Review: Intel Core i9 7900X processor

With increasing turbo modes/names, I'd like to see some kind of test on turbo availability/sustainability. What I'm trying to say is, test the % of time the cpu can be at a given clock speed.

For instance, the i7 on my laptop has a turbo clock for 1 core of 3.8Ghz, but even in winter (15C on room) it quickly hits the power and/or thermal limits. So in the end the 3.8Ghz is more of a PR item than a real thing.

Of course this get smoothed on benchmarks since they run for long enough but I bet a LOT of people will think something in the lines of "ooh, 10 cores and a super high turbo for gaming, take my wallet", when in reality, the cpu will probably run at almost base speeds avg while gaming.

 

224w @stock and 261w OC for prime...with negligible gains...

it's a case of: lets bump the clock speed and beat the competition now, forgetting the past 6 years marketing stating better efficiency because performance remained the same...

Yo, fanboy: no one hates Intel. I love my i5 2500k, but I like to make informed purchases for the future. The future now is AMD, not Intel. They lost the price/performance by far. No use being 5% faster if you're 50% more expensive, only fanboys would buy that.

They pressed the panic button.

Who would pre-order Intel chips knowing what have been happening in this year?

Now people making jokes about AMD will be salty, cuz I'm gonna make allot of jokes about this :banana:

At least a 1000w PSU :banana:

 

You're calling out an Intel user in an Intel thread while you (and several others) make these silly, unfounded declarations in every Intel thread about a CPU that is not even released that we have little to no information on.

And yes, I would and still may JFYI

 

Around 4th page I had 1st "lol", few pages more and lols were plenty. At the end I had nice "yawn".

HH made great review, but product... It is one of those people will remember, or maybe this entire platform.

 

I not sure if I should laugh or cry, considering what the price apparntly intel is still trying to push there insane prices and now insane power usage

I might us Intel for years but if there prices remain likes and AMD continues gain ground on Intel, my next pc will be AMD, like one said 500$ more for 5% more is not my idea of money well spent, then again i might not make new pc for atlest 4 years

 

Saying people have stupid and unfounded declarations is in itself a stupid and unfounded declaration. Despite what you want to believe, people like Silva have reasonable and educated reasons for their predictions.

The performance of the 7900X is no surprise. It's performance was very predictable, just as TR's performance will be. Before anyone tested the 7900X, we knew of it's OC potential, we knew it would be power-hungry, and we know it's overall CPU performance would be higher than a TR of a similar core/thread count. Before it is tested, we know TR will be a better value. It will have less potential than an equivalent i9, but most people aren't going to be able to achieve that potential without reaching thermal or wattage limits, making TR a more sensible choice.

AMD isn't known to really do anything drastic between their varying products. They tend to keep things pretty consistent all the way down their product lines. As a result, the performance of their products scales very linearly. TR is basically just a couple of Ryzen dies stacked side-by-side with more PCIe lanes. It is very safe to assume how well TR will perform, and that assumption means it will still likely be slightly slower than an i9, but not in a way that's relevant.

 

Now that's comedy

 

Great cpu but the thermal figures are out of control!!! Someone better call the fireman!
As for Toms Hardware cooling problems, i think the issue is because they tested with AVX enabled at normal speeds and Intel already warned about that. Not that it excuses the situation but it´s not totally unexpected.

But the best part is that they managed to do a platform launch even worse than AMD with Ryzen. And they had an excuse because they are short on money.... Kudos for Intel for such an amazing feat!...

 

They charge 1000 bucks and use chewing gum on the processor die I can see this getting pretty high temps.

 

Does anyone think there will be any real changes betweem this engineering sample and the proper release?

Given that they slapped all of this together at the last second I doubt it will be improved.

Looks like I'll be waiting at least 2 more years for something decent to upgrade to.

 

You are using a skylake dude. You won't "need" an upgrade for a few years.

