Are intel 6th gen cores outdated?

[hvzkt9co]

Intel 6th gen was 6 generations, or 7 years ago. After all this time, are these CPUs still relevant? 

[Arika]

They are only outdated in terms of w11 support, they are still perfectly capable for a large number of today's workloads

[Needfuldoer]

I'm still running a 6700k. It sometimes chugs a little when it needs to generate new terrain in Astroneer, other than that it still does what I need it to. (But I don't play the latest AAA games, either.)

[OU812]

Depends on what your doing. I'm still using a i7 2600, still does everything I need it to do.

[RONOTHAN##]

Can't recommend buying one used, mostly because the pricing for them is kinda just dumb ($140 for a 6700k is waaaay too much), but if you've already got one they're still pretty competent. Slap an RX 6600 in a 6700k rig and you've got a pretty nice 1080p gaming PC. 

[Blademaster91]

It depends on what you're doing but for most things no it isn't outdated, you might want to upgrade if you're playing the latest AAA games or need more cores.

[BondiBlue]

It all depends on what you want to do with it. I'm still fine with the i7-2600 in my office PC, but if I needed to regularly do more intensive work on that machine I'd definitely want an upgrade. I don't see Skylake as being terribly outdated in that regard. 

[Middcore]

As AAA gaming chips, yes. 

[Moonzy]

My i5 6600 non-k is paired with 3070... four of them, and it's working fine

 

Depends on what you do with it, I suppose

[porina]

How do you count a generation? Marketing generations, yes it is quite old. But it was also the architecture in place at the start of Intel's fabrication woes. So it was reused for many generations after that. 

 

In terms of microarchitecture, you could argue it is only 2 generations behind. There was Ice Lake and Tiger Lake on mobile only, but they're essentially the same apart from a cache size increase with the latter.

 

Or to put it in context against AMD, Skylake overall IPC would sit roughly between Zen+ and Zen 2. It would beat same core count AMD CPUs from 2 generations ago.

[YoungBlade]

The cores themselves are basically the same architecture as the cores in the 10th gen parts. So if we're asking about the individual Skylake cores, then saying they're outdated would mean that the cores in the 10th gen refresh from last year are outdated - the i3 10105 was only released in Q1 2021.

 

Of course, the idea that Comet Lake was an outdated refresh of a refresh of a refresh, 14nm+++∞ and beyond, was already being said when the original 10th gen came out...

 

I don't think Skylake is an outdated architecture. It does well in terms of the per core performance. The issue with 6th gen was that the core count stayed the same as it had been for 7 years, and it actually traded blows with Devil's Canyon. Plus it was on a new socket, and 5th gen was basically non-existent, which kind of burned people who invested in a Z97 board.

 

That's arguably not as bad as the Kaby Lake and Z270 release, where 8th gen came out within the year on an incompatible socket and obsoleted it. Or Rocket Lake and Z590, where the same thing happened with Alder Lake 9 months later.

 

Honestly the whole Skylake 14nm era was a rough time for Intel and Intel fans, but hopefully they will bounce back with the new CEO and we won't end up with Intel 7+++∞ for 16th gen in 2028.

[Queen Chrysalis]

9 hours ago, Middcore said:

As AAA gaming chips, yes. 

9 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

It depends on what you're doing but for most things no it isn't outdated, you might want to upgrade if you're playing the latest AAA games or need more cores.

You guy's are just looking at synthetic performance on low res uncapped gameplay, aren't you....

Anyone playing at 1440p is never gonna max these cores out without maxing a GPU first, and hyperthreaded quads still play everything as windows and your browser will just page on thread 7.  Thread 0/1/2 and maybe 3 might be burning up, but threads 4-7 aren't really working that hard so stacking background tasks there will not affect framerate. Skylake is still faster than Zen 1 and Zen 1 is still sufficient for higher-end GPUs at 1440 or higher resolutions.

 

[jaslion]

2 hours ago, Queen Chrysalis said:

You guy's are just looking at synthetic performance on low res uncapped gameplay, aren't you....

Anyone playing at 1440p is never gonna max these cores out without maxing a GPU first, and hyperthreaded quads still play everything as windows and your browser will just page on thread 7.  Thread 0/1/2 and maybe 3 might be burning up, but threads 4-7 aren't really working that hard so stacking background tasks there will not affect framerate. Skylake is still faster than Zen 1 and Zen 1 is still sufficient for higher-end GPUs at 1440 or higher resolutions.

