Conclusion
FullHD
Having a closer look at the results measured with FullHD resolution
we see, that the performance differences are very small. Comparing the Core
i7-4960X with stock clocks to the Core i7-5960X overclocked to 4.5GHz we find a
difference of 2.72 percent on average. There is actually only one result where
we're seeing scaling to a certain extent. Looking at the frame rates in
Battlefield 4, we notice that the performance with the Core i7-5960X at 4.5 GHz
is 9.6 percent higher than with the Core i7-4960X.
1440p
With the resolution set to 1440p
we basically see the same tendencies like with FullHD although scaling with the
Core i7-5960X at 4.5 GHz a tiny little bit higher. The average performance
difference between a Core i7-4960X at stock clocks and the Core i7-5960X at 4.5
GHz is 3.32 percent. Apparently this is virtually nothing. Browsing through all
the individual results we again find a spike with Battlefield 4. In this case
the performance difference between the slowest and the fastest test setup is
8.36 percent. Apart from that we also see Sniper Elite 3 scaling measurably,
where we find a difference of 7.32 percent.
UHD
UHD is where things are starting to become little bit more
interesting. Having a look at the average values, we see taht the Core i7-5960X
at 4.5 GHz is 5.22 percent quicker than the Core i7-4960X with standard clocks.
The overall results might not be impressive again, but nevertheless there are
some interesting spikes this time. It's again Battlefield 4, which benefits the
most from the Core i7-5960X at 4.5 GHz, since there is a 10.9 percent difference
to the Core i7-4960X at stock clocks. Apart from that there are Sniper Elite 3
and Metro Last Light showing scaling of 10.9 and 9.6 percent.
Power consumption
This is where we're really seeing big differences. When
it comes to idle power consumption we see that the system with overclocked Core
i7-5960X burns 41.57 percent more power than the one with Core i7-4960X at stock
clocks. In other words this means that for an average 5.22 percent performance
increase the system burns 41.57 percent more power in idle. Unter load
conditions the differences are apparently much smaller, since system power
consumption gets affected by the graphics card used. The highest power
consumption under load we measured with the Core i7-4960X at 4.5 GHz and that
particular setup burnt 12.73 percent more power than the Core i7-5960X at stock
clocks, which was the most economic in this case.
Recommendation
Overall we see that it's not the CPUs which are bottlenecking this
particular gaming System. Even at FullHD it appears that a faster graphics card
has a way bigger impact on frame rates than the CPU in the system. Nevertheless
it was interesting so see that there are some games where the framerates at UHD
rise by more than 10 percent when using an i7-5960X. Especially in case of a
high-end system 10 percent more performance under specific conditions is not too
much, but it is well measurable. After all we can say, that if you're looking
for the most powerful CPU out there in order to build one crazy gaming PC then
the Core i7-5960X is certainly the way to go.
Core i7-4790K vs i7-4770K Gaming-Performance