Skylake discrete GPU performance improvement - Intel Microcode Update

[Dave2150]

Turns out Skylake shipped with a small bug - the 'FCLK', which controls data from CPU to GPU via the PCI-E bus, was only clocked at 800Mhz on all motherboard's release BIOS.

Intel intended the desktop Skylake chips to run at 1000Mhz, so they released a microcode update this week which enables the CPU's to run at this speed.

The results are an up to 3% improvement in any application which uses a discrete GPU, so mainly gaming.

Here's Ananadtech's data for a 6700k at 800Mhz FCLCK and at the proper intended 1Ghz FCLCK: ( at stock 4Ghz CPU clock)

Anandtech also updated their bench results for the 6700k, to reflect the changes (though they'll remove the incorrect launch results in due time):

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1543?vs=1555

Source: Excellent article on Anandtech explaining the whole issue:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9607/skylake-discrete-graphics-performance-pcie-optimizations

TLDR: Skylake is upto 3% faster for gaming than the launch results showed

P.S. Seems the BIOS updates to enable this functionality are already out, new BIOS update for my motherboard with microcode update:

MAXIMUS VIII HERO BIOS 0802
update ME version

 

[Dave2150]

Given 99.9% of people on here will be using discreet GPUs why are we even concerned about this

Did you even read the post? The performance increase is for discrete GPU's..

 

[Dave2150]

Strange that 290X would show least gains despite XDMA.

Yea, I thought that too.

Wouldn't be surprised if there's another bug affecting AMD cards. Bearing in mind the crazy memory bandwidth of the 290x/390x etc, it would stand to reason that they'd gain more benefit from this change.

 

[Dave2150]

Why do Intel bother releasing new CPU's? to hike the price?

3770K vs 6700K

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/551?vs=1555

4770K vs 6700K

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/836?vs=1555

Anandtech used the slowest DDR4 possible in their benchmarks.

Much wiser to use review that use decent DDR4, as in 3000Mhz+ kits, since they are not much more expensive than the cheapest stuff.

A decent improvement over the 4790k at stock, plus these overclock very well, offering even more performance over the 4790k.

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/intel_skylake_i5_6600k_i7_6700k_1151_z170_review/9