Conclusion

Stock Clocks

First, we’re going to talk about the average performance differences of the two CPUs we've tested here. To keep things as simple as possible, we've averaged all the results that we gathered at different resolutions. This allows us to create an overall performance index. The Core i7-4960X is defining the 100.00% baseline, to which we're going to compare all other results. On average the Core i7-5820K is 2.92% quicker than its the former highest-end CPU.

A closer look at the different resolutions reveals, that at FullHD the Core i7-5820K performs 2.62 percent faster. In the case of 1440p the 5820K offers on average 3.47 % higher frame rates. Last but not least we’ve tested the games at UHD and the differences are very similar. The system with Core i7-5820K runs games 2.69 % quicker than equipped with the i7-4960X.

Another interesting value to investigate is power consumption. In idle our test system with Core i7-4960X burns 32.35 % more power than the setup with Core i7-5820K. At this point we have to mention, that the two CPUs have to be tested with different motherboards. With the system under full load – the graphics card is also loaded – the percentage differences are smaller. The system with Core i7-4960X needs 14.12 percent more power than the setup with i7-5820K, despite the fact new generation are more power saver than the old generation.

Overclocked

Following the same approach – but shorter - like with the CPUs at stock clocks we’re now going to talk about the results gathered with the CPUs overclocked to 4.5 GHz. Again, the Core i7-4960X is setting the 100.00% baseline. On average the new Core i7-5820K opens a 2.14 percent gap. In other words, overclocking the CPUs to 4.5 GHz has no effect on performance scaling and it doesn’t open any bottleneck. The reason for this is simple: the CPU isn't the limiting factor, it's the graphics card and this is the case even at FullHD.

Recommendation

As we've already mentioned in the overclocking part of this conclusion it's not the CPU, which is limiting performance in recent gaming systems, it is the graphics card. This already implies that the CPU only plays a secondary role when it comes to gaming performance in general. In other words: if you upgrade from an Intel Core i7-4960X to a Core i7-5820K only for gaming performance, there will be no noticable difference regarding gaming performance.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 12 - Thief
Page 2 - Test Setup	Page 13 - GRID Autosport
Page 3 - 3DMark Fire Strike	Page 14 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 4 - Unigine Heaven 4.0	Page 15 - Metro Last Light
Page 5 - Borderlands - The Pre-Sequel	Page 16 - Assassin’s Creed Unity
Page 6 - BattleField 4	Page 17 - Far Cry 4
Page 7 - Watch Dogs	Page 18 - Power Consumption
Page 8 - Tomb Raider	Page 19 - Performance
Page 9 - Sniper Elite 3	Page 20 - Prices
Page 10 - Crysis 3	Page 21 - Conclusion
Page 11 - Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare