issues we initially identified. Even in this story, revisiting Ryzen 7 1800X leaves us with a very positive impression, particularly compared to Intel's $1000+ alternatives. Ryzen didn't magically become the fastest CPU out there, but it's impossible to ignore at its price point.

Enthusiasts might hope for similar improvements from Intel. After all, AMD is overcoming its roadblocks with a fraction of the R&D budget. We asked Intel if it expects software-based optimizations to fix what disappointed us, and company representatives responded that software tuning for the new architectural enhancements and cache hierarchy could improve performance. Remember, though, Core i9-7900X is based on the same micro-architecture as older Core CPUs. It's improbable that mere code updates will rectify issues introduced by Skylake-X's layout when Skylake-S and its derivatives are already well-supported.

As it stands, aggressive Turbo Boost frequencies and a re-balanced cache hierarchy go a long way to improving on Broadwell-E's minor weaknesses. When the Core i9-7900X does well, it really shines. Often, the chip beats every competitor we throw up against it, including Core i7-6950X. In other workloads, latency imposed by its mesh topology causes Core i9 to stumble. That isn’t to say performance falls off completely. But we do see anomalies unfitting of a $1000 CPU. If you're strictly a gamer, Core i9-7900X won't make you want to buy a new CPU, motherboard, and memory kit.

Enthusiasts also want to see robust overclocking capabilities, and Skylake-X does offer a higher frequency ceiling than Core i7-6950X. You're going to cope with a lot of heat in the process, though. Given Intel’s insistence on using thermal paste between its die and heat spreader for longer-term reliability, the processor can’t dissipate heat as effectively, so thermal performance becomes a limiting factor. Plan on investing in a beefy open loop if you want to push the Core i9-7900X much further than its stock frequencies.

Core i9-7900X performs well in our productivity, workstation, and HPC tests. The mesh-imposed disparities aren't as pronounced in those benchmarks. But we also have re-run Ryzen 7 1800X benchmarks to think about. Pressure to size up has pushed AMD's flagship down to $460, less than half of what a Core i9-7900X would cost. While Intel may capture the top 1% of high-end enthusiasts with Skylake-X, everyone else has to consider whether Ryzen may be the smarter buy.

Moreover, AMD's upcoming Threadripper CPU has to have Intel worried. How do we know? The X299 motherboards we used needed firmware updates to address very serious performance issues right up until launch. Intel didn't seem nearly as ready for Skylake-X's introduction as we'd expect. A number of Core i9s with even more cores won't be ready until later this year. However, it looks like Intel couldn't get the four-, six-, eight-, and 10-core models out fast enough. They'll ship later this month.

Unfortunately, this story won't be ready to wrap up until we have Threadripper to compare against. Given Core i9-7900X’s high price and performance caveats, enthusiasts should probably hold off on a purchase until we know more about the competition, even if Skylake-X looks like a bigger step forward than Intel's past HEDT designs.

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Nvidia Titan Xp 12GB Review

Chris Angelini — Thu, 25 May 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Titan Xp 12GB Review

Titan Xp recently replaced the Titan X atop Nvidia’s desktop graphics card hierarchy, correcting the strangeness of a $700 GeForce GTX 1080 Ti outperforming the company’s $1200 flagship. You’d think that would be another milestone to celebrate. But Nvidia announced the news quietly, curtly declining our request to take Titan Xp for a spin. The writing was on the wall, then: Titan Xp, still priced at $1200, assuredly wouldn’t serve up enough performance to tempt gamers away from the 1080 Ti. It was built to correct a discontinuity in Nvidia’s line-up.

And yet, we cannot help but wonder how much additional performance you get from a fully-enabled GP102 processor operating at a similar GPU Boost clock as 1080 Ti, coupled with 11 Gb/s GDDR5X memory overclocked even higher. So, like moths to a flame, we went out and bought ourselves a Titan Xp.

