Intel Core i5-11600K processor review - Final Words & Conclusion

Final words & conclusion

And there you have it. Intel put out their six-core Core i5 11600K to fight off the Ryzen 5 5600X, and yes, it is barely able to do so in a default reference-clocked environment. Remember, motherboard tweaks will considerably increase performance a notch, at the cost of more heat and energy, of course. We test reference performance in this article. Is it enough? Well, I guess that depends on who you ask and whether you are an AMD or Intel guy. The reality is simple with even the fastest unobtainable graphics cards; you'll see differences and exceptions here and there on both sides in between Ryzen 5600X and 11600K 11th gen Core processors. So it becomes a matter of preference. Intel surely has stepped up in IPC alright; however, 14nm fabrication is fighting against them. The weird conundrum is that you need to realize that it is amazing that Intel can even achieve this level of performance on 14nm, on that other the flip coin side, it is also amazing that Intel is still pierced stuck on 14nm with the shortcomings that come along with it, energy efficiency and thus heat. Intel's advantage is, of course, the high clock frequency barriers, combined with the IPC that Cypress cover offers; this brings in additional performance coming from 10th gen Comet Lake; however, it's scarcer than I expected.

The good news is that Intel now offers PCIe Express Gen 4.0 to its real-estate; the downside, only the 20 CPU lanes are gen 4.0. The Z590 chipset still sits at Gen 3.0; this also means that if you use 16 lanes for your GPU, there are only four lanes left for a PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD, any other Gen 4.0 SSD connected to the motherboard after that will have to revert to gen 3.0. Is that a big deal? No, we don't think so. The relevancy of PCIe Gen 4.0 M2./ NVMe SSDs still is debatable at best, but in the coming year, we'll see that host infrastructure advance with much faster NVMe based SSDs, and that's where its importance will grow. A good example is our recent Sabrent M.2 SSD review, where we reached 7 GB/sec in peak performance. The processor series does not require a new motherboard if you already own Z490, but again making a move from Comet to Rocket Lake hardly makes sense. If you are on an older platform, it is somewhat mandatory to go with a Z590 motherboard if you want to utilize PCIe gen 4, and Z590 will not be cheap. Aside from improved VRM, DMI with 8x Gen 3.0 lanes, and USB 3.2 2x2, there really isn't much difference compared to Z490 though. So pick your battles there, I'd say. Rocket Lake series processors will be the last one supported on the 1200-pin infrastructure. I've stated this in a recent discussion on the website and forums, but considering that you upgrade a motherboard+CPU likely once every four years, we do not see it as incredibly significant for your purchasing decisions. But for you to upgrade, the processor needs to be just right. Later this year, Alder lake will make its introduction, with a BIG.little design, energy-friendly cores, and performance cores mixed. 

But back to Rocket Lake, we do like the increased performance that the series offers, but we can also tell that Intel had to open up a bag of tricks to accomplish that. I am referring to the long turbo power states of a PL2 mode that last 57 seconds resulting in high energy consumption and heat. There's little wrong with it overall as it is not something new; however, the duration and power allowance nearly doubled up, so that means a 125 Watt TDP rated processor is allowed to jump to 225~250 Watts for almost a minute. No question about it will influence heat, and as such, we cannot recommend mainstream heatpipe coolers; you need a proper premium cooler. LCS is the way to go as the proc running towards 250W is harsh for any cooler. The TDP as a discussion by itself, do people care about it? Not so much, we think. But sure, it is significant but manageable.

We'd rate the new RKL 6-core part as "good" for the results as tested. TDP remains very icky to judge but is manageable; however, combined with AVX workloads things can heat up fast. Temps wise when you apply LCS at normal to high CPU workloads, your temps will be fine in a 65~75 Degrees C region.  We recommend similar cooling for the more high-end Ryzen 5000 processors as both brands benefit from that nicely chilled heat spreader. 

Tweaking

We had a lackluster ASIC of a 11600K sample; 5000 MHz on all cores was the very maximum we could achieve. Normally, tweaking wise you increase the CPU voltage and multiplier, and you are good to go. 

Gaming performance

Where application testing is a bit mixed, gaming was performing well. Comparing RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 3090 felt like a different ballpark in favor of the latter one; however, the RTX 3090 tests make use of newer software titles. Here the 11600K shows good strength. From a more overall game performance point of view, Intel and AMD are close with the usual differentials and offsets on both sides. We started this many years; a GPU bottleneck is far more important to deal with and spend your money on instead of a CPU bottleneck. Intel's game performance with super-fast graphics cards solely comes into play in framerate-bound situations. 98% of the time, your actual limitation is the GPU and not CPU. The vast majority of you guys have a GPU limited graphics card. With eight cores, the reality is absolutely and unequivocally because you can game pretty darn and are future-proof with Rocket Lake-S.  Realistically a 6-core proc offering more value will get you there as well, albeit we do like to steer gamers to 8-core parts. 

