Intel skylake

When it comes to choosing a processor for video games, the task is not easy because there are many factors that influence the final performance and the most powerful models in general do not have to be the best for games. Intel Skylake-X processors are the most powerful in the world but in video games they have not been able to take the crown.

Intel Skylake-X performs less in games than Broadwell-E and Kaby Lake

Traditionally, the processors with the highest power per core have been the best for video games since they are not capable of taking advantage of all the resources available on a chip. With the arrival of Intel X299 and AMD Ryzen a very important new factor has been introduced into the equation, the latency of internal communication between cores.

The guys at Techspot have brought the Core i7 7700K (4 cores) and the Core i9 7800X (6 cores) face to face alongside a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in a significant number of games. The results are clear and the small Core i7 7700K is noticeably faster in all games than the higher-end Core i9 7800X. Skylake and Kaby Lake are essentially the same architecture, so making a comparison on equal frequencies sheds a lot of light on their behavior in games, you can see how the Core i9 7800X at 4.7 GHz is surpassed by the Core i7 7700K.

One of the most important changes that have been introduced with Skylake-X affects communication between the processor cores, Intel has moved from its traditional ring-shaped architecture to a more advanced mesh architecture that offers a more modular design for adding large numbers of cores more efficiently, the downside of this design is that it adds more latency to communication. This change affects performance in video games in a very important way, Intel itself has recognized that the previous Broadwell-E offer better performance in games than Skylake-X.

We have found that there are applications where Broadwell-E processors are faster than Skylake-X processors. This is a consequence of Skylake-X's new mesh architecture compared to Broadwell-E's ring architecture.

The implementation of any new architecture requires significant engineering work to improve the overall performance of the platform and this is no exception with Skylake-X.

While this internal change affects many applications, the new Skylake-X processors offer an excellent IPC level and a significant improvement in overall performance.

Source: overclock3d