The most profitable process node in the history of Intel has been its 14nm process. Since 2014, the company has been pumping out CPUs built on a variety of configurations of 14nm – slowly optimizing for power and frequency. We used to call these variants 14+ and 14++, but as the next process node isn’t yet ready, rather than draw attention to a soon-to-be 6-year old process, Intel just calls it all ‘14nm class’. The latest launch on 14nm is Intel’s new Cascade Lake-X processors: high-end desktop hardware that gives a slight frequency improvement over Skylake-X from 2017 but it also has the first round of hardware mitigations. Today we’re testing the best CPU of the new list, the Core i9-10980XE.

The Ups and Downs of Intel’s High-End Strategy

Way back in June 2017, Intel first launched its Skylake-X high-end desktop processors. The Core i7-7900X was a 10-core processor built using the smallest silicon die from Intel’s enterprise processor range. It was on sale for $999, a noticeable drop from the $1729 pricing of the 10-core in the previous generation, and fit into a market where AMD had just started to launch its 8-core Ryzen processors for half this price. The benefits over AMD at the time, as explained in our review, came down to new vector extensions, more PCIe lanes, more memory channels, and a higher rate of instruction throughput, all equating to more performance – if the cost didn’t frighten you away.

AMD quickly launched 16-core processors and then 32-core processors into the high-end desktop market, turning most of the areas in which Intel had been winning into wins for AMD. The 16-core 1950X/2950X and the 32-core 2990WX were able to stifle the usefulness of Intel’s 10-core offerings by being much more competitively priced. In response, Intel moved up another step in its enterprise CPU silicon, and started offering up to 18 cores to the high-end desktop market, first with the Core i9-7980XE at $1979, and then the Core i9-9980XE at the same price but with a small clock increase.

For 2019, both companies have kicked it up a gear. AMD now offers for its mainstream platform 16 cores built on TSMC’s 7nm process with the Ryzen 9 3950X, which has a recommended price of $749. It also has a fundamental performance per clock advantage, as well as a higher frequency than Intel's HEDT parts. This now means that Intel’s 18-core CPU, at $1979, competes against AMD’s 16-core CPU at half the price and with better efficiency.

Today’s Launch: Cascade Lake-X and the Core i9-10980XE

In order to be competitive, Intel is doing the only thing it can do, based on what it has in its arsenal: the new 18-core Core i9-10980XE that comes out today is going to have a tray price of $979. The new Cascade Lake-X processor, based on the same silicon as Intel's already-launched Cascade Lake generation of Xeon processors,  comes with many of the same features introduced for those parts. In particular, this means the new Intel HEDT chips come with hardware protections for the first round of Spectre/Meltdown security patches. Intel is launching a range of processors, from 10-core all the way up to 18-core.

The Core i9-10980XE is an 18-core processor that has a base frequency of 3.0 GHz (same as the 9980XE) and a turbo frequency of 4.6 GHz (+100 MHz higher than the 9980XE) and a turbo max frequency of 4.8 GHz (+100 MHz higher than 9980XE). It can support up to 256 GB of DDR4-2933 with a quad-channel design, and has a 165W TDP.

Intel Cascade Lake-X
AnandTech	Cores Threads	Base	All Core	TB2	TB3	TDP	Price (1ku)
Core i9-10980XE	18C / 36T	3.0	3.8	4.6	4.8	165 W	$979
Core i9-10940X	14C / 28T	3.3	4.1	4.6	4.8	165 W	$784
Core i9-10920X	12C / 24T	3.5	4.3	4.6	4.8	165 W	$689
Core i9-10900X	10C / 20T	3.7	4.3	4.5	4.7	165 W	$590
Skylake-X (previous generation)
Core i9-9980XE	18C / 36T	3.0		4.5	4.7	165 W	$1979
Core i9-9940X	14C / 28C	3.3		4.5		165 W	$1387
Core i9-9920X	12C / 24T	3.5		4.5		165 W	$1189
Core i9-9900X	10C / 20T	3.5		4.5		165 W	$989

If we compare the top parts from AMD and Intel, we get an interesting differential.

