System Overview & Testing Procedures
We will be installing the Core i7-7700K in our Z170 test bench. Kaby Lake processors are compatible with Z170 motherboards with the appropriate BIOS installed that adds support for these processors.
Our main test bench is comprised of the following components.
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700K / i7-6700K
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB
Motherboard: ASUS Z170-A
Memory: 16 GB Crucial DDR4
Storage: 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K
Power: Corsair AX860i
Cooling: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme
Case: HighSpeed PC Top Deck Tech Station
For comparisons we will be testing against the Intel’s Core i7-5775C, i7-4790K, and i7-4770K. Since we’ve had a new architecture since Skylake we cannot test using exactly the same hardware, but our secondary test bench is very close!
Processor: Intel Core i7-5775C / i7-4790K / i7-4770K
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB
Motherboard: ASUS Z97-A
Memory: 16 GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3
Storage: 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K
Power: Corsair AX860i
Cooling: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme
Case: HighSpeed PC Top Deck Tech Station
For testing the processors the frequency will be set to auto and Intel Speedstep will be turned on. The reason we do is because most people will have this setup on their own PC. This is the default mode if you do not go into the BIOS and change anything. The Core i7-7700K will run around 4.2 GHz at idle and will boost up to 4.5 GHz under load.
Here are the specifications of all four processors we will be testing today.
Core i7-7700K: 4.2 Ghz / 4.5 GHz
Core i7-6700K: 4.0 Ghz / 4.2 GHz
Core i7-5775C: 3.3 GHz / 3.7 GHz
Core i7-4790K: 4.0 GHz / 4.4 GHz
Core i7-4770K: 3.5 GHz / 3.9 GHz
Here are the tests that we will be running:
CPU Testing
AIDA64
– CPU Queen
– CPU PhotoWorxx
– CPU ZLib
– CPU AES
– CPU Hash
X264 HD Benchmark 5.0
Sisoftware Sandra
– Processor Arithmetic
– Processor Multimedia
Handbreak
– Encoding test
POV-Ray 3.7
CINEBENCH R11.5 64-Bit
Integrated Graphics Testing
3DMark Fire Strike
3DMark Cloud Gate
Heaven Benchmark
