Intel’s new 6 core 11600K CPU offers some nice gains over the older 10th gen 10600K
from last generation. I want to find out if the cheaper 10th gen chip is still worth considering,
or if you’ve already got it, is it worth upgrading to 11th gen?
I’ve compared both processors in games and applications to show you the differences.
Both are 6 core 12 thread parts with the same amount of cache.
On paper the only difference is that the newer 11600K has higher clock speeds, however Intel are
claiming some pretty substantial IPC gains with 11th gen, so let’s find out if that’s the case.
Both processors were tested in the same system with the MSI Z590 ACE motherboard.
I’ve tested with 32 gigs of DDR4-3200 memory running in dual channel at CL14
and with MSI’s GeForce RTX 3090 Gaming X Trio graphics card to minimize GPU bottlenecks.
Neither CPU comes with a cooler in the box,
so I’ve used my Fractal S36 AIO with Noctua NT-H2 thermal paste for both.
I’ve tested both CPUs at stock, so no MCE, and with the following all core overclocks applied.
Despite the 11600K having higher clockspeeds at stock, my older 10600K
appears to have more overclocking headroom with less voltage, but this will of course vary as
it depends on silicon lottery and these are by no means finely tuned overclocks.
I’ve tested both processors with no power limits, which is the default of my MSI motherboard,
but I’ve also done it because I’m interested in seeing what both of these can do in a best case,
so expect my results to look a little different compared to other reviewers
that might be using Intel’s power limits.
We’ll start out by looking at productivity workloads, followed by power draw, thermals,
then gaming and cost per frame value afterwards,
or you can time travel to any part with the timestamps below.
Starting out with Cinebench R23 I’ve got the stock results down the bottom,
and overclocked results above. The newer 11600K is coming out ahead both in single
core and multi core scores, as expected. At stock it’s reaching a 24% higher single
core score and a 26% higher multicore score, honestly fairly nice gains given 10th gen is
less than a year old. The gap closes in a little once both are overclocked though,
as my 10600K is now able to reach higher speeds, whereas it was lower at stock.
I’ve also tested the older Cinebench R20 as a lot of people still use it
so you can compare my results, and similar deal here too. It’s worth noting the 10600k
sees bigger gains to single core with the overclock, and this is because its all core
overclock is now higher than its single core turbo boost, but that’s not the case for the 11600K.
I’ve tested Blender with the BMW and Classroom benchmarks. This is a heavily threaded test,
and the 11600K was ahead. Again this is expected as it’s essentially better in every regard,
the question we’re answering is by how much? At stock the 11th gen chip was completing the
longer classroom test 25% faster, while the shorter BMW test was 19% faster.
The V-Ray benchmark is another core heavy rendering workload,
and the differences were similar to the Blender BMW test earlier,
with the 11600K scoring around 20% higher than the older 10600K.
With both overclocked though this lowers to a 15% lead, as the 10600K is able to overclock better.
The Corona benchmark also uses the processor to render out a scene, and despite also being
a multicore test this one saw the smallest difference out of all applications tested at
just 13% faster on the 11600K at stock, then 10% faster with the overclocks.
Linux kernel compilation was a more middle of the pack result when compared to everything
I’ve tested. The 11600K was completing the task almost 20 seconds faster, so doesn’t sound like
much but it translates to 19% faster. With both overclocked its lead drops a little to 16% faster.
Handbrake was used to convert one of my 4K laptop review videos to 1080p. The results were quite
similar here too, 19% faster on the 11600K with both processors running at stock speeds,
but then the gap shifts to a 16% lead with 11th gen when both are overclocked.
Adobe Premiere was tested with the Puget Systems benchmark tool,
and this tests things like video exporting, live playback and more. This test saw one
of the smallest differences with the 11600K scoring 13% higher than the 10600K at stock,
and then this lowers to an 11% higher score with both overclocked.
Adobe Photoshop was also tested with the Puget Systems benchmark tool. I’ve found
this test to generally be fairly single threaded dependent, so the differences are a bit larger
in this one compared to premiere, but still smaller compared to the other apps tested,
with the 11600K scoring 16% higher both at stock and overclocked.
I’ve used 7-Zip to test compression and decompression speeds, and again although 11th
gen is doing better here the difference isn’t as large compared to other apps, or even AMD’s Ryzen,
which typically sees much higher speeds than Intel in this test. I know this isn’t a Ryzen
comparison, but it’s worth mentioning if this is an important workload for you.
AES encryption and decryption speed didn’t really change with the overclocks,
and the 11600K was around 20% faster in this test.
Geekbench had the biggest improvement out of all applications tested in its single core test,
which was 31% higher with the 11600K at stock while multicore was lower with a 17%
increase over the 10th gen 10600K.
Here’s how the new 11th gen 11600K compares against the older 10th gen 10600K in these
applications just covered with both processors at stock. 11th gen was ahead in all tests as
expected, it’s basically the newer version and should perform better,
however in some tests I thought the gains were quite decent.
We can see the differences lower with both processors overclocked,
and this is simply because the performance gap gets smaller as my 10600K is now able to reach
higher clock speeds when compared to the 11600K. Although results will of course vary based on
what you’re able to achieve when overclocking, other reviewers have so far not had too much
success with 11th gen overclocking compared to 10th gen, so it seems to just be how that is.
