4790K vs 6700K Single threaded

[Noshuru]

How do you explain the 4790K being ranked higher in terms of single threaded performance than the 6700K, which is based on a newer architecture and has also undergone a die shrink? It's not only incongruent with other single threaded benchmarks but also seems to go completely against reason. I realize the 4790K is clocked higher by default, but even when you adjust for that the 4790K still wins out.

How does the benchmark work, exactly, if I may ask that?

[Richard (PassMark)]

How does the benchmark work, exactly, if I may ask that?

The single thread test only uses one test thread and rates the computers performance under these conditions. The single thread test is an aggregate of the floating point, string sorting and data compression tests.

We don't often test the CPUs ourselves. The results are the average of users submissions from using our PerformanceTest software. We have over 7000 results for i7-4790K to a little over 400 results for i7-6700K. It seems likely that at least in some circumstances the 4790K is (slightly) faster.

[Noshuru]

Does the benchmark differentiate between OCed and non OCed CPUs?

[Richard (PassMark)]

Does the benchmark differentiate between OCed and non OCed CPUs?

Yes. The main charts and single thread chart are for non overclocked systems. We have a separate chart for overclocked results.

[razor]

There is some kind of problem with the rankings. I believe that the ranking system is not properly distinguishing between overclocked and non-overclocked systems. For example: look at the scores/ranking for the Pentium G3258. Why does it score so high and beat out many other faster clocked chips? It is because this chip is unlocked, and is very popular with overclockers. The only way for it to score this high is if overclocked results were being mixed in with the other stock results.

[razor]

How does the ranking system distinguish between overclocked and non-overclocked systems? The single thread scores and rankings for the Pentium G3258 seem impossibly high, unless overclocked results are being included. How else could it be scoring so much higher than faster clocked processors in the same family?

[drayon]

How do you explain the 4790K being ranked higher in terms of single threaded performance than the 6700K, which is based on a newer architecture and has also undergone a die shrink? It's not only incongruent with other single threaded benchmarks but also seems to go completely against reason. I realize the 4790K is clocked higher by default, but even when you adjust for that the 4790K still wins out.

I'm not seeing this incongruence you speak of. I've checked out reviews and many, or all of them seem to be mixing single thread benchmarks with threaded ones which appears they are masking the poorer performance of 6700K single threaded performance. Look at that Anantech review, they don't even mention the 4790K and their single thread benchmark is completely lacking in details and again, they test a 4770K which is known to perform lower than a 4790K, and I'm betting the 4790K runs higher than the 6700K and Intel has been paying reviewers to omit, cover up or distort the reality of the 6700K single thread performance, because it's certainly showing with Passmark that it is quite a bit lower.

Neither Dolphin nor Cinebench R15 provide any details on what exactly is tested in single thread. Cinebench doesn't even mention single thread tests on their technical info page.

Passmark is about the only one that actually goes into details of what is tested.

[drayon]

Yes. The main charts and single thread chart are for non overclocked systems. We have a separate chart for overclocked results.

Hi, when I go to that link i'm seeing only a single entry for the 6700K and the 4790K, neither of those show an overclocked score and they all are based on price/performance.

So can you please direct us to a list of statistics that we can filter by CPU and clock frequency and or by single thread result for said CPU and frequency? We really need to get doing into the bones of this matter to see what single thread scores users CPU's have been reporting to make up your lists.

thx

[David (PassMark)]

How does the ranking system distinguish between overclocked and non-overclocked systems?

For each CPU there is a nominal clock frequency (when running on all cores, non turbo mode). For the G3258 this is 3.2Ghz.

When the benchmark is run, we disable turbo mode and check the actual current clock speed and compare it to what we expect for that CPU model. If the measured clock speed is greater than 90Mhz above the nominal clock frequency (about a 3% overclock) we flag the machine as being overclocked. Once flagged the result is excluded from the main CPU charts and instead included in the overclock chart. When a user overclocks a G3258, the average increase obtained was 15.7%.

The average CPUMark for the normally clocked G3258 is 3996, while the overclocked average is 4623.

[David (PassMark)]

Here are the results (as at 1/Mar/16) for the 6700K and 4790K

	Threaded Not Overclocked	Threaded Overclocked	Single threaded Not Overclocked
Intel 6700K	11,020	12,244	2,328
Intel 4790K	11,214	12,176	2,529

So to us it looks like the 4790K is a slightly better CPU if you aren't overclocking. But once overclocking the 6700K can be pushed harder.