 

$999 for a cpu you cannot yet purchase... By the time these are available, Threadripper will have arrived and the comparison should be interesting. Monopoly thinking is what motivated Intel to effectively shut down its EU marketing, HH. I suspect now that Intel is scrambling in a bid to remain competitive that you will soon see a resumption of Intel marketing that will affect you. Once again, AMD has come out of nowhere to surprise Intel. It's almost laughable, really. Intel is huge, with an aging infrastructure that is slow to change and monolithic in its thinking--lots of turf wars, etc., going on internally. AMD is comparatively small but nimble and highly adroit, thoroughly concentrated in its efforts...It's wonderful that Intel finds AMD to be a competitor it will never be shed of... Great news for consumers!

 

I certainly hope there will be some changes, else Intel will be selling very few of these. HH said that writing this review between system crashes was quite the challenge... I think Threadripper will be far more interesting than Intel's old stuff constantly rehashed and re-jiggered for the benchmark wars, but we'll see!

One thing I'd like to see, HH, is this: benchmark bar charts showing as little as 1 fps difference between cpus are misleading because an end user isn't ever going to be able to perceive such tiny differences in performance. I'd rather see benchmarks results like these rounded off to the nearest 10fps multiple--really, a 20 fps multiple would be even more accurate insofar as performance differences a user might actually perceive. 1fps-5fps differences are ties, imo, in terms of the bar chart--or they sure ought to be...

 

A R E Y O U comedy me

 

I hate Intel. Not as much as i hate apple, but i hate intel.

Just sayin~

 

I doubt that. Intel has been well-aware of what they're up against and yet they're still sticking to their original plans (though, I could have sworn the 7900X had far fewer PCIe lanes). Intel doesn't need to cater to consumers and they don't need to try hard, because people still buy their products anyway. In the event TR ends up having more positive reviews across every site, I suspect Intel will still end up making more of a profit. That's just the sad reality.

Intel's net revenue is higher than all of AMD's assets combined, including GPU division. Even though AMD is now doing a good job at being competitive, Intel does not see it that way. Intel sees AMD as nothing more than a distraction that they can't obliterate due to legal restrictions.

 

One of the clear advantage of AMD over Intel is the longevity of their socket. You can stick with the same mobo and upgrade only the cpu.

 

Well well well, 7820x @ 1.22v 4.8ghz and 72c, not to shabby imo

https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/intel_core_i7_7820x_skylake_x_review/3

1.25v seems to be the limit though.. still not bad imo, 4.7ghz should be doable np

Hmm decisions decisions. :nerd:



Edit:
But judging by gaming I wont really see any difference, guess I can wait another year.. Also power draw gets crazy at OC -_-

 

Intel has been keenly aware of AMD as a competitor since the Athlon--before that, however, I'd agree with you. That's mainly because all the cpu companies that ever emerged to compete with Intel were quickly trounced into oblivion. Except AMD. Even now AMD cpu releases are forcing new releases out of Intel--what do you think this cpu review is about?... Without Ryzen and Threadripper on the horizon, this Skylake modification would never have happened. Also the price reductions on extant Intel cpus that Intel enacted after Ryzen shipped were no accident, either.

I don't care how much money Intel has--that simply underscores what I said, imo. You seem to think all that money somehow will keep AMD from besting Intel in x86 performance, especially in the price/performance sector. Never has, has it?...

The perception among enthusiasts *used to be* prior to Ryzen that Intel made the faster, better stuff--the everyday marketplace simply doesn't much care about any of that, however--it cares about price and price/performance solely. TCO and total system cost, etc. Those perceptions are changing even as we speak, though.

Personally, though, I walked away from Intel in 1999, and have stayed away ever since--and not once have I regretted doing so--and I've saved a ton of money and there has been nothing I wanted to do that I cannot do because of it. Anyway, the point is that Intel is certainly *keenly* aware of AMD as a competitor, you can be sure... If not, frankly that would mean Intel management is very stupid--and I don't think they are...