Specifications

Titan Xp, From The Inside

Up until now, Quadro P6000 was the only card based on a pristine GP102 processor. The previous-gen Titan X, also constructed around GP102, had two of its Streaming Multiprocessors disabled (for more on GP102, check out our Nvidia Titan X Pascal 12GB Review).

But as yields at TSMC improve, Nvidia has more fully-functional GPUs to go around. Titan Xp is a direct beneficiary of this. All 30 of the processor’s SMs are enabled, yielding 3840 CUDA cores and 240 texture units. Using the base clock rate to calculate compute performance, this gives Titan Xp an FP32 rate of roughly 10.8 TFLOPS (or 12.1 TFLOPS if you believe it can maintain its rated GPU Boost frequency though compute-intensive workloads). Unfortunately, with only four FP64 cores per SM, Titan Xp’s double-precision rate plummets to 337.2 MFLOPS at its base clock rate.

Like the Titan X before it, Titan Xp sports GP102’s complete back-end. All 12 of its 32-bit memory controllers are active, each bound to eight ROPs and 256KB of L2 cache. That adds up to 96 ROPs, 3MB of shared L2, and 12GB of GDDR5X.

	Titan Xp	Titan X (Pascal)	GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	GeForce GTX 1080
Shader Units	3840	3584	3584	2560
ROPs	96	96	88	64
GPU	GP102	GP102	GP102	GP104
Transistors	12 Billion	12 Billion	12 Billion	7.2 Billion
Memory Size	12GB GDDR5X	12GB GDDR5X	11GB GDDR5X	8GB GDDR5X
Interface	384-bit	384-bit	352-bit	256-bit
GPU Boost Clock Rate (MHz)	1585	1531	1582	1733
Memory Clock Rate (MHz)	1425	1250	1375	1250

Nvidia bolsters peak bandwidth compared to Titan X by populating GP102’s 384-bit memory interface with the same 11 Gb/s modules found on GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. The company even overclocks them slightly to 11.4 Gb/s, resulting in more than 547 GB/s of theoretical throughput (Titan X topped out at 480 GB/s; 1080 Ti nudged that up to 484 GB/s). After almost two years as the only gaming card to exceed 500 GB/s, AMD’s HBM-equipped Radeon R9 Fury X is eclipsed by Titan Xp.

Similar to the 1080 Ti, Titan Xp boasts a typical GPU Boost frequency of 1582 MHz. Its base clock rate, however, is a more conservative 1405 MHz, according to GPU-Z. That’s a bit lower than Titan X’s 1417 MHz and a larger dip compared to 1080 Ti’s 1480 MHz, likely reflecting Titan Xp’s larger pool of active resources.

Titan Xp, Titan X, and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti all share the same layout. But whereas 1080 Ti’s PCB is fully populated, Titan Xp and Titan X utilize co-packaged high- and low-side MOSFETs from ON Semiconductor (NTMFD4C85N).

Also like Titan X, all 12 of Titan Xp’s memory emplacements are populated (vs. 1080 Ti’s 11).

A similar 250W board power calls for the same eight- and six-pin auxiliary power connectors, both of which face up, out of the card’s top. You can also see on the PCB where Quadro P6000’s eight-pin connector would attach, pointing straight back.

Titan Xp, From The Outside

Titan Xp looks just like this Titan X, minus the DVI output

If you were hoping for some sort of gussied-up exterior to show off that you spent $1200 on Nvidia’s latest and greatest, prepare for disappointment. Titan Xp is distinguishable from Titan X in exactly two ways. First, there’s a tiny sticker on the back plate with the card’s model. Second, Titan Xp sports the same I/O bracket as GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

You get four display outputs, then, including three full-sized DisplayPort 1.2-certified interfaces (they’re DP 1.3/1.4-ready) and one HDMI 2.0b port. The original Titan X’s DVI connector is notably absent, facilitating more airflow through the bracket. Back when it launched 1080 Ti, Nvidia claimed the freer-flowing exhaust improved cooling and reduced noise. Our own Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Review showed that card’s acoustic profile to be slightly different than Titan X, though not necessarily any better. Expect a similar experience from Titan Xp.