Intel vs AMD Sub $1k
Core i9-10980XE	AnandTech	Ryzen 9 3950X
18 / 36	Cores / Threads	16 / 32
3.0 GHz	Base Frequency	3.5 GHz
4.6 / 4.8 GHz	Turbo Frequency	4.7 GHz
18 MB	L2 Cache	8 MB
24.75 MB	L3 Cache	64 MB
256 GB	DRAM Capacity	128 MB
DDR4-2933	DRAM Frequency	DDR4-3200
48	PCIe Lanes	24
165 W	TDP	105 W
$979 (1ku)	Price	$749 (MSRP)

What we have here are two processors that are technically in different markets: AMD is making the ‘high-end desktop market’ for its processors go beyond $749, while Intel’s HEDT market is now from $569 to $979. This means that Intel does have an advantage in this price range for memory controllers and PCIe lanes. It is worth noting that Intel is not launching a 16-core processor in this family, to compete directly with AMD’s 16-core. The official reason is that Intel doesn’t see a need to insert a product between the 10940X and the 10980XE in that price range; however as most people have gathered, not having a direct competition product on core count saves Intel some expected embarrassment in performance comparisons.

With that being said, AMD is also launching its newest HEDT processors today as well. The AMD Threadripper 3960X (24-core) and AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X (32-core) are (just) derivative designs of their enterprise processors, but signify that Intel has nothing to compete in this 24-core and above space.

Intel vs AMD HEDT
Core i9-10980XE	AnandTech	TR 3960X	TR 3970X
18 / 36	Cores / Threads	24 / 48	32 / 64
3.0 GHz	Base Frequency	3.8 GHz	3.5 GHz
4.6 / 4.8 GHz	Turbo Frequency	4.5 GHz	4.7 GHz
18 MB	L2 Cache	12 MB	16 MB
24.75 MB	L3 Cache	128 MB	128 MB
256 GB	DRAM Capacity	512 GB	512 GB
DDR4-2933	DRAM Frequency	DDR4-3200	DDR4-3200
48	PCIe Lanes	64	64
165 W	TDP	280 W	280 W
$979 (1ku)	Price	$1399	$1999

If we were to compare the 10980XE to the 3960X/3970X, it wouldn’t necessarily be a fair fight, with the AMD processors costing a good chunk more. But comparing the 10980XE to the 3950X is comparing a mainstream processor against HEDT, so the mainstream CPU automatically loses on most memory bound and PCIe bound tasks.

If we put up a price list for the updated product families, it shows the following:

CPU Pricing
AMD (MSRP Pricing)	Cores	AnandTech	Cores	Intel* (OEM Pricing)
		$2000+	28/56	Xeon W-3175X ($2999)
TR 3970X ($1999)	32/64	$1750-$1999
		$1500-$1749
TR 3960X ($1399)	24/48	$1250-$1499
		$1000-$1249
		$900-$999	18/36	Core i9-10980XE ($979)
		$800-$899
Ryzen 9 3950X ($749)	16/32	$700-$799	14/28	Core i9-10940X ($784)
		$600-$699	12/24	Core i9-10920X ($689)
		$550-$599	10/20	Core i9-10900X ($590)
		$500-$549	8/16	Core i9-9900KS ($513)
Ryzen 9 3900X ($499)	12/24	$450-$499	8/16	Core i9-9900K/F ($488)
		$400-$449
Ryzen 7 3800X ($399)	8/16	$350-$399	8/8	Core i7-9700K/F ($374)
Ryzen 7 3700X ($329)	8/16	$300-$349
		$250-$299	6/6	Core i5-9600K ($262)
Ryzen 5 3600X ($249)	6/12	$200-$249
Ryzen 5 3600 ($199)	6/12	Below $200	4/4	Core i3-9350K ($173)
*Intel quotes OEM/tray pricing. Retail pricing will sometimes be $20-$50 higher.

Keep an eye on all our benchmarks, just to see where everyone ends up.

Power Consumption

We’ve covered in detail across multiple articles the story of Intel’s turbo: about how the TDP on the box doesn’t mean a whole lot, the motherboard you’re using can ultimately determine how long your CPU does turbo for, and how the power limits of the processor are ultimately decided by the motherboard manufacturer’s settings in the BIOS unless you change them. Intel only gives recommendations on peak turbo power and the length of the turbo: the only thing Intel defines is the peak frequency based on load when turbo is allowed.

Talking Intel’s TDP and Turbo
Interviewing an Intel Fellow about TDP and Turbo
Comparing Turbo: AMD and Intel

This means that an extremely conservative system might not allow the power to go above TDP, but the system capable of all the power might allow the processor to turbo ad infinitum. The reality is usually somewhere in the middle, but for a high-end desktop platform, where most of the motherboards are engineered to withstand almost anything that comes at it, we’re going to often see the situation of an elongated or persistent turbo.

