Core i7 6950X / 6900K / 6850K & 6800K Processor Review - Introduction

The 10 Tentacle Core i7 6950X, Core i7 6900K / 6850K & 6800K Processors
Hey - It's All About Mega-Tasking! 

Hey y'all! The moment has arrived, Intel is stepping up the game by offering a new series of flagship (for consumers) processors, these are the new 14 nm based cuties of course. As such we review the Core i7 6950X Extreme Edition (Broadwell-E) 10 core processor and yes, we will show you the perf numbers for the Core i7 6900K / 6850K and 6800K processors as well. Good news first: these new Broadwell-E (architecture & development codename) type processors can be used on the existing X99 motherboards, after a BIOS update of course :)

Intel's most high-end processor SKUs just got updated with no less than four new models, the top dog being the enthusiast class ten-core processor series aimed at enthusiasts, consumers and prosumers. There will be 10, 8 and two 6-core models. The flagship Intel Core i7-6950X and other chips are being released into the market as we speak, in the summer of 2016. All four processors are based on the socket LGA2011-V3 infrastructure and can be paired with DDR4 quad-channel memory. In this article we review, test and benchmark the all-new Core i7 6950X (Broadwell-E) 10 core processor and plug it into an X99 motherboard. That is the primary focus of this article, however we added the results for the eight- and six-core parts as well, the Core i7 6900K / 6850K and 6800K processors. As mentioned, Broadwell-E can be used on the existing X99 chipset as these processors are compatible with socket LGA2011-v3. That is good news for X99 owners as only a BIOS update will be required to get the new processors up and ruinning. Intel has readied multiple SKUs based on the 14 nm 'Broadwell-E' silicon, these include the Core i7-6800K, the Core i7-6850K, the Core i7-6900K, and that 10-core freak of nature the Core i7-6950K. Here's the quick overview:

• Intel Core i7-6950X 10/20 (cores/threads) 3.0 GHz / 3.5 GHz (base clock / turbo clock)
• Intel Core i7-6900K 8/16 (cores/threads) 3.2 GHz / 3.7 GHz (base clock / turbo clock)
• Intel Core i7-6850K 6/12 (cores/threads) 3.6 GHz / 3.8 GHz (base clock / turbo clock)
• Intel Core i7-6800K 6/12 (cores/threads) 3.4 GHz / 3.6 GHz (base clock / turbo clock)

Intel stepped up their DDR4 memory compatibility, 2,400 MHz is now supported as default, we'll however take it towards 3,200 MHz with a dandy memory kit provided by GSKILL. DDR4 memory allows for lower voltage memory modules, JEDEC memory defaults to 2,133 MHz at 1.2 Volts. On X99 with Broadwell-E (much like Haswell-E) the memory controller is quad-channel compatible, which (if you use four DIMMs) will get you a tremendous amount of memory bandwidth. The four processors released today are the Core  i7-6950X, i7-6900K, i7-6850K and i7- 6800K, the latter two CPUs will get six cores and the flagship processor will, of course, get ten cores and thus twenty threads, the latest instruction sets are embedded. Anyway, head on over to the next page where we'll talk a bit about Broadwell-E processors with the respective models being released. We'll also have a chat about the X99 motherboards in terms of the chipset and then we'll throw a decent photo-shoot and a benchmark suite at the products and get an indication of what performance is like with the Intel Core i7-6950X and X99 Platform.

Right... 10 physical CPU cores hyper-threaded towards 20 threads - w00t - let's have a peek!
  

Upgrade your X99 System BIOS and you will be able to run Broadwell-E processors