The good news for system builders is that any gaming PC designed to accommodate one of Nvidia’s Founders Edition boards will take the Titan Xp’s dimensions without a problem. The distance from the card’s slot cover to the end of its cooler spans 26.9cm. From the top of the motherboard slot to the top of the cooler, we measure 10.5cm. And with a depth of 3.5cm, Titan Xp fits nicely in a dual-slot form factor. Whereas our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti weighs in at 1039g, the Titan Xp’s 1072g is a bit heavier (matching the Titan X in our U.S. lab).

The external similarities between Titan X and Xp show a bit of laziness on Nvidia’s part. Despite the marketing department’s attempts to scrub gamer-oriented GeForce branding from this card’s name, there’s still a back-lit GeForce GTX logo on Titan Xp’s top edge. Further, Nvidia couldn’t be bothered to etch an extra ‘p’ on the shroud—it still reads Titan X.

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How We Tested Nvidia’s Titan Xp 12GB

Nvidia’s latest and greatest will no doubt be found in high-end platforms. Some of these may include Broadwell-E-based systems. However, we’re sticking with our MSI Z170 Gaming M7 motherboard, which was recently upgraded to host a Core i7-7700K CPU. The new processor is complemented by G.Skill’s F4-3000C15Q-16GRR memory kit. Intel’s Skylake architecture remains one of the company’s most effective per clock cycle, and a stock 4.2 GHz frequency is higher than the models with more cores. Crucial’s MX200 SSD remains, as does the Noctua NH-12S cooler and be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W power supply.

As far as competition goes, the Titan Xp is rivaled by its predecessor, the Titan X (Pascal), and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which is even faster. Those are the three cards we’re comparing, though we’ll pull out a couple of others for our compute-oriented benchmarks.

Our conventional gaming selection now includes Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, Battlefield 1, Doom, Hitman, Metro: Last Light, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, and The Witcher 3. We’re also adding Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III. Beyond those conventional titles, we're adding VR testing in Chronos, Serious Sam VR, Arizona Sunshine, and Robo Recall. If you'd like to know more about how we can test graphics cards in VR using Oculus' Rift HMD, check out FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality.

All of the numbers you see in today’s piece are fresh, using updated drivers. We’re using build 382.05.

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Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

The comparison between Titan Xp and Titan X is going to be a percentage game. We already know that the Xp card isn’t going to make a higher resolution playable, or even give you access to a more taxing quality preset than its predecessor.

At 2560x1440, Titan Xp averages almost 9% faster than Titan X. Our frame rate over time chart shows several passages where the new flagship is distinctly faster, and other areas where it’s pretty much tied with the other GP102-based boards.

3840x2160 Results

A more demanding resolution helps differentiate these graphics cards to the point that Titan Xp averages 12%-higher frame rates than Titan X. Not bad, as far as intra-generational improvements go. Of course, it’s the $1200 price tag that kills Titan Xp in any comparison to a $700 GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

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Battlefield 1 (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

A 6% speed-up over Titan X isn’t much to write home about…but at least the Titan Xp is faster than Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in Battlefield 1 at 2560x1440. Those are great frame rates for variable-refresh QHD displays.

3840x2160 Results

We ran the results at 3840x2160 several times in order to discern the reason these cards all bunch up around 60 FPS. Though the results are difficult to explain (and it’s probably just coincidence, given that V-sync is forced off), they’re not much different from what we found in our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti review, where both GP102-based boards hovered right around the same frame rate.

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Doom (Vulkan)

2560x1440 Results

The Titan X averaging 165.4 FPS is so blisteringly fast at 2560x1440 that it’s hard to imagine why you’d need something quicker. But Titan Xp posts an average frame rate more than 9% higher.

