Released in August 2022 for a reasonable $390 -- the most affordable Haswell-E processor bachelor at the fourth dimension -- Intel's hexa-core Core i7-5820K has proven pop among enthusiast builders over the years and it's about time we see how it compares against more modern CPUs.

Today, the bit tin can be purchased for nearly half the cost it originally fetched and nosotros managed to find one online for around $200, which seems to be well-nigh the going price.

By default, the 5820K works at a base frequency of three.3GHz merely depending on the workload it can boost upwards to 3.6GHz (a mild increase, absolutely) and it likewise packs 15MB of L3 cache alongside ane.5MB of L2 cache, which was a pregnant increase over the mainstream Cadre i7 range back in 2022.

Although the chip is pivot-compatible with the previous-generation Ivy Bridge-East and Sandy Span-E boards, we got an upgraded socket, LGA2011v3. The socket modify was somewhat justified this time seeing as Haswell-E saw the adoption of DDR4 memory on Intel'south high-end desktop platform. Every bit was the instance with previous generations, quad-aqueduct memory back up remained and the official spec chosen for DDR4-2133.

Since the release of the 5820K, we saw the 6800K jack this category's toll upward to well over $400 then last twelvemonth the 7800X went back down to $390. Of class, 2022 also brought the Ryzen 5 1600 for $200 and the 8 core/16 thread R7 1700 which can be had for $290. Intel's high-cease desktop platform actually faced some existent contest in 2022, something it's never really seen.

Our focus will be on gaming for this retest and the aim is to achieve two things: 1) to show those of you currently using a 5820K what advantages there may be to upgrading, and 2) to provide 2d-manus shoppers with information on whether the 5820K and an accompanying X99 motherboard are worth snapping upwardly -- $200 for the 5820K plus $80-$100 for a supporting motherboard looks like a groovy value on paper.

What we can say upfront is that if you're mostly gaming on the 5820K right at present, it's probably not worth jumping ship for the 8700K and it makes more sense to wait given what we saw from our contempo retest of the Haswell-based 4770K.

Clock for clock, at 4.8GHz the 4770K was just 15% slower at 1080p using medium quality settings with a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. On maximum quality, that margin was reduced to just ten% which fell further to 4% when increasing the GPU workload to 1440p.

Although nosotros don't expect to find much deviation with the 5820K, you guys still love benchmark results and so do we, so we won't permit that fiddling fact stop us. For testing, we paired the 5820K with quad-channel DDR4-2666 memory and that'southward the highest memory speed our processor would work with, at least with the sticks we have available. The 4770K was tested with DDR3-2400 retention and the 8700K with DDR4-3200 memory.

Earlier we get to the gaming results, we accept some Cinebench R15 scores along with some Corona benchmarks and power consumption figures.

Benchmarks

Commencement up, a quick look at everyone's favorite rendering benchmark, Cinebench R15. Here the stock 5820K scored 6% lower than that of the R5 1600 and the Ryzen CPU posted a better single thread result likewise. Overall though, they weren't drastically unlike. In one case overclocked, the 5820K hit 1305 pts and that placed it on par with the stock 7800X and a whopping 21% behind the overclocked 8700K.

If you're wanting to increase productivity, the 8700K will offer noticeable gains, though you are better off with a Skylake-X processor such every bit the 7820X or perhaps a Ryzen 7 CPU.

Here's a look at the Corona results and we see that the 5820K is again only able to match the 7800X once overclocked, although in this examination it does pull well ahead of the Ryzen 5 1600 and almost catches the R7 1700. Still, even overclocked the 5820K was 10% slower than the stock 8700K and 24% slower in one case the 8th gen processor is overclocked.

Lastly, before jumping into the gaming results here's a quick look at power consumption. At stock, the 5820K consumes slightly more power than the 8700K and 12-core/24-thread Threadripper 1920X, but less than the 7800X. In one case overclocked, the aging flake consumed the same 270 watts as the 5.2GHz 8700K, then nothing likewise extreme only at 4.6GHz the 5820K starts to get quite power hungry.