This becomes clear when looking at the clockspeeds during the Blender benchmark, a multicore CPU
test. At stock the 11600K is running 100MHz higher than the 10600K, but then with the
overclocks I was able to achieve the 10600K is now 100MHz above the 11600K. This means the 10th
gen chip gets a 500MHz boost to all 6 cores with the overclock, while 11th gen has a 300MHz boost.
11th gen seems to be using a fair bit more power too. It’s completing this Blender test around 26%
faster at stock while also drawing about 26% more wattage from the wall too, so it
appears that 11th gen is just converting extra power into extra performance.
Despite using more power, at stock both processors were running at the same temperatures,
however once overclocked the 10600K was warmer, despite its overclock running with less voltage.
Here’s how CPU package power was reported in hardware info during the same test,
just to reiterate that I’m not testing with the default 125 watt long term power limits,
as my goal is to see what both are capable of in a best case.
Let’s get into the gaming tests next, I’ve tested 7 games at 1080p,
1440p and 4K resolutions on both processors.
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested in little china with the street kid life path. I’ve got 1080p down
the bottom, 1440p in the middle, and 4K up top. There were basically no differences at
the higher 1440p and 4K resolutions, the processor generally matters less here as
the GPU can be better put to work. The largest difference was seen at 1080p,
however it’s not big, the 11600K was reaching just 4% higher average FPS.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the games benchmark tool. Again no difference at 4K,
though there’s a little more gap at 1440p this time, but it’s still small. The 11600K was just
3% ahead of the 10600K at this resolution, and 6% higher at the lower 1080p resolution,
so definitely not quite as much of an improvement as we saw in the productivity workloads earlier.
Watch Dogs Legion was also tested with the games benchmark. Once more pretty
much no difference between 1440p and 4K here, while 1080p was just
4% higher in average FPS on 11th gen, though there was a slightly larger 9% boost to 1% low.
Control is generally a pretty GPU heavy test,
which is why again there’s no real change between the two processors, even at 1080p.
I could have focussed purely on CPU intensive games but I don’t think that represents the
real world with what people are actually playing, and this helps represent that.
CS:GO is an esports title where differences in frame rate might actually matter more,
which is why I decided to test this older game too. The 11600K had the biggest improvement out
of all games tested in this one, coming out 13% ahead at 1080p in average FPS,
then 6% ahead at both 1440p and 4K, granted given 10th gen was still pushing out 500 FPS at 1080p
it’s hard to say how much this really matters unless you’re super competitive.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the game's benchmark. Zero difference at
4K in this test, 1440p was 7% higher on 11th gen, the biggest difference at
this resolution out of all games covered, while 1080p was 11% better with 11th gen.
Battlefield V is another game I’ve been testing for years and have a lot of data for should you
wish to compare. The difference in average FPS at 1440p was tiny, but the boost to 1% low was
much higher comparatively, something I’ve noted in other recent CPU comparison videos. I’m not
sure why the difference is bigger than 1080p, but that just seems to be how it goes in this test.
Over all 7 games tested, the newer 11600K was around six and a half
percent faster in terms of average FPS at 1080p,
so nothing major. The best result is clearly CS:GO, but even if you want to treat that as an
outlier we’re still looking at the 11600K coming out 5.4% ahead of the 10600K at this resolution.
Stepping up to 1440p and the gap lowers with the 11th gen processor now just two and a half
percent ahead on average. Again it’s kind of being held up by CS:GO, but at the same time
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was actually doing better percentage-wise with 11th gen.
At 4K all results are now within margin of error and less than a percent in either direction,
with the exception of CS:GO. Not counting that one
and there’s basically no difference at 4K between the rest of the games.
When we factor in price, well the cheaper 10600K is offering better value when it comes to gaming.
This makes sense, we’ve just seen the performance difference in games is minor for the most part,
especially once you’re above 1080p, and 10th gen is cheaper. Now it’s possible to save more money
and get the KF version, the 10600KF, however right now at the time of recording the 11600KF actually
costs more than the regular K version on newegg. I suspect this will change over time though,
the KF ones are basically CPUs that had defective graphics,
so at launch I’m presuming there’s just less of those available.
Again for updated prices you can refer to those links down in the description.
If you’ve already got a 10600K processor it’s not really worth upgrading to 11th gen for gaming,
especially at resolutions above 1080p. If you’re doing productivity focused workloads then the
11600K could make more sense, but at the same time if you’re transcoding video for your job or
something where time is money, you’ll probably want something with more than 6 cores anyway,
but if you are on a budget and you can sell the 10600K second hand and pick up the 11600K,
it does offer a decent improvement in those productivity workloads for a drop in replacement.
I wasn’t expecting the difference outside of gaming to be that large
based on what we’ve seen from other 11th gen processors. The 11700K and 11900K just
don’t seem to offer that much improvement compared to 10th gen, however the 11600K
does actually offer some reasonable improvements over the 10600K, gaming aside.
That said, 11th gen does also use more power than 10th gen and it costs more too,
10th gen is definitely the value option between them, especially if it’s just for a gaming PC.
Now of course we’re not living in a world where AMD doesn’t exist. I’ve
also compared the 11600K against the Ryzen 5 5600X 6 core CPU in this video over here,
so check that one out if you want to find out which company has the best 6 core processor at
the moment. Otherwise get subscribed for future tech videos like this one and come over and
join us in Discord and get behind the scenes videos by supporting the channel on Patreon.