3840x2160 Results

Titan Xp’s advantage over Titan X grows to 13%+ at 3840x2160, yielding perhaps the smoothest experience of any game in our benchmark suite at 4K. But GeForce GTX 1080 Ti gives you nearly 90% of Titan Xp’s performance for less than 60% as much money. That last 10% is very expensive.

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Hitman (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

The graph of frame rate over time illustrates why Hitman’s bar chart is so boring: all three GP102-based cards hit the same bottleneck at QHD, which keeps their subtle differences from having much impact on performance. Again, that’s pretty consistent with what we found in our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti review.

3840x2160 Results

Stepping up to 3840x2160 better-emphasizes Titan Xp’s strengths to the tune of 10%-higher average frame rates versus Titan X. That’s a much larger delta than what you see between Titan X and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

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Metro: Last Light Redux (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

Metro remains a great benchmark of graphics performance; you can easily crank its detail settings up to a point where even the fastest GPUs squirm. Case in point: back when we reviewed GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, we averaged more than 100 FPS at 2560x1440, so this time we switched on supersampling to drive frame rates down. These cards have plenty of GDDR5X and bandwidth to spare, after all.

Titan Xp posts an average frame rate almost 11% higher than its predecessor.

3840x2160 Results

Applying SSAA has the negative consequence of making Metro: Last Light unplayable at UHD. Although performance crests above 40 FPS at times, dips into the 20s are problematic. Increased pressure on the GPU’s back-end drops Titan Xp’s advantage to just over 8% compared to Titan X where we’d otherwise expect to see the delta widen.

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Rise of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

Alright, so let’s back off the supersampling a bit. Instead of using 2x SSAA as we did in our 1080 Ti review, Rise of the Tomb Raider is configured for SMAA. This allows Titan Xp to outperform Titan X by almost 11%, achieving an average frame rate in excess of 120.

3840x2160 Results

At 3840x2160, you don’t need SSAA for a great-looking picture. Enabling SMAA is perfect for maintaining smooth performance. Our Titan Xp averages 64.6 FPS, which is 13% higher than Titan X’s 57.1 FPS.

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Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

We’ve been running Ghost Recon Wildlands at the game’s Very High quality preset, since most of our reviews involve AMD graphics cards as well, and that setting disables Nvidia’s Turf Effects. At 2560x1440, flipping on Ultra quality still yields playable performance, though.

Titan Xp is a little more than 7% faster than Titan X using this configuration. Meanwhile, a look back to our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti review illustrates the hit Ultra quality imposes. Our Titan X musters two-thirds of the performance it managed under Ghost Recon’s Very High preset.

3840x2160 Results

Titan Xp carves out a 10% advantage over Titan X at 3840x2160. However, the Ultra preset imposes a stiff penalty on performance. Although Titan Xp’s minimum frame rate is an acceptable 33 FPS, you might consider dropping to Very High for a smoother 4K experience.

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Tom Clancy’s The Division (DirectX 12)

2560x1440 Results

All of these cards have performance to spare through The Division’s built-in benchmark. Nvidia’s Titan Xp, specifically, is more than 13% faster than Titan X, averaging more than 100 FPS.

3840x2160 Results

The jump to 3840x2160 shrinks Titan Xp’s advantage over Titan X to just over 12%. Although that 29 FPS minimum is troubling, it’s incurred during one dip during the benchmark run. Otherwise, Titan Xp stays above 50 FPS for the most part.

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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

2560x1440 Results

This is our first time out with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III. Dialing in this game’s highest detail settings imposes a substantial performance penalty. Its own tooltips claim that the High Anti-Aliasing option (which supplements FXAA by rendering to a higher-res off-screen buffer) can reduce frame rates by 50 to 100%. A 100% reduction sounds pretty severe to us…

Warnings aside, Nvidia’s GP102 averages more than 50 FPS at 2560x1440 in three separate implementations. A scant 6% speed-up doesn’t say much for Titan Xp’s extra resources, though.

