10 Years of Intel CPUs Benchmarked: i7-930, 2600K, 4790K, & Everything Since (2020)

Intel's last decade started off with the launch of one of the best CPUs Intel has made, but stagnated in the middle and ended tempestuously. Here's a decade of Intel CPUs benchmarked.

10 Years of Intel article: [pending free time to publish!]

This is the last time we are using this testing methodology, most likely. It's about to be retired and replaced with a fully new set of tests and methods, so we wanted to send it out on a high note.

Benchmarking a decade of Intel CPU launches was an exhaustive task, but we've got most of the major i5 and i7 launches (a few skipped ones, like the 3770K) and a couple of key AMD parts. This is "10 years of Intel," so we focused on plotting Intel component scaling generationally, price creep generationally, and price-to-price gains in performance. AMD isn't the focus of the piece since we really want to narrow-in on Intel's story for the last 10 years, including its triumphant start to the decade, its asymptotic curve in the middle, and its tumultuous final years in the 2010s. AMD gets appearances for perspective of what Intel must battle today, so that'd be relegated to the 3000 series, including the AMD R5 3600, AMD R7 3700X, and occasionally the AMD R9 3950X.

This benchmarking revisits most of the CPUs from Intels last ten years, but heavily features the following:

Intel Core i5-2500K & Core i7-2600K in 2020
Intel Core i5-3570K
Intel Core i5-4690K, Core i7-4790K in 2020
Intel Core i7-5775C, Core i5-6600K, Core i7-6700K
Intel Core i5-7600K, i7-7700K
Intel Core i5-8400, i7-8700K
Intel Core i5-9600K, i7-9700K, i9-9900K

We also occasionally feature the earlier mentioned AMD parts, but they're not the focus of this one.



TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Introduction & last round of this methodology
03:50 - Game Benchmarks (Old vs. New Games)
19:00 - Production Benchmarks (Blender, Premiere, 7-Zip)
26:30 - Conclusions

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Editorial, Test Lead, Host: Steve Burke
Testing: Patrick Lathan
Video: Keegan Gallick, Andrew Coleman

[GamersNexus]

This is our last round of testing using this test methodology! New stuff gets unveiled shortly.

[fortfite]

im glad that unlike many of us, intel has been serious about flattening the curve

[MarceloTezza]

Intel: You can't show the results of the 10th gen yet.
Steve: But i can do some very realistic predictions... =P

[chandlerreynolds]

"...the 5775C, that it wants you to forget about."

The what?

[blackice]

When I built my 2500k system in 2011 and overclocked it to 4.6ghz. I figured it would last me 3-4 years. I’m still running it today with decent performance in modern games paired with a 1080ti.

[vossli]

Would have been nice to see IPC increases generationally through 10 years. Use 1 core, all set to 3.0ghz, run cinebench or something lol

[technik_komputerowy]

AMD: releases a new CPU on the same socket
Intel: releases the same CPU on a new socket

[vintagetimmy]

New GF: So you ever been in a long term relationship?

Me: Yep

New GF: How long?

Me: 8 years

New GF: Wow nice, what was her name?

Me: Sandy

(On a serious note, I had my 2600K for 9 years now, and she's still running strong)

[BigHomieZeke]

I'd love to see how far AMD has come in the last 10 years as well lmao

[MikoKnight]

Still rocking the 2500k @ 4.5GHz. It's definitely struggling but it'll soon be able to retire when Zen 3 comes around. Great little CPU.

[GeneralTischkicker]

Had an i5 2500K until the end of 2019, good times.

[WarisAmirMohammad]

Everyone: Flatten the curve!
Intel: Way ahead of y'all

[papasauce]

Can you do a decade of AMD? I think it would be interesting to see how both have matured within the past decade.

[arslankhan]

10 years of AMD would be cool to see too!

[toonnut]

2600k is one of my favourite cpu's that was a pure beast!

[evilspoons]

I've been running an i7-2600k I bought whenever the Z68 boards came out, basically nine years now. Stock speed for about a year then a nice overclock from 3.8 GHz turbo to 4.7... and no voltage increase.


Naturally I am eyeing the R7 3700X as a replacement.

[Hostilenemy]

May I suggest a clock for clock comparison to see actual IPC improvements over the years? 4 GHz would be an ideal frequency seeing as all those processors can hit that mark.

[Krauser]

Still rocking my OC'd 4790k and still can't justify upgrading it yet. Just a great processor that's aged far better than I thought it would have when I bought it.

[FredsTech]

I went from Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83 ghz to i7 9700k. It felt good :) Both of them are still going strong :)

[Alucard]

My 2500K lasted me all the way to last year when i finally upgraded to Zen 2, it served me incredibly well