It’s worth noting that for consumer workloads, most of the work can happen within a reasonable turbo – and thus sustained performance metrics aren’t that important. But today we are testing high-end desktop hardware, and because Intel doesn’t explicitly define peak turbo power or turbo length (it only provides recommendations that motherboard manufacturers can and do ignore), I obviously asked Intel what it believes that reviewers should do when trying to compare performance. The answer wasn’t very helpful: test with a range of motherboards’.

In our previous review of the Core i9-9900KS, I did two sets of tests: benchmarks at the motherboard default, and tests at the Intel recommended turbo settings. The motherboard defaults, for that motherboard in question, were essentially full turbo all the time. Intel’s recommended settings gave some decreases in the long benchmarks, around 7%, but the rest of the tests were about the same.

For this review, we’re using ASRock’s X299 OC Formula motherboard. This is a motherboard designed for high-end and extreme overclocking, and is built accordingly. As a result, our sustained turbo and power limits are set very high. This is a HEDT system, and most HEDT motherboards are built and engineered this way, and so we expect our results here to be consummate with most users’ performance.

For our power consumption metrics, Intel actually does some obfuscation on its high-end platform. Unlike AMD, we cannot extract the per-core power numbers from the internal registers during a sustained workload. As a result, all we get are total package numbers, which show the cooling requirements of the processor but also include the power consumption of the DRAM controller, uncore, and PCIe root complexes.

The TDP of this chip is 165 W – normally Intel recommends a peak power of 1.25x, which would be 207 W, and so the 189 W value we see is under this. The chip we got is technically an engineering sample, not a retail part, although we usually expect the final stepping engineering samples to be identical to what is sold in the market. Despite this, your mileage may vary.

When we compare this peak to other CPUs:

Test Bed and Setup

As per our processor testing policy, we take a premium category motherboard suitable for the socket, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the manufacturer's maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

Test Setup
Intel Cascade Lake	Core i9-10980XE
Motherboard	ASRock X299 OC Formula (BIOS P1.80)
CPU Cooler	TRUE Copper + Silverstone Fan
DRAM	Corsair Vengeance RGB 4x8 GB DDR4-2933
GPU	Sapphire RX 460 2GB (CPU Tests) MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G (Gaming Tests)
PSU	Corsair AX860i
SSD	Crucial MX500 2TB
OS	Windows 10 1909

For our motherboard, we are using the latest firmware. I do not believe that ASRock has updated its BIOSes to provide fixes for the latest Intel security updates, as these take time.

The latest AMD TR3 benchmarks were run by Gavin Bonshor, while I attended Supercomputing in Denver last week. Unfortunately both Intel and AMD decided to sample processors before the annual trade show conference, with launches only a couple of days after the show finished. As a result, our testing has been split between Gavin and myself, and we have endevoured to ensure parity through my automated testing suite.

Also, our compile test seems to have broken itself when we used Windows 10 1909, and due to travel we have not had time to debug why it is no longer working. We hope to get this test up and running in the new year, along with an updated test suite.

We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.

Hardware Providers
Sapphire RX 460 Nitro	MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC	Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs	Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs
G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX	Crucial Ballistix DDR4	Silverstone Coolers	Silverstone Fans

CPU Performance: Rendering Tests

Rendering is often a key target for processor workloads, lending itself to a professional environment. It comes in different formats as well, from 3D rendering through rasterization, such as games, or by ray tracing, and invokes the ability of the software to manage meshes, textures, collisions, aliasing, physics (in animations), and discarding unnecessary work. Most renderers offer CPU code paths, while a few use GPUs and select environments use FPGAs or dedicated ASICs. For big studios however, CPUs are still the hardware of choice.

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

Corona 1.3: Performance Render

An advanced performance based renderer for software such as 3ds Max and Cinema 4D, the Corona benchmark renders a generated scene as a standard under its 1.3 software version. Normally the GUI implementation of the benchmark shows the scene being built, and allows the user to upload the result as a ‘time to complete’.

We got in contact with the developer who gave us a command line version of the benchmark that does a direct output of results. Rather than reporting time, we report the average number of rays per second across six runs, as the performance scaling of a result per unit time is typically visually easier to understand.

The Corona benchmark website can be found at https://corona-renderer.com/benchmark

The 10980XE sits on par with the 9980XE, but no real difference in performance.

Blender 2.79b: 3D Creation Suite

A high profile rendering tool, Blender is open-source allowing for massive amounts of configurability, and is used by a number of high-profile animation studios worldwide. The organization recently released a Blender benchmark package, a couple of weeks after we had narrowed our Blender test for our new suite, however their test can take over an hour. For our results, we run one of the sub-tests in that suite through the command line - a standard ‘bmw27’ scene in CPU only mode, and measure the time to complete the render.