3840x2160 Results

Thirty frames per second doesn’t look nearly as bad in an RTS as it does in a first-person shooter. Still, we’d suggest dialing a few settings back at 3840x2160 to improve performance.

Titan Xp maintains its 6% lead over Titan X.

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The Witcher 3 (DirectX 11)

2560x1440 Results

The Witcher 3 is a great-looking game with all of its quality settings maxed out. We go one step further than usual and enable HairWorks, since there aren’t any AMD graphics cards in our test field.

Titan Xp is about 9% faster than Titan X, averaging almost 100 FPS.

3840x2160 Results

The new card’s lead grows to 11% at 3840x2160. Its average frame rate is right about 60, and the Titan Xp never drops below 52 FPS.

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Virtual Reality

A couple of months back, we published FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality, introducing hardware- and software-based methods for benchmarking graphics cards using the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Today we’re dusting off the FCAT VR toolset to show how Titan Xp compares to Titan X and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

Arizona Sunshine

Arizona Sunshine was one of the first games we tested using FCAT VR. Due to some well-publicized (and controversial) Core i7-only content, we were especially curious to explore its performance. Is the game CPU-bound, or can we stress these GP102-based cards using maxed-out detail settings?

All three cards drop a handful of frames through our 100-second test sequence, and none of them demonstrate any reliance on asynchronous spacewarp. The result is a constant 90 FPS on our Oculus Rift. A look at unconstrained frame rate, however, shows Titan Xp capable of 129 FPS compared to Titan X’s 112. That’s a 15% advantage favoring Titan Xp.

Chronos

Our introduction to FCAT VR also included a lot of data from an ~80-second benchmark sequence in Chronos at the game’s Epic detail settings. Titan X was the only card able to deliver 90 FPS of new frames, without ever leaning on Oculus’ asynchronous spacewarp technology to synthesize frames.

Titan Xp and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti enjoy the same distinction. All three cards drop a handful of frames throughout our run, corresponding to spikes in frame time. However, they deliver an almost-constant 90 FPS.

Were it not for the HMD’s fixed refresh interval, FCAT’s frame time data suggests that Titan Xp would serve up 146 FPS versus Titan X’s 102 FPS. That’s an incredible 43% speed-up, though we have to point out that 1080 Ti achieves 137 unconstrained frames per second, beating Titan X by 34% for a lot less money.

Robo Recall

Robo Recall is one of the most fun games available for the Rift, in our opinion. We benchmark this title with a 150-second recording from its first level, choosing High detail, 2xMSAA, enabling Planar Reflections and Indirect Shadows, and disabling Adaptive Resolution to avoid dynamic changes that’d create an unfair comparison.

Make no mistake—it’s completely possible to overwhelm these cards by maxing out the Pixel Density option. We scale back to 1.2, though, to avoid more of the frame time spikes already prevalent throughout our recorded runs.

Again, all three cards avoid triggering asynchronous spacewarp, but not with much headroom to spare. Titan Xp achieves 110 unconstrained FPS, beating Titan X by ~9%. GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is 7% faster than 1080 Ti. Not many enthusiasts are willing to pay an extra $500 for that difference in performance.

Serious Sam VR

Though seemingly less demanding than games like Robo Recall and Chronos, Serious Sam VR is undeniably a blast to play. An 80-second recording through the first stage on Earth is enough to finish the level.

Titan X and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti score similarly through our benchmark, while Titan Xp is about 10% faster. As you can see, though, frame times are fairly consistent and not many frames are dropped by any one card. They all deliver a smooth 90 FPS to the HMD with a bit of available headroom left over.

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Compute

Once upon a time, the Titan name represented prosumer-level functionality. In addition to great gaming performance, Nvidia’s original Titan boasted theoretical FP64 processing power on par with the company’s Quadro and Tesla cards via GK110. That changed from Maxwell onward, where double-precision fell to 1/32 the rate of peak FP32 performance. Half-precision in the Pascal generation is even worse: you get a 1/64 rate of FP16 compared to FP32.

