Intel Core i7-7820X 8-Core 16-Thead Processor Review

Intel Core i7-7820X Are you excited about all these insane CPUs that are hitting the market? I'm sure many of you are, but there's one particularly big problem, their price. The flagship i9 is currently close to £2000/$2000 and that's quite literally freaking bonkers money for a typical consumer. Sure, there's a market for it given its performance, but what's Intel got for everyone else? The new Intel Core i7-7820X of course! Equipped with a mighty 8 core and 16 thread design, this is a nice middle ground between being a big upgrade from the last generation, without being as over the top as the i9. On paper, it still looks like it's going to be a mighty CPU for rendering, workstation tasks, and more. Of course, we also have high expectations of its gaming performance. Intel Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition Specs Cores: 8 Threads: 16 Base Clock: 3.6 GHz Max Turbo: 4.3 GHz Cache: 11 MB L3 Intel TB Max 3.0: 4.5 GHz Max Memory Size: 128 GB Memory Types: DDR4 2666 PCIe Lanes: 28 TDP: 140W Optane Ready: Yes Chipset X299 Power Your Creativity "Spend more time creating and less time waiting. The Intel® Core X-series processor can handle your most demanding workload. Upload and edit your 360˚ videos quickly and experience VR videos–all in stunning 4K. There are no limits to what you can create on your new computer." - Intel Mega-Task to the Extreme "When creating your best work, you need the most responsive technology to handle multiple, CPU-intensive tasks at once. With an Intel® Core X-series processor, you can edit your video, render 3D effects, and compose the soundtrack simultaneously without compromising your computer’s performance." - Intel Testing and Methodology Test Procedure Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to CPU reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Rember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there's always a margin for error when using the software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Each benchmark runs three times, and the average figure is taken to try to reduce the effect of hardware variation. Of course, any relevant details regarding the parameters will be listed below. Test Systems X399 Motherboard – MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC RAM – Crucial Ballistix 32GB (4x8GB) 2400MHz CPU Cooler – CM Master Liquid 120mm (will be retested with Noctua D15S with dual fans in coming weeks) Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X299 Motherboard - Gigabyte AORUS Gaming 9 RAM - Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Quad-Channel 32GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit AM4 Ryzen R3, R5 and R7 Motherboard - MSI XPower Titanium X370 RAM - GeIL DDR4 2977MHz Dual Channel 16GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X99 - Our GPU Review Test Bench Motherboard – Asus Rampage V Extreme X99 RAM – Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Open Air Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 64-bit Games Used All games are tested at both 1920 x 1080 and 2160 x 3840 (4K) on a 60 Hz display with V-Sync off for all tests. Previously we would use "extreme" presets, but these have now been adjusted to "Medium" or equivalent to better test the capabilities of the CPU, not the GPU. Rise of the Tomb Raider (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Pure Hair Off Deus Ex (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Ghost Recon: Wildlands (Uplay) Medium Preset Turf Effects Off Far Cry Primal (Uplay) Normal Preset Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download) FireStrike (1080p) Benchmark Unigine Superposition (download) 1080p Extreme Benchmark PCMark 10 Professional (download) Express Benchmark WPrime (download) 32M and 1024M Power usage recorded at 1024M 50% complete, thermals recorded at 75% CineBench R15 (download) CPU Multi CPU Single Handbrake (download) Custom MP4 to MKV 4K conversion (details below) AIDA64 Engineer (download) CPU-Z (download) HWMonitor (download) Handbrake To stress processors to their absolute limit and accurately judge their performance in video editing workloads, we transcode a 7.7GB compilation of gaming footage; this particular file is freely available from here. The captured footage is 22 minutes and 12 seconds long, it has a bit rate of 50.1 Mbps and it uses the Advanced Video Codec. Additionally, the video runs at a constant 30 frames-per-second and opts for a 3820 x 2140 (4K) resolution. Once loaded into Handbrake, we then transcode the 4K MP4 to an MKV file using the "normal" profile. Other Notes A rest period of 2-5 minutes is observed between each piece of software allowing the system to return to its idle power usage and temperatures. Background services like Windows Update are checked to not be running during the testing period by setting WiFi to Metered Connection. Thanks Thank you to Noctua, Crucial, ASUS, Gigabyte, Lian-Li, be quiet!, OCZ, for providing the hardware that helps makes these tests possible! Synthetic Benchmarks 3DMark Firestrike The i7-7820X is no slouch, setting a very impressive score of 20932. It's a little behind the Threadripper, but given it's half the price of the TR4, that's a damn impressive score by any measure. Once overclocked though, its only a fraction slower than Threadripper, which is obviously amazing given the lower price and core count. Stock Overclocked Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme Switching to a more GPU bound task, the 7820X has no issues keeping up with anything else on the market, with a small boost to the GPU coming from the overclocked CPU, albeit on a small one. Overall though, this