Top CPU for single-core speed today
Top CPU for single-core speed today
I came here because I’m not very technical and when looking for the best setup often causes confusion. Last year I bought a new PC in 2015 and asked for help, which led me to a system I’m really satisfied with now. Right now I have an i7 6700K at 4.5GHz and an MSI GTX 980Ti. I enjoy playing resource management games like ANNO 1800 and Banished, as well as some FPS titles such as Battlefield, Metro, and Borderlands. My monitor is a 1440P at 144Hz. Many who have played ANNO 1800 know it’s not very optimized—it mainly uses one CPU thread. When you save long sessions (sometimes hours of play), the game slows down because the CPU gets too busy. Graphics settings don’t help much, and from what I’ve read, the main issue is background calculations for resource movement. The only solution seems to be using a CPU with better single-core performance. It’s one of those cases where disabling hyperthreading actually helped my frame rates. I’m not overly worried about cost since I’ve kept this system for a long time, so I’m okay spending more now if needed. In fact, I might replace the motherboard, CPU, cooler (if my current one isn’t compatible or cools enough), and storage soon. My PSU is a 650W Corsair unit, and the GTX 980Ti works fine for me. GPU prices here are really high—new 3080 models cost over $1500 AUD, while resale prices are near $3,000.
You can directly assess your 6700K's single-core performance by running it through benchmark tools or stress tests that measure its raw processing speed. This avoids relying on video comparisons.
Execute cinebench r23 single core on your 6700k, then compare with 5800x in the same test.
It might be useful to explore the Ryzen 5600X as well; it runs a bit slower in single-threaded tasks due to its 100Mhz lower boost clock, but it offers significant savings thanks to fewer cores. I should have highlighted this earlier—it’s not the absolute top for gaming, though it remains extremely fast, especially in Stability tests.
It performs exceptionally well on a single core when PL1 is adjusted to 200W, matching the performance of the 5800x... but slightly better.