The very first Intel Core i9 Skylake X CPU benchmarks have surfaced confirming the rumoured specifications leaked last week. Now there is more context to how these new Core i9 Skylake X processors perform. In terms of what is currently known from the previous leaks, there will be four SKUs in the Core i9 launching. This includes the 7800X, 7820X, 7900X and 7920X. Interestingly, they all have different core and thread configurations. Additionally, two Kaby Lake i7 CPUs are also expected, according to a leak via the Anandtech forums by user Sweepr.
| Intel | Core/Thread | Base | Boost | L3 | PCIe lanes | TDP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i9 7920X | 12 / 24 | TBD | TBD | 16.5 MB | 44 | 140W |
| Core i9 7900X | 10 / 20 | 3.3 GHz | 4.3 GHz (Turbo 2.0) 4.5 GHz (Turbo 3.0) | 13.75 MB | 44 | 140W |
| Core i9 7820X | 8 / 16 | 3.6 GHz | 4.3 GHz (Turbo 2.0) 4.5 GHz (Turbo 3.0) | 11 MB | 28 | 140W |
| Core i9 7800X | 6 / 12 | 3.5 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 8.25 MB | 28 | 140W |
| Core i7 7740K | 4 / 8 | 4.3 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 8 MB | 16 | 112W |
| Core i7 7640K | 4 / 4 | 4.0 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 6 MB | 16 | 112W |
All the Core i9 models with X designation are all using Skylake X architecture. The two Core i7 with a K designation are based on Kaby Lake X instead. The Kaby Lake X CPUs are using dual-channel DDR4 while the Skylake X will be using quad-channel DDR4, despite sharing the same motherboard/socket. The official DDR4 speed for non-XMP support is 2666MHz from 2400MHz previously.
According to the leaker, who has a power point file from Intel, the TDP is up to 140W. That number is strictly for the Core i9 parts, while the Core i7 Kaby Lake CPUs only have a 112W TDP. The L3 cache on the flagship model is 16.5MB and even the L2 cache is 1MB. This L2 cache is 4x as much as what the Core i7-7700K has.
Dutch website Hardware.info first spotted these benchmarks for these two top-end CPUs giving a brief glimpse on how well they perform.
The Skylake X i7-7920X clock speeds have not been officially revealed yet by Intel since they are releasing it in August. Its clock speeds are still pending. The rest of the Skylake X and Kaby Lake X will be released in June so they are ready. From the benchmark leak, we can see that it has a 2.9GHz base and 3.25GHz turbo average. The Core i9-7900X shows a base clock of 3.1GHz, 0.2GHz short of what is the official specs. This could be since it is a pre-production sample before the specs are made official.
Core i9 Skylake X vs Other Processors
These benchmarks are pulled from userbenchmark.com so there are readily available numbers to compare it to. The current Intel HEDT flagship i7-6950X for instance performs in between both the Core i9-7900X and Core i9-7920X in these single, quad and multi-core benchmarks.
The AMD Ryzen 1800X shows a slight performance advantage on single core but loses in quad and multi-core benchmark performance. The good thing with userbenchmark.com is that it has hundreds of CPUs used in sampling. The downside is that it results in a very varied sample with minimal control.
