The Intel Broadwell Desktop Review: Core i7-5775C and Core i5-5675C Tested (Part 1)
by Ian Cutress on June 2, 2015 7:45 AM ESTProfessional Performance: Windows
Agisoft Photoscan – 2D to 3D Image Manipulation: link
Agisoft Photoscan creates 3D models from 2D images, a process which is very computationally expensive. The algorithm is split into four distinct phases, and different phases of the model reconstruction require either fast memory, fast IPC, more cores, or even OpenCL compute devices to hand. Agisoft supplied us with a special version of the software to script the process, where we take 50 images of a stately home and convert it into a medium quality model. This benchmark typically takes around 15-20 minutes on a high end PC on the CPU alone, with GPUs reducing the time.
The presence of Crystal Well had a small effect on Photoscan, occurring mostly in the second phase of the calculation which is the one that also has an option to enable the GPU, indicating that memory bandwidth is an potential limitation in that segment.
Cinebench R15
Cinebench is a benchmark based around Cinema 4D, and is fairly well known among enthusiasts for stressing the CPU for a provided workload. Results are given as a score, where higher is better.
Cinebench is a historically CPU-limited benchmark, and the results show this again here. The fact that the 3.6GHz Broadwell-based i5-5675C performs so closely to the 3.9GHz Haswell-based i5-4690 is a promising sign here, as it means that despite being a mere "tick" in Intel's development efforts, there are tangible IPC increases on the desktop from Broadwell.
HandBrake v0.9.9: link
For HandBrake, we take two videos (a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short) and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
While no obvious improvement was seen in the low quality conversion, the double UHD conversion put the i7 above what was otherwise expected.
Hybrid x265
Hybrid is a new benchmark, where we take a 4K 1500 frame video and convert it into an x265 format without audio. Results are given in frames per second.
Unlike the Handbrake H.264 tests, the Hybrid x265 tests show a clear uptick in performance on the Broadwell processors. It is not fast enough to catch the i7-4790K and its 4.4GHz turbo clockspeed, but we see the i5-5675C shoot well past the i5-4690 despite the clockspeed deficit. Whether this is due to Broadwell architecture enhancements, Crystal Well acting as an L4 cache, or a combination of the two is difficult to determine, but the end result is substantial.
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ppi - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Can G3260 run the latest games that require quad core CPU?wallysb01 - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
What is ‘good enough’ performance though? I put a G3220 pentium in my wife’s computer and its plenty good enough for everything she does, which I suspect represents 99.8% of the population (Microsoft office stuff, email, facebook and Netflix/Amazon prime). Heck I can even play DOTA2 on it reasonably well.Intel has had ‘good enough’ graphics for damn near everyone for a while now and that G3220 was like $55 on sale. To me ‘good enough’ graphics isn’t playing modern games at high resolution and quick frame rates. If you want an iGPU to do that, you should expect to pay for it since you’re in the <0.1% of the population that cares.
Namisecond - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
"Truth is (as pointed out) you can get an AMD chip with a $100 discrete graphics card which would blow either of the iGPUs away."Or you can compare that AMD chip and DGPU combo with an even cheaper Intel Pentium and same DGPU combo... :)
The_Assimilator - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Give it a generation or two - the cost of eDRAM will fall dramatically once Intel starts shipping it in millions of CPUs.Refuge - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
They have proven they can build it, but at that price it is a bit of a moot point ATM.First lets see the price of these iGPU's come down before we count it a success.
ZeDestructor - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
This who multipart review is slightly alarming...On the CPU itself: an IVB repeat: very minor CPU improvements, large GPU upgrade...
Oh, btw, since the CPUs are unlocked, can we get some identical speed benchmarks? Would be the nicest, easiest way to track IPC and eDRAM improvements.
Refuge - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
The article mentioned them having problems with Beta Firmware stopping them from having overclocking and iGPU comparisons in this email.ZeDestructor - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
I know. I feel that they should have pushed an early article out explaining the issues and published the review later on in one piece. You don't give good firmware, you get later coverage.vFunct - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
The MSI page takeover ads here leave ZERO margins from the text..Ryan Smith - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
On it. Sorry about that.