i7-6700K reaches 6.5 GHz with liquid nitrogen: crushes i7-4790K in synthetic benchmarks

Is there anything that Intel’s all-new Skylake microarchitecture can’t do? And in particular, Intel’s flagship CPU, the Core i7-6700K.

Not only is the i7-6700K “Skylake” up to 29% faster than the i7-4790K “Devil’s Canyon” at its stock 4.0 GHz, but it’s capable of a 5.2 GHz overclock on air cooling alone, and with a mild 1.35V.

And if you thought that was impressive, which it is, wait until you see what can be done with liquid nitrogen.

Intel Core i7-6700K- 6500mhz-6.5GHz- Overclock - CPUz

Intel Core i7-6700K 6.5GHz overclock – CpuZ

Overclocker and computer enthusiast PLG managed to push the i7-6700K all the way up to 6.5 GHz, or 6531.72 MHz to be precise.

To achieve that, PLG boosted the voltage to 2.032V and used liquid nitrogen for cooling. For the moment, 6.5 GHz is the current record for Skylake processors and proof of what the chips can do.

According to Benchmark.pl, PLG used an MSI Gaming Z170 motherboard and a single DDR4 RAM module. That module, by the way, reached an immense 4287 MHz.

Not that you’ll ever need to overclock the i7-6700K; it’s faster than pretty much everything else at, well, much everything.

Intel Core i7-6700K vs. Core i7-4790K – CPUz

Leaked benchmarks from a few Chinese sources have revealed that the Core i7-6700K, when used in conjunction with MSI’s Z170 Gaming Pro motherboard (although we imagine any motherboard will do), is quite a bit faster than the i7-4970K it was pitted against in virtually every synthetic benchmark scenario.

The Core i7-6700K vs Core i7-4790K Performance Benchmarks

Intel Core i7-6700K vs Core i7-4790K Performance Benchmarks

And now the discrete GPU benchmarks:

Intel Core i7-6700K vs Core i7-4790K Discrete GPU Benchmarks

Perhaps most interesting of all is how much cooler the new Skylake CPU runs.

Whereas its Devil’s Canyon counterpart hit temperatures of around 90C, the newer, shinier CPU managed a cool 55-65C. That makes a world of difference.

Perhaps that’s why the 4970K’s microarchitecture was named “Devil’s” Canyon.