Power consumption

With six cores, you get a 125 Watt TDP processor. It all is more complicated these days. Intel applies a secondary power stage where the processor can run twice that TDP value for a pretty long time. That with the IPC increase Cypress cover cores get is the holy grail for added threading performance; it does, however, make energy consumption peak with higher values during that long boost. The system at idle with a GeForce RTX 3090 installed / 16 GB memory / SSD, and the Z590 motherboard hovers at roughly 65~80Watts. That's fine, really, but the load values are significantly different. When we stressed the processor 100% run, we reach approximately 225~275 Watts with a 6-core processor (for the entire PC with GPU in idle). That means under load and divided per core; this processor is utilizing the most energy of all recent processors tested. These values differ a lot in between motherboards and brands, due to factory tweaks but also included added ICs like Thunderbolt or extravagant Ethernet jacks and RGB. All consume additional power. 

Performance differs per motherboard.

I'll say it again and make an extra chapter about it; you will notice quite a lot that results will performance vary per motherboard and brand. We've seen immensely different results in our Z590 motherboard reviews. Settings like power duration and all-core frequency vary per board and brand. This was the reason why we reset everything back to 'as reference' as possible. We do the same with AMD Ryzen reviews btw. Cooling will also be important in regards to performance, and not just for boost modes; a good example is that the MSI motherboards will actively ask you what type of cooling you have when you first enter the BIOS and further optimize based on your entry. Keep this in mind, as what you see here in this review is reference  (well close to) performance, but a premium motherboard can bring higher performance (though at the cost of energy and heat).  

Conclusion

Much like the Core i9 11900K review, we face a similar conclusion. We wish we had a clean-cut simple conclusion and answer for you in your processor options, but never has there been so much competition on the desktop processor front to hand out a preference to either brand. However, comparing 11600K in relation to 5600X, the latter would solely get my choice based on TDP and heat levels alone. Looking at it from raw performance, the 5600X wins almost all single- and multi-threaded applications; for gaming, that dynamic changes, albeit it has to be stated, some titles just like Intel processor better some prefer AMD these days. The performance will vary significantly per motherboard, we therein many factory tweaks can be found. We'll demonstrate that more specifically with our upcoming Z590 reviews. Ultimately the Core i5 11600K is a feisty and a good gaming processor to pair with any modern-age graphics card. Also, with Rocket Lake, Intel brings the platform much-desired PCIe Gen 4.0 lanes, of which four you can utilize for a super-fast NVMe SSD. Aside from double DMI link bandwidth and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps), there is little gain from Z590 overall though. A multitude of Z490 motherboards will even support PCIe Gen 4.0 as well after a BIOS update. How important the rest is to you is for you to decide. Upgrading from Comet lake (Gen10) is not advised; even upgrading from a Coffee Lake (Gen9) remains trivial.

Some pointers, Intel indeed greatly increased IPC, based on just one application as can measure a 13% raw IPC increase coming from Coffee- and Comet lake. That combined with high clock frequencies results in a nice overall performance increase. The Golden cove 10nm cores being backported to Cypress cove 14nm cores, with cache changes inside that architecture, do work its magic. Clock for clock AMD with ZEN3 has better IPC, though, but Intel has faster and longer-lasting high clock frequencies en energy usage levels, and that's the tradeoff between the two brands. Each of the architectures will show advantages and disadvantages. Rocket Lake overall is Intel's best-performing consumer CPU. Still, the competition keeps overshadowing every move that Intel makes, and for you as a consumer, that is fantastic news as you get something to choose from. In the end, we had slightly higher hopes for the 11600K when compared to the competing processor. However, it certainly is good enough for what it needs to be. It still amazes me that on 14nm++++, Intel has been able to make their processors faster. But if anything is clearly demonstrated, 14nm hardly viable in matters of power consumption and heat levels. The heat can be well managed with an LCS cooler; the power draw you'll need to take for granted.  It's difficult to say whether this six-core part will make a big enough difference for the end-users. I bet that most of you will wait for the Alder Lake-S generation of product on 10nm. At 262 USD / 266 EUR, we think Intel has a very reasonable offering as the Ryzen 5 5600X carries an MSRP of 299 USD. We'll happily hand out a recommendation if you are willing to rationally and materially manage that power envelope and accompanying heat levels. 

Handy related downloads: 

• AfterBurner
• AIDA64
• HWiNFO64
• SiSoft Sandra
• 3DMark Time Spy
• CPU-Z
• HWMonitor
  
  
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