Intel Core i7-5775C Desktop Broadwell is here. Was it worth the wait ?

Intel’s fi fth-gen desktop CPU, the Core i7-5775C, is fi nally in our test benches. So what is Broadwell? It’s a 14nm production process die shrink on what’s still essentially Haswell CPU tech, giving serious power effi ciency to the chips. That’s why they’re fi rst and foremost of interest to the mobile crew, although they retain some interest on the desktop because you also get the very best in processor graphics. This is the fi rst time the Iris Pro level of graphics has appeared in socketed form, and compared with the HD Graphics 4600 parts in the latest Haswell Devil’s Canyon chips, the Iris Pro 6200 has more than twice the execution units (EUs). Elsewhere, you’re looking at classic Core i7 stats – four cores with eight threads. Because this a ‘C’ class chip, you only get a clock speed of 3.3GHz with a max turbo of 3.7GHz, although it retains unlocked multipliers to aid overclocking. performance, but nowhere near enough to worry the existing top Haswell chip in straight performance. But this isn’t where Broadwell is meant to compete. It’s a low-power i7 with high-end graphics and limited overclocking. At stock speeds, the peak power we were seeing during Cinebench tests was just 104W, with the CPU only a shade over 50°C. But even when overclocked to 4.2GHz, the CPU was still under 60°C and only drew another 50W at maximum. That’s some seriously impressive effi ciencies. This eight-threaded CPU is barely drawing the same power as last-gen quad-thread parts. In terms of its graphics performance, having more than twice the EUs of the Haswell HD Graphics 4600 – 48 compared to 20 – the Iris Pro 6200 delivers a huge performance boost. Gaming at top 1080p settings goes from practically slideshow levels to genuinely playable. As a preview of what we can expect from the next- Technologically speaking, the i7-5775C is the top CPU in Intel’s standard desktop lineup. For the next few weeks, anyway. So what makes it a relevant upgrade to the cheaper Devil’s Canyon Core i7? On the face of it, there seems to be no reason to upgrade from your current Haswell i7, and probably most existing i5 chips. The i7-5775C is a good chunk more expensive than the i7-4790K, and in terms of straight clock speed and thus gaming performance, it’s a bit of a bust. In our benchmarks, X264 and Cinebench gave a landslide victory to the last-gen CPU. The bright spot is in the memory bandwidth fi gures. The Broadwell chip shows big improvements, topping anything we’ve seen outside of Ivy Bridge-E processors. And what of overclocking? Sadly, we couldn’t hit the standard 1GHz overclock that Intel CPUs often offer. Boosting it from a 3.3GHz base up to 4.2GHz is no mean feat and does improve gen Skylake family, this 14nm die shrink is darned impressive. But the thought of spending $569 on one is beyond the pale. Even with the excellent Iris Pro graphics fi nally hitting socketed CPUs, we struggle to see who would actually consider picking one up. This is a chip that might have looked impressive last year, and maybe even today if it had a higher clock speed and lower price. But that’s not the case, so there’s little reason to consider it.