Hey guys, Jarrod here and today we’re going to compare the Intel 6700HQ CPU against the
6700K.
We’ll run some benchmarks to see how they perform, and discuss the differences between
them to help you find out which you should get.
It’s important to note that the 6700HQ is typically a mobile chip for use in laptops,
while the 6700K has traditionally been an unlocked desktop chip, however with that said
there are laptops available with the 6700K so I think it’s useful to understand the
differences in performance and features between them when buying a laptop.
You might be tempted to think that they are similar based purely on their names, so let’s
find out.
First let’s note the similarities between these two chips.
Both have 4 CPU cores with 8 threads, a 14nm manufacturing process, support for up to 64GB
of RAM with 2 memory channels, and 16 PCI Express lanes.
Both also have the same Intel HD graphics 530 chip, and were released in the same period,
Q3 of 2015.
That’s where the majority of similarities end, so how do they differ?
The main difference is in the clock speed, where the 6700HQ has a base clock of 2.6GHz
and can turbo up to 3.5GHz while the 6700K has a base clock of 4.0 GHZ and can turbo
up to 4.2GHz.
Not only that, but the 6700K is unlocked and can also be overclocked for even higher levels
of performance, of course this depends greatly on an adequate cooling solution, especially
if used in a laptop rather than a desktop where cooling space is more scarce.
The K CPU also has 8MB of cache, while the HQ has 6MB.
The K has a TDP of 91W while the HQ’s is 45W, and I’ll mention now I had no thermal
throttling during my testing.
HQ CPUs are also typically soldered onto the board and can’t be changed without full
motherboard replacement, so they aren’t too great for future upgrades.
The turbo boost also works a bit differently between the two, with the mobile chip not
boosting as high with more cores in use.
That’s all well and good, but how do they actually perform?
In these tests, we’re not overclocking the 6700K, so keep in mind that if you did want
to get one you could push it even further.
In Cinebench the CPU score for the 6700HQ was 691, while the 6700K received 836, a fairly
respectable increase but nothing too crazy.
In the PassMark CPU benchmark the 6700HQ got a CPU score of 8,973, while the 6700K received
11,108, again a nice boost in comparison.
In GeekBench 4 the 6700HQ got 4,334 for single core, and 13,066 for multi-core.
The 6700K on the other hand got 5,081 for the single core score, and 16,177 for the
multicore score.
These increases for the 6700K are starting to look fairly consistent, however I think
the difference in the way turbo boost works shows here.
The multicore test shows the 6700K as performing around 19% better than the HQ, however in
the single core test the K chip is performing around 15% better.
The 7-Zip benchmark was run for 10 passes with a dictionary size of 32mb.
The 6700HQ got a total rating of 19,121MIPS, while the 6700K got a total rating of 24,548MIPS,
so again as expected the 6700K comes out on top for compression.
I then used Handbrake to encode a 500mb MP4 video file that I recorded from 1080p to 720p.
The 6700HQ completed the job at an average speed of 35.084 FPS, while the 6700K completed
encoding the same file at 43.764 FPS.
The 6700K was a bit faster in the encoding test, which could definitely be useful if
you need to render a lot of video.
As we expected, the 6700K performs a fair amount better than the 6700HQ throughout all
of our tests.
On average throughout all of these tests, the 6700K performed approximately 18% better
at stock clock speeds.
To be honest I actually expected the 6700K to score quite a bit better in these tests
based on what I’ve read online, so I’m glad I ran the comparisons myself, as I can
now see the difference isn’t anything too crazy.
So which of these CPUs should you get?
Personally I’ve been using a laptop with 6700HQ for well over a year now and haven’t
had any performance issues.
As you may know, we’ve gotten to the point where for most games the CPU is not the bottleneck
anymore, so I think pairing this CPU with a good graphics card will still provide you
with a great gaming experience.
If you can afford the 6700K then by all means go for it, however note that it will run hotter,
requiring more cooling which adds more weight, and drain more power from your battery.
Personally I think the 6700HQ is a great laptop CPU, as it’s still quite powerful and works
well, I think I’ll be leaving the 6700K in the desktop.
I hope this video has helped you see the real world differences in performance between these
two CPUs.
Be sure to leave a comment on the video and let me know which of these CPU’s you’d
pick, and leave a like on the video if you found it useful.
Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to subscribe for future videos like this one.