Home » Gold Award • Processors » Intel Core i7-5930K Review Intel Core i7-5930K Review Stuart Davidson January 6, 2015 Gold Award, Processors There is absolutely no doubt that as far as desktop CPUs for enthusiasts go the Intel Core i7-5960X is the fastest chip around. Of course, it also comes with a hefty price tag too. For those who want the same features and the vast majority of the performance Intel have alternate models available for the same Socket 2011-3/X99 motherboards and we take a look at one of them today in our Intel Core i7-5930K Review. Intel Core i7-5930K Review – Packaging and Bundle Intel stick with some familiar retail packaging for their latest CPUs. A small sticker in the bottom right corner lets us know what we are getting and inside, as well as the CPU, we find some documentation on the bundled McAfee software and a booklet about the CPU. No cooler is provided with the higher end Intel retail CPUs which is fair, because the target audience will most likely have their own preference on that front. Intel Core i7-5930K Review – The CPU Shown above is the 140w Intel Core i7-5930K which looks identical to the other models in the family. Flipping the CPU over we see the socket 2011-3 layout (which isn’t compatible with 2011/X79 boards) and in terms of the base design we have a 22nm Haswell family chip, just like the latest i7 CPUs on Z97/1155. Of course, like the 5960X which we previously reviewed, the specifications have been changed significantly on this high end/enthusiast model with the i7-5930K featuring 6 cores and 12 threads, thats 2 extra cores, 4 threads more than what we find on the fastest mainstream parts, such as the i7-4790K. Cache levels are set to 32Kb of L1 data and instruction per core, 6x256KB of L2 and 15MB of shared L3 cache. The Intel Core i7-5930K runs at 3.5GHz as standard with turbo functionality peaking at 3.7GHz. In comparison with the other 2011-3 models the 8 core i7-5960X is 3.0-3.5GHz with 20MB cache and i7-5820K (another 6 core model) is 3.3-3.6GHz with 15mb. Intel Core i7-5930K Review – Performance Key Test Specifications: Intel Core i7-5960X /Intel Core i7-4790K/Intel Core i7-5930K/FX-9590 ASUS Rampage V Extreme, Gigabyte X99-Gaming 5, Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5, MSI X99S Gaming9 AC NVIDIA GTX 980/Radeon R9-290 X2 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2800 16GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-2666 Samsung 840 Evo 1TB Samsung 850 Pro 512GB (SATA Testing) OCZ RevoDrive 350 (PCIe testing) Plextor M6e 256GB M.2 SSD Corsair AX1500i Antec Kuhler 1250 Installed on a Dimastech EasyXL Test Bench Windows 8.1 64-bit NVIDIA Drivers: 347.09/AMD Drivers: 14.12 Cinebench R15 [kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”https://www.hardwareheaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/intel-core-i7-5930k-review-cinebench.swf” width=”640″ height=”400″ targetclass=”flashmovie” wmode=”opaque”] [/kml_flashembed] Music Conversion (2CD lossless to MP3) [kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”https://www.hardwareheaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/intel-core-i7-5930k-review-music.swf” width=”640″ height=”400″ targetclass=”flashmovie” wmode=”opaque”] [/kml_flashembed] Video Conversion 4K to 720p [kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”https://www.hardwareheaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/intel-core-i7-5930k-review-video.swf” width=”640″ height=”400″ targetclass=”flashmovie” wmode=”opaque”] [/kml_flashembed] Memory Bandwidth [kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”https://www.hardwareheaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/intel-core-i7-5930k-review-memory.swf” width=”640″ height=”400″ targetclass=”flashmovie” wmode=”opaque”] [/kml_flashembed] Gaming GTX 980 [kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”https://www.hardwareheaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/intel-core-i7-5930k-review-3dmark.swf” width=”640″ height=”400″ targetclass=”flashmovie” wmode=”opaque”] [/kml_flashembed] Gaming R9-295X2 [kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”https://www.hardwareheaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/intel-core-i7-5930k-review-bf4.swf” width=”640″ height=”400″ targetclass=”flashmovie” wmode=”opaque”] [/kml_flashembed] For full platform comparisons between X99, 990FX and Z97/X79 view our previous review here. Intel Core i7-5930K Review – Conclusion As we noted at the start of this review, one of the other CPUs in the same family as todays i7-5930K is the fastest consumer CPU around so it should come as no surprise that this product is very strong. What do we lose in choosing this model over that? Well, the obvious change is two less cores and four less threads. There is also a slight tweak to PCIe lane support but otherwise the two offer the same end user experience. That change in core configuration impacts the comparison between the two 2011-3 CPUs in two key ways. For applications which take advantage of the 8 cores and 16 threads of the 5960X the performance will be better on that CPU. Having said that, if the applications you most use are limited in their multi-threaded approach then the 5930K can perform better due to having a higher base and turbo speed. Gamers wanting to build an X99 system for example could benefit from this part over the 5960X… and while the higher end Z97 compatible CPUs with 4 cores have higher GHz speeds, if you render your gameplay for YouTube etc, then this 5930K gives you a better balance between GHz and multi-threaded video rendering performance. Mixed of course with the latest features X99 offers. Looking over at AMD, as with the i7-5960X, put quite simply, there is not currently a FX CPU which competes with the i7-5930K. So that brings us to value where the i7-5930K is available for roughly £350/$470 less than the 5960X and £200/$250 more than the best 1150 based CPU, the 4790K. That seems a fair level given the core configuration and performance on offer here which makes the Intel Core i7-5930K a worthy winner of our gold award. Available from Ebuyer and Newegg. Share On