Blender can be downloaded at https://www.blender.org/download/

Again, pretty much on par with the 9980XE.

LuxMark v3.1: LuxRender via Different Code Paths

As stated at the top, there are many different ways to process rendering data: CPU, GPU, Accelerator, and others. On top of that, there are many frameworks and APIs in which to program, depending on how the software will be used. LuxMark, a benchmark developed using the LuxRender engine, offers several different scenes and APIs.

In our test, we run the simple ‘Ball’ scene. This scene starts with a rough render and slowly improves the quality over two minutes, giving a final result in what is essentially an average ‘kilorays per second’.

We see a small uplift here compared to the 9980XE, but the 10980XE still sits behind the 3950X.

POV-Ray 3.7.1: Ray Tracing

The Persistence of Vision ray tracing engine is another well-known benchmarking tool, which was in a state of relative hibernation until AMD released its Zen processors, to which suddenly both Intel and AMD were submitting code to the main branch of the open source project. For our test, we use the built-in benchmark for all-cores, called from the command line.

POV-Ray can be downloaded from http://www.povray.org/

Another parity between the 10980XE and the 9980XE.

CPU Performance: System Tests

Our System Test section focuses significantly on real-world testing, user experience, with a slight nod to throughput. In this section we cover application loading time, image processing, simple scientific physics, emulation, neural simulation, optimized compute, and 3D model development, with a combination of readily available and custom software. For some of these tests, the bigger suites such as PCMark do cover them (we publish those values in our office section), although multiple perspectives is always beneficial. In all our tests we will explain in-depth what is being tested, and how we are testing.

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

Application Load: GIMP 2.10.4

One of the most important aspects about user experience and workflow is how fast does a system respond. A good test of this is to see how long it takes for an application to load. Most applications these days, when on an SSD, load fairly instantly, however some office tools require asset pre-loading before being available. Most operating systems employ caching as well, so when certain software is loaded repeatedly (web browser, office tools), then can be initialized much quicker.

In our last suite, we tested how long it took to load a large PDF in Adobe Acrobat. Unfortunately this test was a nightmare to program for, and didn’t transfer over to Win10 RS3 easily. In the meantime we discovered an application that can automate this test, and we put it up against GIMP, a popular free open-source online photo editing tool, and the major alternative to Adobe Photoshop. We set it to load a large 50MB design template, and perform the load 10 times with 10 seconds in-between each. Due to caching, the first 3-5 results are often slower than the rest, and time to cache can be inconsistent, we take the average of the last five results to show CPU processing on cached loading.

We saw a slight regression here with the 10980XE, which may be down to some of the security updates given that this benchmark tests loading a program which can involve user mode changes.

3D Particle Movement v2.1: Brownian Motion

Our 3DPM test is a custom built benchmark designed to simulate six different particle movement algorithms of points in a 3D space. The algorithms were developed as part of my PhD., and while ultimately perform best on a GPU, provide a good idea on how instruction streams are interpreted by different microarchitectures.

A key part of the algorithms is the random number generation – we use relatively fast generation which ends up implementing dependency chains in the code. The upgrade over the naïve first version of this code solved for false sharing in the caches, a major bottleneck. We are also looking at AVX2 and AVX512 versions of this benchmark for future reviews.

For this test, we run a stock particle set over the six algorithms for 20 seconds apiece, with 10 second pauses, and report the total rate of particle movement, in millions of operations (movements) per second. We have a non-AVX version and an AVX version, with the latter implementing AVX512 and AVX2 where possible.

3DPM v2.1 can be downloaded from our server: 3DPMv2.1.rar (13.0 MB)

The extra frequency shows a bit here in MT mode, but otherwise equal performance to the 9980XE.

Dolphin 5.0: Console Emulation

One of the popular requested tests in our suite is to do with console emulation. Being able to pick up a game from an older system and run it as expected depends on the overhead of the emulator: it takes a significantly more powerful x86 system to be able to accurately emulate an older non-x86 console, especially if code for that console was made to abuse certain physical bugs in the hardware.

For our test, we use the popular Dolphin emulation software, and run a compute project through it to determine how close to a standard console system our processors can emulate. In this test, a Nintendo Wii would take around 1050 seconds.