With each card configured as default, the difference between Titan Xp and the more hobbled GP102-based boards is evident. Those extra CUDA cores play the most prominent role in a compute workload, where they’re front and center. We measure an almost-8% improvement in single-floats and a >11% speed-up versus Titan X in double-floats using Sandra 2017.

The GeForce GTX Titan looks homely at the bottom of our chart. But if you jump into Nvidia’s driver control panel and enable "GeForce GTX Titan" under the Double precision drop-down menu, GPU Boost gets disabled and the FP64 cores operate at 8x their original frequency. Single-float performance takes a big hit, dropping to 2.66 Gpix/s. However, doubles jump from 171.09 Mpix/s to 2 Gpix/s. That’s more than two times the FP64 performance of Titan Xp or GeForce GTX 1080 Ti!

Nvidia’s Maxwell and Kepler architectures don’t support mixed precision like Pascal does, so they’re forced to emulate half-floats at the same rate as FP32 mode. Meanwhile, the GP102-based boards post real-world half-float results around 40% of their double-float numbers.

A 10-minute test run gives FAHBench plenty of time to warm up each card with a sample molecular dynamics calculation. The difference between single- and double-precision compute performance isn’t as pronounced here as it is in Sandra. To that point, Titan Xp’s extra CUDA cores only translate to a 4%-higher score compared to Titan X in a single-precision run.

By far, the biggest revelation comes from Nvidia’s GeForce GTX Titan, which is again humbled at the bottom of our chart. Flipping on its driver-based FP64 switch knocks the single-precision score down to 46.1793, while double-precision jumps to 17.8684. For a second time, we see the four-year-old card outperform Nvidia’s fastest desktop-class board.

A 7% speed-up over Titan X in LuxMark’s OpenCL renderer lands somewhere between our numbers in Sandra and FAHBench. Previous-gen GPUs are significantly slower.

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Temperature

Gaming Loop

Physically, Titan Xp incorporates elements of Titan X and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, but hosts a graphics processor with more active resources. Given what we found in the reviews of those two cards (mainly, that they both give up lots of performance as they heat up due to hitting their power limits), we wondered how Nvidia’s same reference cooler would cope inside of a similar 250W ceiling.

To start, we fired up our gaming loop, 10 runs of the Metro: Last Light Redux benchmark.

The trio settles in around 84°C, though the 1080 Ti gets there more quickly, followed by Titan X. Titan Xp’s ramp up happens at a slightly slower pace.

Stress

Titan X and 1080 Ti overshoot their target temperatures slightly before dropping to ~84°C and ~85°C, respectively. Titan Xp heats up gradually in comparison, settling into an 84°C temperature target a bit more gracefully.

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Clock Rates

Gaming Loop

Our retail Titan Xp averaged 1721 MHz. Our press sample GeForce GTX 1080 Ti averaged 1680 MHz. And the Titan X dropped all the way to an average of 1617 MHz through the same sequence. You can see in the graph just how much the clock rate varies on all three cards.

Though the 1080 Ti and Titan Xp officially sport the same GPU Boost clock rating, it’s pretty clear that the Titan Xp we purchased achieves more aggressive frequency numbers. Titan X ships with lower base and GPU Boost clock rates, so its disadvantage is no surprise.

Stress

A more taxing FurMark workload stabilizes the core clock rates we record as they slam up against the power limit of all three boards. Titan Xp and Titan X both average ~1400 MHz, while GeForce GTX 1080 Ti hangs out in the ~1450 MHz range.

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Fan Speed

Gaming Loop

This happens because Titan Xp’s fan speed curve is steeper than the other two cards.