 

Yes you are. Easily. A lot of AAA games just have so much going on that even if the game runs at 30fps because the gpu can't keep up the cpu will still be pinned at 100%.

 

4core/4t cpu's are done for. 6c/6t ones too 8 threaded ones still have a bit of life in them left but that won't last too much longer. The moment the 8th gen consoles go is when the 8thread cpu's enter the boat of the lower threaded ones.

[Pandur]

Are they outdated? Yes. Are they useless? Absolutely not. Performance is still good. Depending on the task.

 

For heavy tasks, e.g. modern games, you will require an i7 for the core/thread count. Modern games can easily use 6-8 threads. So unless your gpu is as old as the 6. gen cpu, you will be cpu limited. Especially with an i5 or lower. 4c/8t should work for a while longer, matched with other sensible hardware.

 

My personal experience, with my spare computer, is that a 4.gen. i7 will keep up with a 1080ti in modern games. And still play new games with a 75-100% cpu load at high settings.

 

I would not stick a 6.gen. cpu with a 3080 and expect to max out that gpu though.

[Queen Chrysalis]

3 hours ago, jaslion said:

Yes you are. Easily. A lot of AAA games just have so much going on that even if the game runs at 30fps because the gpu can't keep up the cpu will still be pinned at 100%.

 

4core/4t cpu's are done for. 6c/6t ones too 8 threaded ones still have a bit of life in them left but that won't last too much longer. The moment the 8th gen consoles go is when the 8thread cpu's enter the boat of the lower threaded ones.

Really, which games?  Find me a finished game made in the last 5 years that’s objectively gonna max out a 6700k before it maxes out a 2080ti at 1440p.  So much going on?  Yeah, and the GPU does all of it.  What is ‘PhysX’?  What are GPU APIs?  And coffee lake i5s are done for?  Shame.  Nevermind the haswell systems still doing fine at 4K…

 

Badly distorted hearsay.  You’re a parrot.

[jaslion]

54 minutes ago, Queen Chrysalis said:

Really, which games?  Find me a finished game made in the last 5 years that’s objectively gonna max out a 6700k before it maxes out a 2080ti at 1440p.  So much going on?  Yeah, and the GPU does all of it.  What is ‘PhysX’?  What are GPU APIs?  And coffee lake i5s are done for?  Shame.  Nevermind the haswell systems still doing fine at 4K…

 

Badly distorted hearsay.  You’re a parrot.

A 6700k is a 8 thread part that is fine for now. You can see the problem with 4c and 6c systems without smt in basically every AAA game of choice in the last couple of years.

 

Pick your battlefields, cods, assasins creeds, far cries, cyberpunk, horizon zero dawn,... and so much more.

[YoungBlade]

31 minutes ago, jaslion said:

A 6700k is a 8 thread part that is fine for now. You can see the problem with 4c and 6c systems without smt in basically every AAA game of choice in the last couple of years.

 

Pick your battlefields, cods, assasins creeds, far cries, cyberpunk, horizon zero dawn,... and so much more.

That completely depends on the settings and target FPS. If you're okay with 60fps, then even the i5 8400 (the slowest of the 6c/6t chips you're referring to) will easily maintain that. The 4c/4t i5 and i3 chips since the Haswell days are also able to get around 60fps, if you're okay with occasional stutters. While not ideal, the games are far from unplayable.

 

The only game where you genuinely will have a problem with getting around 60fps is Battlefield 2042 multiplayer with 128 players, but that's also an issue for the 4c/8t chips (apart from the 12th gen i3 ones, which have no problem.)

[Blademaster91]

10 hours ago, Queen Chrysalis said:

You guy's are just looking at synthetic performance on low res uncapped gameplay, aren't you....

Anyone playing at 1440p is never gonna max these cores out without maxing a GPU first, and hyperthreaded quads still play everything as windows and your browser will just page on thread 7.  Thread 0/1/2 and maybe 3 might be burning up, but threads 4-7 aren't really working that hard so stacking background tasks there will not affect framerate. Skylake is still faster than Zen 1 and Zen 1 is still sufficient for higher-end GPUs at 1440 or higher resolutions.