But we are only talking about one or two percentage points here. For the average user these CPUs have for all practical purposes identical performance.

Note1: This ignores other CPU features, like the performance of the integrated video with DX12 support. Which makes the 6700K look better if you use the integrated video.

Note2: The 6700K also has a few new CPU instructions and lower power usage. Future software releases might use these new instructions to give better performance.

Note3: The threaded test also includes a small amount of single threaded code (it is 89% threaded and 11% single threaded).

Note4: These are averages of 1000s of machines. There will be individual machines for which the results are reversed (due to exceptionally good RAM, motherboards or cooling).

[drayon]

Thanks for the update David. May I attach the single thread results of my 4790K @ 4.8Ghz (HT On). The results also show baselines of the top of the list of highest overclocked 6700k's, as well as a few other different CPU's.
I clearly see the 4790K beating the 6700K's. There is a 5ghz 6700k which mine ranks higher than.

It's a shame the baseline listing of details for each machine is NOT showing the actual overclocked rate, because unfortunately, I'm forced to refer to the managed baseline summary window to see this information and the other unfortunate thing is that this window hijacks the entire program and we can't click back to the main results window to reference the machine # to the same one in the baseline window tocorrelate which machine is which, in this case trying to ID which machine is the 6700K clocked at 5ghz.

[David (PassMark)]

In the baseline search window you can look at the 'Speed' and 'Turbo speed' columns to work out which machines are overclocked.

In the advanced search tab you can also sort by 'Turbo speed', then 'Speed'. Doing this shows there are five 6700K baselines with overclocks above 5Ghz. Baselines 538341, 571826 & 553943 have a turbo speed over 5Ghz and baselines 547593 & 448552 have a base speed over 5Ghz.

[termi21]

How does the ranking system distinguish between overclocked and non-overclocked systems? The single thread scores and rankings for the Pentium G3258 seem impossibly high, unless overclocked results are being included. How else could it be scoring so much higher than faster clocked processors in the same family?

I believe what Razor says makes sense, for example:

Intel Pentium G3258 @ 3.20GHz
Single -> 2158
Multi -> 3942
OCed -> 4192 (only?)

Intel Pentium G3250 @ 3.20GHz
Single -> 1866
Multi -> 3272

Intel Pentium G3470 @ 3.60GHz
Single -> 1924
Multi -> 3396

As you can see the G3258 "smokes" the G3250 (same tech, same clock)

And it is also "faster" than G3470 (newer tech + higher clock)


It seems that the unlocked versions rate much higher, and somehow OCed results, pass as non-OCed to the system.

Also the OCed score of the G3258 is only 6% higher than the normal. Doesn't make sense.

The average CPUMark for the normally clocked G3258 is 3996, while the overclocked average is 4623.

Well, the OCed score changed a lot since last year then.

[David (PassMark)]

Intel Pentium G3470 @ 3.60GHz
Single -> 1924
Multi -> 3396

I don't know where those numbers came from. But they aren't correct for the G3470. The current average values as of 17/Mar/17 are,
SingleThreaded: 2130
CPUMark: 3702

But I agree the non-overclocked G3258 result looks too high, while the average overclocked result looks to low. So there is likely some issue in correctly detecting if this CPU is overclocked or not (a classification problem to get them into the right bucket). In the past it was easy to check the clock speed. But in modern CPUs, there are multiple different turbo speeds, different power states and various throttling issue (temperature and power). Subtle changes are made to each of these schemes with each new CPU generation (e.g. the speed at which they transition between states). So it is now very complex to detect the correct speeds for all CPU types and then determine if that speed is the factory speed or not.

Maybe the G3258 does slow transitions. Meaning it needs high load for longer (than expected) to get it out of its base idle state.

If anyone with a G3258 wants to volunteer for some testing let me know.

[termi21]

I don't know where those numbers came from. But they aren't correct for the G3470. The current average values as of 17/Mar/17 are,
SingleThreaded: 2130
CPUMark: 3702

Well now i don't know either

But still the G3258 number are higher than these too.

Thank you for looking into to it.

I noticed also that it doesn't happen in overclockable i5, i7, etc.

At least to the ones i checked. Maybe it's a Pentium thing.