The Intel Broadwell Desktop Review: Core i7-5775C and Core i5-5675C Tested (Part 1)
by Ian Cutress on June 2, 2015 7:45 AM ESTOffice Performance
The dynamics of CPU Turbo modes, both Intel and AMD, can add a wrinkle to testing in environments with a variable threaded workload. There is also an added issue of the motherboard remaining consistent, depending on how the motherboard manufacturer wants to add in their own boosting technologies over the ones that Intel would prefer they used. In order to remain consistent, we implement an OS-level unique high performance mode on all the CPUs we test which should override any motherboard manufacturer performance mode.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Dolphin Benchmark: link
Many emulators are often bound by single-threaded CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant boost to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that raytraces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in minutes, where the Wii itself scores 17.53 minutes.
Crystal Well doesn’t help much in Dolphin, indicating it is more CPU frequency limited than DRAM/cache limited.
WinRAR 5.0.1: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
WinRAR is our typical benchmark to go to when testing whether DRAM is factor, and the improvements provided by the Crystal Well implementation trump any frequency deficit.
3D Particle Movement
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores.
3DPM, like Dolphin, is concerned more with CPU frequency than DRAM accesses.
FastStone Image Viewer 4.9
FastStone is the program I use to perform quick or bulk actions on images, such as resizing, adjusting for color and cropping. In our test we take a series of 170 images in various sizes and formats and convert them all into 640x480 .gif files, maintaining the aspect ratio. FastStone does not use multithreading for this test, and results are given in seconds.
Web Benchmarks
On the lower end processors, general usability is a big factor of experience, especially as we move into the HTML5 era of web browsing. For our web benchmarks, we take four well known tests with Chrome 35 as a consistent browser.
Mozilla Kraken 1.1
WebXPRT
Google Octane v2
In the webtests, the Broadwell-DT CPUs didn’t necessarily take top spot but they are punching above their expected weight for their frequency.
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Jumangi - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
Completely worthless release for gamers and PC enthusiasts...another year goes by with no reason to upgrade to a new CPU. Were officially back to the dark days before AMD kicked Intel in the nuts with the Athlon64 and made them have to compete.So sad...
Peichen - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
Skylake is coming in 2 months for gamers. Today's release is for system builders that needs a stopgap. You shouldnt buy into AMD's PR campaign that you need to buy AMD to support innovation. Intel is doing that all by itself.PubFiction - Wednesday, July 1, 2015 - link
I agree 2500K and 2600K here haven't had a single reason to even be tempted to upgrade. The only good that has come of this is that now days I have gobs of cash to spend on GPUs, I guess this explains why NVidia can charge $999 for a GPU now and sell out.jjj - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
Sad that Krzanich continues with this strategy of making products nobody needs and abusing their monopoly to charge way too much.Seriously, just 4 cores and a GPU that can't even do 1080p at those prices? Same die they could have fitted 12 cores and no GPU but we'll never get that because Intel has no interest in making good chips and regulators are all dead.
They'll choke on it, it's unavoidable.
TallestJon96 - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
I only see this being good in all in ones and mini PCs. I fully expect Apple to announce a broadwell refresh for their iMacs before the year ends.Too bad, because I'm looking to upgrade from an i3-2120 to a low-ish power i5, and this fits the bill except that the integrated graphics drive the price through the roof. I'm hoping for a 65w vanilla i5 that performs well, and this is close, but not quite right.
MikhailT - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
I somehow doubt it. They already refreshed the iMac a bit and dropped the prices for the year. They doesn't update as often as everyone else, they're happy to wait.I expect Apple to go full Skylake next year.
Peichen - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
Well, AMD should pay or sue Intel to keep Intel from integrating GT3e GPU into sub $150 CPUs. That would kill all AMD's market above $80.MikhailT - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
WTF, or how about AMD complete to make better stuff instead.Peichen - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
AMD cannot compete. They are so far behind Intel on R&D and even vision and theories it has no chance of catching up to Intel any time soon. The CPU department is kept afloat by the GPU department and that isn't going well either.silverblue - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
AMD doesn't have the money. The main reason it's behind the curve is because they couldn't exactly bring out something to replace Bulldozer and as such had to milk it for all it's worth so it wasn't a complete waste of time that could'v dragged them under. If AMD had the resources, I think we'd have seen a replacement for Bulldozer by now.AMD's GPU tech is hampered by the process node and the lack of eDRAM/HBM. Carrizo may make a large difference in terms of power consumption plus a lesser difference in terms of performance, but AMD stands to benefit a lot from throwing some memory on die. Coupled with better compression, they'll have a more competitive product, but I think Iris Pro 6200 has the leader for the next 12-18 months (even if Carrizo does come to the desktop, will its performance be that much improved over Kaveri? I'm not so sure).
I think we need high quality tests for the iGPUs to see how that makes a difference. Intel may lead by even more.