The latest version of Dolphin can be downloaded from https://dolphin-emu.org/

DigiCortex 1.20: Sea Slug Brain Simulation

This benchmark was originally designed for simulation and visualization of neuron and synapse activity, as is commonly found in the brain. The software comes with a variety of benchmark modes, and we take the small benchmark which runs a 32k neuron / 1.8B synapse simulation, equivalent to a Sea Slug.

Example of a 2.1B neuron simulation

We report the results as the ability to simulate the data as a fraction of real-time, so anything above a ‘one’ is suitable for real-time work. Out of the two modes, a ‘non-firing’ mode which is DRAM heavy and a ‘firing’ mode which has CPU work, we choose the latter. Despite this, the benchmark is still affected by DRAM speed a fair amount.

DigiCortex can be downloaded from http://www.digicortex.net/

y-Cruncher v0.7.6: Microarchitecture Optimized Compute

I’ve known about y-Cruncher for a while, as a tool to help compute various mathematical constants, but it wasn’t until I began talking with its developer, Alex Yee, a researcher from NWU and now software optimization developer, that I realized that he has optimized the software like crazy to get the best performance. Naturally, any simulation that can take 20+ days can benefit from a 1% performance increase! Alex started y-cruncher as a high-school project, but it is now at a state where Alex is keeping it up to date to take advantage of the latest instruction sets before they are even made available in hardware.

For our test we run y-cruncher v0.7.6 through all the different optimized variants of the binary, single threaded and multi-threaded, including the AVX-512 optimized binaries. The test is to calculate 250m digits of Pi, and we use the single threaded and multi-threaded versions of this test.

Users can download y-cruncher from Alex’s website: http://www.numberworld.org/y-cruncher/

Agisoft Photoscan 1.3.3: 2D Image to 3D Model Conversion

One of the ISVs that we have worked with for a number of years is Agisoft, who develop software called PhotoScan that transforms a number of 2D images into a 3D model. This is an important tool in model development and archiving, and relies on a number of single threaded and multi-threaded algorithms to go from one side of the computation to the other.

In our test, we take v1.3.3 of the software with a good sized data set of 84 x 18 megapixel photos and push it through a reasonably fast variant of the algorithms, but is still more stringent than our 2017 test. We report the total time to complete the process.

Agisoft’s Photoscan website can be found here: http://www.agisoft.com/

The 10980XE here becomes the fastest Intel CPU we've tested on Photoscal, with a sizeable uplift over the 9980XE. This is likely due to the faster memory.

CPU Performance: Encoding Tests

With the rise of streaming, vlogs, and video content as a whole, encoding and transcoding tests are becoming ever more important. Not only are more home users and gamers needing to convert video files into something more manageable, for streaming or archival purposes, but the servers that manage the output also manage around data and log files with compression and decompression. Our encoding tasks are focused around these important scenarios, with input from the community for the best implementation of real-world testing.

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

Handbrake 1.1.0: Streaming and Archival Video Transcoding

A popular open source tool, Handbrake is the anything-to-anything video conversion software that a number of people use as a reference point. The danger is always on version numbers and optimization, for example the latest versions of the software can take advantage of AVX-512 and OpenCL to accelerate certain types of transcoding and algorithms. The version we use here is a pure CPU play, with common transcoding variations.

We have split Handbrake up into several tests, using a Logitech C920 1080p60 native webcam recording (essentially a streamer recording), and convert them into two types of streaming formats and one for archival. The output settings used are:

• 720p60 at 6000 kbps constant bit rate, fast setting, high profile
• 1080p60 at 3500 kbps constant bit rate, faster setting, main profile
• 1080p60 HEVC at 3500 kbps variable bit rate, fast setting, main profile

 

7-zip v1805: Popular Open-Source Encoding Engine

Out of our compression/decompression tool tests, 7-zip is the most requested and comes with a built-in benchmark. For our test suite, we’ve pulled the latest version of the software and we run the benchmark from the command line, reporting the compression, decompression, and a combined score.

It is noted in this benchmark that the latest multi-die processors have very bi-modal performance between compression and decompression, performing well in one and badly in the other. There are also discussions around how the Windows Scheduler is implementing every thread. As we get more results, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Please note, if you plan to share out the Compression graph, please include the Decompression one. Otherwise you’re only presenting half a picture.

 

WinRAR 5.60b3: Archiving Tool

My compression tool of choice is often WinRAR, having been one of the first tools a number of my generation used over two decades ago. The interface has not changed much, although the integration with Windows right click commands is always a plus. It has no in-built test, so we run a compression over a set directory containing over thirty 60-second video files and 2000 small web-based files at a normal compression rate.