How is it possible for a more complex GPU to operate at a higher frequency, temperature and power limit being equal? Well, the Titan Xp’s fan averages more than 2500 RPM, while 1080 Ti and Titan X both average less than 2400 RPM. All three cards end the test thermally-limited, but greater cooling performance lets Titan Xp bounce around at an advanced clock rate within that 84°C threshold.

Stress

Nvidia doesn’t need to spin Titan Xp’s fan as fast in this scenario. Because its 3840-core GPU hits its power limit at a much lower clock rate, the cooler doesn’t struggle to keep up. Instead, it’s the Titan X that strains above 2800 RPM by the time our 10-minute test ends.

Remember that 1080 Ti and Titan Xp both benefit from a freer-flowing thermal solution (at the cost of a DVI output). The design tweak appears to pay off here, though, under extreme duress.

Notice also that GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and Titan X demonstrate a sudden bump in fan speed, corresponding to the point where they overshoot their temperature targets. Such a rapid speed-up is audibly distinct. Meanwhile, Titan Xp’s clock rate starts lower as it immediately runs into a power limit, resulting in a slower temperature increase that never gets away from the fan.

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Conclusion

GeForce GTX 1080 Ti created an imbalance in Nvidia’s portfolio that pretty much doomed future sales of the original Titan X (Pascal). Titan Xp rectifies this with the most complete implementation of GP102 possible, aggressive clock rates, and 12GB of overclocked GDDR5X memory.

The resulting configuration is definitely faster than Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and Titan X, though the advantage you enjoy depends on what you're playing and how it utilizes Nvidia’s GPU. Through our 10-game test suite, run at the highest detail settings available, Titan Xp averages 8%-higher frame rates than Titan X at 2560x1440 and a 9.5% improvement over its predecessor at 3840x2160.

To be sure, that’s really only quick enough to fix the issue of GTX 1080 Ti outperforming Nvidia’s old Titan X (Pascal). Few enthusiasts will find reason to spend $500 more on Titan Xp this late into Pascal’s cycle, with the first Volta-based GPU already generating buzz in data centers, and ahead of AMD’s eventual Radeon RX Vega launch.

No doubt, Nvidia anticipated a bit of indifference to Titan Xp. It even applied some of its own. Although the little ‘p’ appears on the card’s retail packaging, Nvidia left a Titan X logo on the fan shroud and neglected to remove its back-lit GeForce logo up top. On the outside, Titan Xp is almost indistinguishable from Titan X.

If we go back and take a more nuanced look at Titan Xp’s higher performance, we see that Nvidia did spend some time tweaking this card’s operational parameters. In order to accommodate GP102 with all of its resources enabled, using the same thermal solution and power target as GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, and then claim a similar GPU Boost-rated clock rate, the company needed to blow more air through its cooler. In typical gaming workloads, expect Titan Xp to maintain higher frequencies than the other GP102-based boards and make more noise as a result. Push too hard, though, and you’ll hit a power ceiling that knocks clock rates down to ~1.4 GHz, well below the GTX 1080 Ti. To Nvidia’s credit, Titan Xp’s fan curve under the most intensive tasks is smoother. The card’s temperature doesn’t rise as fast, resulting in a more balanced acoustic profile through our stress test. Still, it’s pretty clear that Nvidia gets everything it can from its reference cooler. Increasing fan speed under typical loads had to be a reluctant, but unavoidable choice.

Nvidia fancies Titan Xp as the choice “for extreme users where every drop counts.” If those last few percentage points are worth hundreds of dollars to you, then our observations won’t dissuade you from spending the extra money. Titan Xp doesn’t give you any additional gaming or compute functionality over GTX 1080 Ti, though, as GeForce GTX Titan did back in its day. So really, this story amounts to a bit of extra performance at the same exorbitant price point. It’s always hard to invoke the word value in a discussion of flagship-class graphics cards, but GeForce GTX 1080 Ti makes plenty of sense. Titan Xp does not. Of course, that’s precisely why certain enthusiasts will want it.

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