 

At 1080p, which is still the most popular gaming resolution according to Steam surveys, a 4 core CPU won't be enough for most of the latest AAA titles, maybe at 1080p low/medium with nothing else running in the background, but most people really don't do that anymore with discord, spotify or a browser open while gaming. And even if a 4c/8t can run the game that doesn't mean it will run well, some games have stuttering or frame drop issues with 4 core cpu's.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

19 hours ago, hvzkt9co said:

Intel 6th gen was 6 generations, or 7 years ago. After all this time, are these CPUs still relevant? 

 

I mean, they are okay. But 6 core/12 thread cpus are so dirt cheap nowadays, idk why anyone would buy them in 2022. Maybe if you already have it I suppose

[Moonzy]

5 hours ago, Queen Chrysalis said:

Find me a finished game made in the last 5 years that’s objectively gonna max out a 6700k before it maxes out a 2080ti at 1440p.

i know for a fact that 6700k witrh a 2080ti at 1440p (exactly as u mentioned) in monster hunter world highest graphical setting with HD texture pack, the CPU is the bottleneck in that game

runs slightly below 80fps-ish in maps

 

even my 3900x is a bottleneck in that game paired with a 2070S, in term of single threaded performance, tbf

[Queen Chrysalis]

58 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

At 1080p, which is still the most popular gaming resolution according to Steam surveys, a 4 core CPU won't be enough for most of the latest AAA titles, maybe at 1080p low/medium with nothing else running in the background, but most people really don't do that anymore with discord, spotify or a browser open while gaming. And even if a 4c/8t can run the game that doesn't mean it will run well, some games have stuttering or frame drop issues with 4 core cpu's.

You’re misinterpreting the data. No one gaming at 1080p is using a high end GPU, and at 1440 or higher the framerate is gonna be lower anyway with the significantly heavier load on the GPU.

[YoungBlade]

3 hours ago, Moonzy said:

i know for a fact that 6700k witrh a 2080ti at 1440p (exactly as u mentioned) in monster hunter world highest graphical setting with HD texture pack, the CPU is the bottleneck in that game

runs slightly below 80fps-ish in maps

 

even my 3900x is a bottleneck in that game paired with a 2070S, in term of single threaded performance, tbf

Does the game max out the 6700K? As in, does the CPU reach 100% utilization for all threads at those settings? Or is it just a single core performance limitation like with your 3900X?

[Moonzy]

37 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Does the game max out the 6700K? As in, does the CPU reach 100% utilization for all threads at those settings? Or is it just a single core performance limitation like with your 3900X?

It's my friend's system so I'm not too sure, but I don't think it's pinned 100% on all threads, but perhaps each core is fully loaded (the game puts heavy load on the first thread of each core, not so much on the second thread)

 

My i5 6600 running that game on gtx970 would be pinned at 100% all threads on lower graphical settings, around 50 fps with horrible stutters when there's many critical hit particles

[BlackDragon1971]

Running Windows 11 Pro just fine on my Intel Core i7 6850k / ASUS x99 Deluxe II w/ TPM 2.0 module system... just had to do a bare metal install. Works fine, responsive in workloads. Of course about the most intensive thing I do with the system other than gaming is use it for photo editing and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro / Corel Draw! Graphics Suite 2020 with my Huion Pen Display... but it does what I need it to well.

BlackDragon

[Jeppes]

On 3/18/2022 at 3:33 PM, Queen Chrysalis said:

Really, which games?  Find me a finished game made in the last 5 years that’s objectively gonna max out a 6700k before it maxes out a 2080ti at 1440p.  So much going on?  Yeah, and the GPU does all of it.  What is ‘PhysX’?  What are GPU APIs?  And coffee lake i5s are done for?  Shame.  Nevermind the haswell systems still doing fine at 4K…

 

Badly distorted hearsay.  You’re a parrot.

Many games have horrible 1% and 0.1% lows with old quad cores. Even the faster 6c6t cpu:s struggle and those even have not taken the hit from spectre updates. If my 3600 struggles 1080p with a 4 year old gpu, a 7700K will struggle horribly 1440p when paired with a 3070ti etc.