Intel Core i7-6700K And Z170 Chipset Review: Skylake For Enthusiasts

Name: Intel Core i7-6700K and Z170 Chipset Review: Skylake For Enthusiasts
Brand: Intel

by Marco Chiappetta — Sunday, November 22, 2015, 08:00 AM EDT

For our next set of tests, we moved on to some in-game benchmarking with Crysis (DirectX), Bioshock Infinite (DirectX) and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (OpenGL). When testing processors with some games, we drop the resolution and reduce all of the in-game graphical options to their minimum values to isolate CPU and memory performance as much as possible. However, the in-game effects, which control the level of detail for the games' physics engines and particle systems, are left at their maximum values, since these actually place some load on the CPU rather than GPU.

Low-Resolution Gaming: Crysis, Bioshock, and ET: Quake Wars

Taking the GPU out of the Equation

The Core i7-6700K's results in our low-res game tests are all over the map, for a couple of reasons. Note that we tested these games both with and without a discrete GPU installed to asses the performance of the CPU and its integrated graphic core. With the discrete GPU installed, the Core i7-6700K led the pack, with the highest framerates in both games. When using the HD 530 series IGP, however, performance takes an obvious hit.

In this Bioshock benchmark, we're back on integrated graphics, and as you can see, the HD 530 series GPU in the Core i7-6700K pulled ahead of all of the other integrated graphics solutions we tested, save for the Iris Pro 6200 series engine incorporated into the Broadwell-based Core i7-5775C.

Tags: Intel, core i7, CPU, processor, Chipset, Skylake, z170, motherboar

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com