SPCR

This is the review I was waiting for, SPCR's perspective!

Thanks for the article!

Well, that confirmed it, I'm happy with my i5-4690K

Thanks for the review!

Any issues with cooling, as it was the case with the crappy-TIM-Haswells?

Hi Lawrence,

Thanks for the detail. Look forward to the motherboard reviews.

Mark

Thank you for the great review.

I have a question about cooling. Does a big CPU heatsink with a 140mm fan block the first PCIe slot?

Thanks for the review, however like most sites the review is for the 6700k which is currently very rare and overpriced due to availability. A review or at least comparison of the 6600K would have been appreciated as pricing and availability are much better.

chienpourri wrote:Thanks for the review, however like most sites the review is for the 6700k which is currently very rare and overpriced due to availability. A review or at least comparison of the 6600K would have been appreciated as pricing and availability are much better.

Got a spare 6600K on ya? You could send it in to be reviewed.

I do understand

As a matter of fact I have one, but I'm using it so it's definitly not "spare" lol

I see a lot of "you should have reviewed this instead" posts. Reality is Mike and Lawrence review samples sent to them by the mfgr. If they never get a sample, it's hard to do a review (I'm looking at you, MSI).

Are you also going to be able to review the motherboard? Would be interesting to see if Gigabyte has made their fan control more passable now.

Thank you for the review! It's a relief to see some well-defined power measurements, as most reviews do not control for outside factors. The idle power consumption is impressive on the GA-Z170X-UD5, considering its 12-phase power arrangement: I was under the (mistaken?) impression that additional phases generally increase idle power consumption. Or is it not that simple?

24W idle with IGP is great compared to the 4770K + Z97MX at 30W. However, both platforms register 35W idle with a discrete graphics card, if I read that correctly. That doesn't seem right: it implies the 4690K / 4770K IGP's idle above 6W. Am I misunderstanding something?

Finally, many other reviews saw high power consumption at load and blamed the 6700K's elevated stock voltage: 1.3V or higher, sometimes exacerbated by aggressive motherboards, and with a wide variance sample-to-sample. Did you have a chance to measure the voltage during your testing?

edh wrote:Are you also going to be able to review the motherboard? Would be interesting to see if Gigabyte has made their fan control more passable now.

+1. From what I've seen on other sites, the BIOS level control looks unchanged.

If the motherboard is anything like my Z170x Gaming 7, the fan control is still bizarre.

Just pick fans that run slow and quiet...

The Gaming 7 costs $30 more but it has support for faster ram, probably more power phases (22), upgraded audio, dual NICs, and some other nifty features that do not effect performance at all (LED lighting, LED ATX shiled, diagnostic LCD, buttons, voltage test points, etc.).

I like the way the Ultra Durable series looks better but the features on the Gaming 7 are worth the extra $30 in my opinion.

I think the value chart is pretty unfair to Skylake, it does not account for the extra features of the Z170 chipset and I don't think it factors in the power performance.

Low power means less heat and less heat means less fan noise so on SPCR that should be worth something.

Probably by Christmas time the lower end 100 series motherboards will be out and the value will be on par or better than Haswell.

edh wrote:Are you also going to be able to review the motherboard? Would be interesting to see if Gigabyte has made their fan control more passable now.

Not going to review the board as it will be mostly repetitive. Working on a couple of Asus boards atm. The Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 fan controls is similar to the Z97 models. Software is better in that it loads much faster and the SIV interface has been tweaked. Overall it works the same from what I can tell.

If anyone is interested here is a thread about my i7-6700k and Gigabyte Z170x Gaming 7 in my $10 surplus store HTPC case:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=68605

QUIET! wrote:Probably by Christmas time the lower end 100 series motherboards will be out and the value will be on par or better than Haswell.

Asrock has started listing all theirs, including the DDR3 Z170 boards.

Windows 7 users should take note that EHCI (Enhanced Host Controller Interface) has been dropped, a feature required for installing the O/S from a USB key. Windows 8 and 10 support USB installation through xHCI, so there are no issues there. If you're not ready to move on to Microsoft's newer operating systems, a fresh install of Windows 7 must be performed from a DVD, and during the install no USB interface devices will be usable, so a PS/2 keyboard will also be required (assuming the board even offers one).

Does this mean that during any install (even Win 10 using xHCI) there is no USB keyboard support or does that just apply to a DVD install? And is that just with this specific motherboard or will that be the case with all motherboards with this chipset?

Think it's all 100's series mobos.

Win 7: Install via DVD ok.
Win 8, 10: Install via DVD or USB ok.

So USB keyboards will be functional for a USB install of Win8 or 10 but not for a DVD install of Win 7?

USB keyboards? Sure. You might be hard pressed to find PS/2 keyboard/mouse inputs for some mobo's these days.