WinRAR is variable threaded but also susceptible to caching, so in our test we run it 10 times and take the average of the last five, leaving the test purely for raw CPU compute performance.

 

AES Encryption: File Security

A number of platforms, particularly mobile devices, are now offering encryption by default with file systems in order to protect the contents. Windows based devices have these options as well, often applied by BitLocker or third-party software. In our AES encryption test, we used the discontinued TrueCrypt for its built-in benchmark, which tests several encryption algorithms directly in memory.

The data we take for this test is the combined AES encrypt/decrypt performance, measured in gigabytes per second. The software does use AES commands for processors that offer hardware selection, however not AVX-512.

More than a slight regression here in our AES testing - this is probably the most severe of all our tests for how the security fixes have affected performance.

CPU Performance: Web and Legacy Tests

While more the focus of low-end and small form factor systems, web-based benchmarks are notoriously difficult to standardize. Modern web browsers are frequently updated, with no recourse to disable those updates, and as such there is difficulty in keeping a common platform. The fast paced nature of browser development means that version numbers (and performance) can change from week to week. Despite this, web tests are often a good measure of user experience: a lot of what most office work is today revolves around web applications, particularly email and office apps, but also interfaces and development environments. Our web tests include some of the industry standard tests, as well as a few popular but older tests.

We have also included our legacy benchmarks in this section, representing a stack of older code for popular benchmarks.

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

Speedometer 2: JavaScript Frameworks

Our newest web test is Speedometer 2, which is a accrued test over a series of javascript frameworks to do three simple things: built a list, enable each item in the list, and remove the list. All the frameworks implement the same visual cues, but obviously apply them from different coding angles.

Our test goes through the list of frameworks, and produces a final score indicative of ‘rpm’, one of the benchmarks internal metrics. We report this final score.

Google Octane 2.0: Core Web Compute

A popular web test for several years, but now no longer being updated, is Octane, developed by Google. Version 2.0 of the test performs the best part of two-dozen compute related tasks, such as regular expressions, cryptography, ray tracing, emulation, and Navier-Stokes physics calculations.

The test gives each sub-test a score and produces a geometric mean of the set as a final result. We run the full benchmark four times, and average the final results.

Mozilla Kraken 1.1: Core Web Compute

Even older than Octane is Kraken, this time developed by Mozilla. This is an older test that does similar computational mechanics, such as audio processing or image filtering. Kraken seems to produce a highly variable result depending on the browser version, as it is a test that is keenly optimized for.

The main benchmark runs through each of the sub-tests ten times and produces an average time to completion for each loop, given in milliseconds. We run the full benchmark four times and take an average of the time taken.

3DPM v1: Naïve Code Variant of 3DPM v2.1

The first legacy test in the suite is the first version of our 3DPM benchmark. This is the ultimate naïve version of the code, as if it was written by scientist with no knowledge of how computer hardware, compilers, or optimization works (which in fact, it was at the start). This represents a large body of scientific simulation out in the wild, where getting the answer is more important than it being fast (getting a result in 4 days is acceptable if it’s correct, rather than sending someone away for a year to learn to code and getting the result in 5 minutes).

In this version, the only real optimization was in the compiler flags (-O2, -fp:fast), compiling it in release mode, and enabling OpenMP in the main compute loops. The loops were not configured for function size, and one of the key slowdowns is false sharing in the cache. It also has long dependency chains based on the random number generation, which leads to relatively poor performance on specific compute microarchitectures.

3DPM v1 can be downloaded with our 3DPM v2 code here: 3DPMv2.1.rar (13.0 MB)

x264 HD 3.0: Older Transcode Test

This transcoding test is super old, and was used by Anand back in the day of Pentium 4 and Athlon II processors. Here a standardized 720p video is transcoded with a two-pass conversion, with the benchmark showing the frames-per-second of each pass. This benchmark is single-threaded, and between some micro-architectures we seem to actually hit an instructions-per-clock wall.

GeekBench4: Synthetics

A common tool for cross-platform testing between mobile, PC, and Mac, GeekBench 4 is an ultimate exercise in synthetic testing across a range of algorithms looking for peak throughput. Tests include encryption, compression, fast Fourier transform, memory operations, n-body physics, matrix operations, histogram manipulation, and HTML parsing.

I’m including this test due to popular demand, although the results do come across as overly synthetic, and a lot of users often put a lot of weight behind the test due to the fact that it is compiled across different platforms (although with different compilers).

