Broadwell-E Core i7-6950X Flagship Processor To Rock 10 Cores

setter · 13 Nov 2015 at 15:22

colinmcr said:
Well I don't suppose anyone would use the flagship for gaming, I'd certainly imagine its aimed at content creation and those of us who like to do compute intensive tasks for BOINC Projects etc... Team 10 (OcUK) recently finished 2nd in the DENIS Challenge and I'd certainly consider changing out my 5930k for this.

Yep, you get all that and if you want to game as well. You still have a very powerful setup to do so.

Sylver123 · 13 Nov 2015 at 15:54

I wonder if the flagship i7-6950X will be able to overclock to at least 4.5Ghz fairly easily with good cooling.

I would be happy if it does overclock to that or at least 4.4GHz fairly easily.

faheemrazzaq · 13 Nov 2015 at 16:19

Now I know what to upgrade to next time around. Hopefully they can launch it by first half of 2017.

wazza300 · 13 Nov 2015 at 17:19

10 cores

any sniff of an overclock will result in meltdown

Dave2150 · 13 Nov 2015 at 17:28

Boomstick777 said:
If all someone does is game than an i5 Skylake is good enough tbh.

X99 is enthusiast level, for benchers and those likely doing more than just gaming. These chips are great for workstation stuff, awesome for video encoding etc.

+1 - these CPU's will likely be much more expensive than the current X99 offerings - Skylake 6700k/6600k are only 122.4mm2 and just look at the price these 14nm CPU's fetch, due to limited yields on the 14nm process.

I expect these 10/8/6 core monsters to quite a bit more expensive than Haswell-E, though for the intended market (content creaters, productivity) they will still be cheaper than the top xeons, thus a 'bargain'.

Very low base clock speeds also - not ideal for gaming where high frequency/IPC on 2-4 Cores is the sweet spot atm.

For gaming, absolutely pointless as a Quad core still maxes out games with 1-2 CPU's. Only those rocking 4 GPU's need these CPU's, and that's mainly for the extra PCI-E lanes.

JediFragger · 13 Nov 2015 at 20:00

You mean I have an actual upgrade path in a few years!!????

Awesome!! Wasn't expecting that

Orangey · 13 Nov 2015 at 20:04

Probably hedging against Zen being 8core.

Frenzy · 13 Nov 2015 at 22:20

Boomstick777 said:
If all someone does is game than an i5 Skylake is good enough tbh.

X99 is enthusiast level, for benchers and those likely doing more than just gaming. These chips are great for workstation stuff, awesome for video encoding etc.

I'm still wondering how long my 2600k is going to last me.

Sylver123 · 14 Nov 2015 at 08:15

The main thing is how well these will overclock. I here people saying Broadwell overclocks like crap. I assume this assumption has come from the fact that the
mainstream versions that were released on the LGA 1150 platform, during testing by some people, they didn't overclock very well at all.

Hopefully these enthusiast versions will be a lot better when it comes to overclocking. if not then it will spoil it for a lot of us especially if these enthusiast
versions also overclock like utter crap and we are unlikely to get more than say 4.0GHz out of them with decent cooling fairly easily if that.

setter · 14 Nov 2015 at 10:06

As an ex 4790k owner, clocked at 4.4ghz on one core at stock. You do not need massively high clocks for games. I had that chip at 4.7ghz. It made very little difference over stock speed. Got a 5820k now and even at a low clock of 4ghz its still plenty for games.

dasBOT · 14 Nov 2015 at 10:15

and the price will be £1k? better wait and see what amd bring to the table

Caracus2k · 14 Nov 2015 at 14:32

dasBOT said:
and the price will be £1k? better wait and see what amd bring to the table

I reckon a budget friendly £999 for the 6950x!

Jokester · 14 Nov 2015 at 14:35

Current pricing on the top Intel chip at the moment looks like £800.

spot35 · 14 Nov 2015 at 16:06

Also think circa £800.

I wasn't thinking I would be upgrading from my 5930 any time soon. But this does seem like a potential option...

mmj_uk · 14 Nov 2015 at 16:11

Good news but more because looking at the table colinmcr posted 8 core chips are likely to slot into the 5930K price range?

P.B said:
Won't this still limit its over locking and be pointless towards games ?

14nm should be a lot more power efficient.

Boomstick777 · 14 Nov 2015 at 17:16

The 5930K replacement will be mine if it has 8 cores / 16 threads.. Come to me my pretty !!

John24 · 14 Nov 2015 at 20:01

Woo, 10 core could tempt me away from my 4790K. Depends on price though, if it's over £800 I'm out.

IMO with the 4 SKUs it should just replace mainstream. Given the price of the 6700k I wouldn't be supprised if that was intels intention.

8 Pack · 14 Nov 2015 at 20:19

Of course it will be expensive!!

savagesam117 · 14 Nov 2015 at 20:26

Hopefully it will drive down the price of x99 and i'll upgrade

I need more money for all this fancy stuff!

John24 · 14 Nov 2015 at 20:32

8 Pack said:
Of course it will be expensive!!

Really.. I recon £1000 plus then for the top SKU 10 core.

Hoped they would price it the same as the 5960X and adjust down the prices of the 3 bellow it.

savagesam117 said:
Hopefully it will drive down the price of x99 and i'll upgrade

I need more money for all this fancy stuff!

That's what I hoped too but judging by the Packs comment I don't think it will happen.