Core i9 – Our Unbiased Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,337 words · ~6 min read
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hello my name is lonus Sebastian and I
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have not been held captive at Intel's headquarters since releasing a video
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stating I did not agree with Intel's direction for the x299
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platform but if that were the case I'm
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sure tell would have treated me very
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well I would also like to go like to go
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on record as stating that in reference to my statements in that video that
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I that that I was that I stand by everything I
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said I'm out of here I'm pting
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out
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Synergy allows you to share your mouse and keyboard between multiple computers
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at once check it out now at the link in the video
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description okay so silly intro aside
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obviously I have spoken to Intel since we made this video I've expressed my
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concerns and you know what they're big boys and girls who can handle a bit of
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constructive criticism so obviously we're still working together x299 then
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let's do a short recap for those of you who didn't see our previous video
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Intel's brand new core I 9 chips plug
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into motherboards with a brand new LGA 2066 socket that's connected to a brand
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new chipset x299 that features more
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updated IO more PCI Express Lanes and a
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four-lane DMI 3.0 link ooh and finer
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overclocking controls so pretty straightforward more and more better
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what's less straightforward and how you take this is up to you is that the
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socket now handles two separate
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generations of CPUs the first Sky Lake X
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is about what you would expect it's this year's Enthusiast grade High Core count
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processor based on last year's quad core
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Max consumer grade processor so we get
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some fancy architectural improvements we get turbo boost max that bumps up two
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cores instead of only one and finally
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support for AVX 512 outside of
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Zeon and the second is KB Lake X in an
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attempt to appease hardcore overclockers
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Intel based basically took their consumer grade kbl Lake chips disabled
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their integrated Graphics processors and
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glued them onto bigger packages with
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better power delivery characteristics and bigger heat spreaders Intel hopes
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that these chips will be a boon to folks who don't have $1,000 for a core I9
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today but want to have a solid upgrade
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path in the future for my part I feel
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like only being able to populate half of
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the RAM slots on a quad Channel board
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and having PCI Express bandwidth
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potentially cut to less than half is a
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really confusing experience though I
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would love to hear from you guys in the comments if you feel differ but wait
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what less PCIe bandwidth I thought you said more okay
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so for the topend core I9 we actually
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get more than ever 44 versus 40 on the
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previous Flagship 6950x where that potentially less than
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half bit comes from is that anything
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other than a core I9 gets far less as
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few as only 16 which could affect the
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performance of demanding Enthusiast features like SLI 10 gbit networking m.2
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raid or Thunderbolt 3 and on the subject of m.2 raid it looks like vrock doesn't
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have pricing yet and Intel actually isn't quite sure how they're going to roll that out but the good news is you
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can boot from NVMe raid if it goes through the chipset without doing any of
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that stuff it's only if it goes through the CPU that the vrock module is going
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to come into play so let's get into benchmarks then we uh
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unfortunately didn't get a kbl lake X CPU in time for this video but we did
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get the 10 core core I9 7900x the least expensive option with
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the full 44 PCI Express Lanes this along
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with our Nifty AF ASUS Prime x299 Deluxe
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some uh overclocking elbow grease all
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X200 compatible chips are unlocked and
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some validated memory from gskill gives us our main test bench today for
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comparison we'll be looking at the z270 based core i7
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7700k our x99 bench featuring last gen's
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much more expensive 10 core and while we
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don't have Threadripper yet we've thrown AMD's ryzen 1800x into The Fray
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for comparison so in gaming there's clearly
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no major difference between any of our CPUs at 4K 1080p tells a bit of a
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different Tale But frankly none of this is a surprise clock speed is still King
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when it comes to games and until properly implemented Vulcan and
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directx12 games are common place that isn't going to change anytime soon as
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for productivity this is cool one
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interesting aspect of Skylake X's design is that it moves from relying heavily on
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a ton of level three cach to relying
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more on its higher speed level two cache
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so where Broadwell e had 256 kilobytes
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of level two per core Skylake X has a whopping one Meg each and the level
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three becomes what's known as a victim cache so where One Core might look for
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data in the level three find it isn't there but in another cor's level two
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where it can then get push pushed to the level three cash that leaves the most
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relevant cached data in the fastest cash
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more often which results in some of the performance gains that we're seeing here
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which is great given how core I 9 is intended to be used in everything from
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high-end gaming rigs to high-end
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workstations so core I9 7900x then great
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performance and compared to Broadwell e
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great price great relief then right in a
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vacuum yes but the elephant that hasn't
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yet entered the room is AMD's Threadripper Intel is faced with the
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disadvantage of having shot first with
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x299 and AMD has some time to tweak
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their upcoming Threadripper CPU lineup which it said will be available with up
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to 16 cores and 64 PCI Lanes so they
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could put the gears to Intel on pricing
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at which time Intel whose 12 14 16 and
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18 core models will be arriving between August and Q4 of this year will have to
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figure out how to respond if at all so you know what I am still
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frustrated that it took Intel this long to wake up and I do still think that
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this CPU lineup is unnecessarily confusing but whatever they're
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motivation AMD's Innovation or their unconditional love for
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enthusiasts it is true this is a great
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release because we're back to Intel and AMD playing Lea frog and that is just
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great Synergy solves once and for all
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the problem of having two keyboards and two mice at your desk it lets you share
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a single mouse and keyboard between two or more computers so you'll know no
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longer confuse which one is for which you just move the mouse
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across they offer a basic and pro option
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with onetime payment for Lifetime access and they have tons of great features
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like clipboard sharing between the computers dragging and dropping files
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between them the ability to set up hotkeys and even the ability to use
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computers with different operating systems we're talking Windows we're
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talking Mac we're even talking Linux so use our Link in the video description
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and get50 50% off of synergy today or
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tomorrow but don't wait too long so thanks for watching guys if this
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video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that
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like button and maybe check out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in
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the video description also down there is a link to our merch store which has cool
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shirts like this one and our community Forum which you should totally join