We record the main subtest scores (Crypto, Integer, Floating Point, Memory) in our benchmark database, but for the review we post the overall single and multi-threaded results.

Gaming: World of Tanks enCore

Albeit different to most of the other commonly played MMO or massively multiplayer online games, World of Tanks is set in the mid-20th century and allows players to take control of a range of military based armored vehicles. World of Tanks (WoT) is developed and published by Wargaming who are based in Belarus, with the game’s soundtrack being primarily composed by Belarusian composer Sergey Khmelevsky. The game offers multiple entry points including a free-to-play element as well as allowing players to pay a fee to open up more features. One of the most interesting things about this tank based MMO is that it achieved eSports status when it debuted at the World Cyber Games back in 2012.

World of Tanks enCore is a demo application for a new and unreleased graphics engine penned by the Wargaming development team. Over time the new core engine will implemented into the full game upgrading the games visuals with key elements such as improved water, flora, shadows, lighting as well as other objects such as buildings. The World of Tanks enCore demo app not only offers up insight into the impending game engine changes, but allows users to check system performance to see if the new engine run optimally on their system.

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

AnandTech	IGP	Low	Medium	High
Average FPS
95th Percentile

Gaming: Final Fantasy XV

Upon arriving to PC earlier this, Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition was given a graphical overhaul as it was ported over from console, fruits of their successful partnership with NVIDIA, with hardly any hint of the troubles during Final Fantasy XV's original production and development.

In preparation for the launch, Square Enix opted to release a standalone benchmark that they have since updated. Using the Final Fantasy XV standalone benchmark gives us a lengthy standardized sequence to record, although it should be noted that its heavy use of NVIDIA technology means that the Maximum setting has problems - it renders items off screen. To get around this, we use the standard preset which does not have these issues.

Square Enix has patched the benchmark with custom graphics settings and bugfixes to be much more accurate in profiling in-game performance and graphical options. For our testing, we run the standard benchmark with a FRAPs overlay, taking a 6 minute recording of the test.

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

AnandTech	IGP	Low	Medium	High
Average FPS
95th Percentile

Gaming: Shadow of War

Next up is Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to Shadow of Mordor. Developed by Monolith, whose last hit was arguably F.E.A.R., Shadow of Mordor returned them to the spotlight with an innovative NPC rival generation and interaction system called the Nemesis System, along with a storyline based on J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium, and making it work on a highly modified engine that originally powered F.E.A.R. in 2005.

Using the new LithTech Firebird engine, Shadow of War improves on the detail and complexity, and with free add-on high-resolution texture packs, offers itself as a good example of getting the most graphics out of an engine that may not be bleeding edge.

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

AnandTech	IGP	Low	Medium	High
Average FPS

Gaming: Strange Brigade (DX12, Vulkan)

Strange Brigade is based in 1903’s Egypt and follows a story which is very similar to that of the Mummy film franchise. This particular third-person shooter is developed by Rebellion Developments which is more widely known for games such as the Sniper Elite and Alien vs Predator series. The game follows the hunt for Seteki the Witch Queen who has arose once again and the only ‘troop’ who can ultimately stop her. Gameplay is cooperative centric with a wide variety of different levels and many puzzles which need solving by the British colonial Secret Service agents sent to put an end to her reign of barbaric and brutality.

The game supports both the DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs and houses its own built-in benchmark which offers various options up for customization including textures, anti-aliasing, reflections, draw distance and even allows users to enable or disable motion blur, ambient occlusion and tessellation among others. AMD has boasted previously that Strange Brigade is part of its Vulkan API implementation offering scalability for AMD multi-graphics card configurations.

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

AnandTech	IGP	Low	Medium	High
Average FPS
95th Percentile

Gaming: Grand Theft Auto V

The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA in tow to help optimize the title. GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine under DirectX 11. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.

For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark. The in-game benchmark consists of five scenarios: four short panning shots with varying lighting and weather effects, and a fifth action sequence that lasts around 90 seconds. We use only the final part of the benchmark, which combines a flight scene in a jet followed by an inner city drive-by through several intersections followed by ramming a tanker that explodes, causing other cars to explode as well. This is a mix of distance rendering followed by a detailed near-rendering action sequence, and the title thankfully spits out frame time data.

There are no presets for the graphics options on GTA, allowing the user to adjust options such as population density and distance scaling on sliders, but others such as texture/shadow/shader/water quality from Low to Very High. Other options include MSAA, soft shadows, post effects, shadow resolution and extended draw distance options. There is a handy option at the top which shows how much video memory the options are expected to consume, with obvious repercussions if a user requests more video memory than is present on the card (although there’s no obvious indication if you have a low end GPU with lots of GPU memory, like an R7 240 4GB).

