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Haswell-E Part2: Intel i7-5820K & i7-5930K Tested

CPU by leeghoofd @ 2014-11-07

Intel launched its new Haswell-E high end processors end of August. Sadly, at launch the MadShrimps team only had access to the flagship version, the octacore i7-5960X processor. The i7-5960X is Intel's first 8-core processor for the desktop market. Xeon variants for the server platform already existed in octa and more core versions; coinciding with this launch a brand new motherboard chipset was released, the X99, now supporting the high speed DDR4, becoming slowly available to the masses. Today we are looking at the two more affordable six-core versions, the i7-5820K and the slightly higher clocked i7-5930K. In addition we will be taking a deeper plunge into the performance of the new offered technology to unravel some of the mysteries. This to advise you, the end user, if these new processors are a must buy or not.

LN2 Overclocking

No matter which processor generation, no matter the brand Overclocking is pure draw of the silicone lottery. While one of our i7-5960X sample was stellar running happily Intel's own eXtreme Tuning Utility test (XTU) at 4500MHz 1.25Vcore, neither the retail i7-5820K, nor the i7-5930K could do a successful run of this quick but strenuous test below 1.385Vcore.

Both the hexacore CPUs were benchmark stable at +1.375Vcore for 4500MHz, this being air-cooled by a Noctua DH15 cooler. However at Madshrimps we always take each new processor generation for a liquid nitrogen cooled spin.

ASUS included a guideline for binning these new Haswell-E processors on air, more tests by community members at HWBOT lead us to this conclusion:

If your CPU needs for Cinebench 4500MHz at 1.35Vcore or more it is a mediocre sample
If your CPU requires for Cinebench 4500MHz at 1.3Vcore or below it is an average sample
If your CPU can do Cinebench 4500MHz at 1.2Vcore or below it is considered as a good/golden sample

Now binning on air/water isn't everything as it seems that these processors overclock on LN2 mainly like the Haswell generation. One needs to find a scaling batch as most samples are hitting a hard wall and no matter the voltages or extra cold you give it, it just stops from going further. We haven't tried to reduce the amount of cores to achieve higher speeds, though this seems to be working.

Here are some of the results done by the Belgian jury on the ASUS Rampage V Extreme motherboard.

Anyway for die hard benchers only the i7-5960X is an interesting product as thanks to the extra cores and DDR4 it is destined to break world records in all multi-threaded applications, being it 2D or 3D.

A Cinebench run at 5500MHz with our i7-5960X on just 1.52Vcore at -93°C, not bad at all, too bad this particular CPU has a Cold Boot Bug at -79°C and a cold bug (means it locks) at -95°C. These things eat liquid nitrogen for breakfast !

Sadly the air test already revealed the 5820K nor the 5930K would be record breakers yet we still managed 2D benchmarks at +/- 5.3GHz

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