is a great score. Stock Overclocked PCMark 10 Express More cores aren't always the winner for PCMark 10, which saw the new i7 beating out the much more expensive i9 and the Threadripper by quite a larger margin. When it comes to day to day tasks, the i7-7820X is a bit of a beast. It further hammered a lead while overclocked, moving into second place behind the 7740X. Stock Overclocked WPrime 32M and 1024M This is where those extra cores come into play, as the new i7 sets our fourth fastest score to date. Of course, the only things beating it are much more expensive extreme processors. Overclocking cut around 12 seconds from the time, but the i7 stayed firmly in 4th place. Stock Overclocked Cinebench R15 As predictable as can be, the scores for Cinibench look much like the WPrime scores, with the new i7 clocking out 4th highest score at both stock and overclocked settings. For rendering, this CPU certainly has some impressive performance to offer, even more so given its price compared to what it's competiting against. Stock Overclocked Handbrake MP4 to MKV Conversion 4K Transcoding 4K video was a breeze on this CPU, setting 64 FPS with ease. Overclocking actually lowered the performance, suggesting it throttled, but that's nothing that can't be fixed with a more powerful CPU cooler. Stock Overclocked AIDA 64 Memory Bandwidth and Latency Memory performance is rock solid too, with competitive read, write and copy performance. Latency is a little high, but that's pretty much the trend for these higher core count processors. Gaming Performance The i7-7820X is no slouch when it comes to day-to-day tasks, heavy duty video rendering and number crunching. It's not that fastest gaming CPU we've ever reviewed, but it was never designed to be as a more workstation focused CPU. It ranked very highly in every gaming benchmark, and it'll certainly make a great gaming CPU. It set our highest score for 1080p Ghost Recon, and highest for 4K FarCry Primal, so it's obviously no slouch. Of course, the increased core count is sure to appeal to game streamers and content creators, as you can run additional software on top of your games, without a loss in overall performance. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided 1080p Stock 1080p Overclocked 2160p Stock 2160p Overclocked Rise of the Tomb Raider 1080p Stock 1080p Overclocked 2160p Stock 2160p Overclocked Ghost Recon: Wildlands 1080p Stock 1080p Overclocked 2160p Stock 2160p Overclocked Far Cry Primal 1080p Stock 1080p Overclocked 2160p Stock 2160p Overclocked Power Consumption and Temperatures Power Consumption As one of the more powerful processors on the market, the Intel Core i7-7820X is pretty thirsty when it comes to power draw. Sure, it's taking a fair few watts to power it, but when it comes to rendering, gaming and more, it's obviously delivering great performance in return. Stock Overclocked Temperatures All that power has to go somewhere though, and more often than not, it'll turn to heat. At stock, it's pretty easy to keep this CPU cool, maxing out at just 66c. On our Noctua NH-D15S, it peaked at 92c while overclocked, so perhaps upping your fan profile, or getting a high performance water cooler would be a good investment. Stock Overclocked Final Thoughts Pricing The Intel Core i7-7820X LGA 2066 Skylake-X 8-Core 16-Thread Processor is available now for around £520. That's a lot of money, but it's also a lot of CPU. It's a far cry from the £950 flagship Threadripper or the £1000-2000 i9's, but it's still the best performance you can get for half the price. Overview There's a big market for extreme performance processors, but I wonder just how deep most peoples pockets are. As a content creator myself, the flagship i9 was a worthy investment, as is Threadripper. As expensive as these CPUs are, they can make me more money and save me more time in the office compared to what they actually cost me to buy. It's an investment. However, not everyone wants to drop a few thousand on an upgrade. That's where the i7-7820X comes into play, it's walking that fine line of very expensive, but it delivers huge performance at a much lower cost than its big brothers. Gaming, Rendering, and Beyond This CPU is a big of a jack of all trades. When it comes to big number crunching tasks, video rendering in Adobe Premiere, or transcoding in Handbrake, this is the kind of CPU you'll be happy to have in your rig. The 8-Core and 16-Thread design makes light work of anything you throw at it. It's not the fastest gaming CPU in the world, but it's certainly up there with the best. X299 isn't so much a gaming platform as it is a general workstation/extreme performance platform. However, with increased PCIe lanes, throwing in a few graphics cards, Optane, some M.2 storage, and more, it will obviously bring the grunt needed to power VR and 4K gaming. Content creation and game streaming can obviously benefit from the increased core count too. Performance It's a great CPU and another welcome addition to the X299 platform. One thing I really like is just how easy the CPU is to overclock. Even on air, we were able to reach 4.7 GHz on all cores and if you're running something like a custom loop setup, you may even reach 5.0 GHz on a good enough motherboard. Pros Excellent all-round performance Great for content creators Extremely easy to overclock Competitively priced (relative to performance and core count) Great for gaming Cons Requires a powerful cooler for overclocking "At less than half the price of the current extreme CPUs such as TR and i9, the latest X299 i7 is not less than half the performance. If you're looking for extreme performance, but still want more bang for your buck, the 7820X is the way to go!"