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

AnandTech	IGP	Low	Medium	High
Average FPS
95th Percentile

Gaming: F1 2018

Aside from keeping up-to-date on the Formula One world, F1 2017 added HDR support, which F1 2018 has maintained; otherwise, we should see any newer versions of Codemasters' EGO engine find its way into F1. Graphically demanding in its own right, F1 2018 keeps a useful racing-type graphics workload in our benchmarks.

We use the in-game benchmark, set to run on the Montreal track in the wet, driving as Lewis Hamilton from last place on the grid. Data is taken over a one-lap race.

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

AnandTech	IGP	Low	Medium	High
Average FPS
95th Percentile

More 14+++, No 10nm in Sight

For readers that haven’t followed Intel’s manufacturing story as of late, we are desperately awaiting the arrival of Intel’s 10nm process node technology to come to the desktop market in a big way. Intel has historically been at the forefront of process node developments since the start of the century, and it first started discussing its 10nm node back in 2010 (when it was called ‘11nm’), and slowly started to push through its process technology cadence. Initially promised in 2015, Intel declared that it had shipped some 10nm products in late December in 2017, although we didn’t see anything with 10nm in the market until mid-to-late 2018.

In 2019, we have had Intel’s 10nm products now pop up in portable form factors, such as high-end laptops. This is hardware that is far from ubiquitous, but at least it isn’t vaporware any more. We even tested the reference system earlier this year before they went on sale, and the results were fairly good by comparison. However, despite this, we have yet to see 10nm on the desktop. Intel has promised 10nm Ice Lake Xeons for enterprise (production ramp H2 2020), and has stated that 10nm ‘will come to the desktop’, but Intel isn't there quite yet.

To that end, we get more 14nm products. Officially Intel doesn’t like to mention whether a product is on its 14nm process, 14+, 14++, or anything beyond that – partly because it just further indicates that it isn’t 10nm, but also it wants to focus its messaging on the product regardless of the process node. One of Intel’s VPs, at a recent tour of its fabs by the European press, stated in not so many words that ‘consumers don’t care about process nodes, so you shouldn’t either’. Take from that what you will.

In the high-end desktop market, like the enterprise market, we expect a slower cadence compared to the bleeding edge used in the mainstream markets and notebook markets. Even with that in mind, today’s launch is Intel’s third line of HEDT processors on 14nm, following Skylake-X with the 7980XE family and a Skylake-X Refresh with the 9980XE family. The new family is called ‘Cascade Lake-X’, promising better support for high-end memory (up from 128 GB to 256 GB), more PCIe lanes (44 to 48), and more frequency (+100 MHz), for a lower cost ($979 for 18-cores, rather than $1929) and more hardened security updates (the first round of Spectre/Meltdown).

The issue Intel has, with not executing on its 10nm plans, is that the competition has caught up and surpassed them. By utilizing TSMC’s 7nm process, AMD has taken advantage of its chiplet strategy to drive higher core counts on a more efficient process, with smaller chips to allow for a better binning strategy and helps higher yields than big chips with the same defect rate.

So where Intel offers 18 cores with AVX-512, AMD offers 16 cores with better IPC and higher frequencies, at a lower price. Intel’s platform is HEDT, so it does come with more memory and PCIe lanes, and users wanting that on the latest AMD will have to jump up another 40% in cost, but will get 24-cores instead.

Benchmark wise, our results show that the 10980XE sits pretty much where the 9980XE did, albeit at half the price. What the 10980XE does well is that users who want a high-end desktop platform around $1000, with more memory and more PCIe lanes, can either use Intel’s latest solution, or an older AMD solution. AMD has priced its high-end desktop parts out of this market ($1399+), and is hoping that users at this price range don’t need high memory or high PCIe counts. So in an unusual turn of events, after having previously charged a sizable premium even within the HEDT lineup for extra PCIe lanes, now it's Intel who is offering the best deal for peripheral I/O.

Intel’s product fits in nicely with what the competition has to offer, but they no longer have the crown. Intel loves that halo spot, but it’s going to be a tough climb for it to get it back. We might have to wait until we see a consumer 10nm HEDT part for that, and the roadmap doesn’t look to great from where we’re standing. If Ice Lake Xeons are the priority in 2H 2020, that puts any 10nm for the $500-$1000 market in 2021.