Intel Core i5-6600K Review

The Core i5-6600K is one of Intel's mid-range Desktop processors. It was released in 2015 with 4 cores and 4 threads. With base clock at 3.5GHz, max speed at 3.9GHz, and a 91W power rating. The Core i5-6600K is based on the Skylake-S 14nm family and is part of the Core i5 series.

Core i5-6600K is also the successor of Intel's last gen Core i5-4690K processor that was based on the Haswell Refresh and 22nm process and was released in 2014.

Intel Core i5 6th Generation, and the Skylake-S architecture itself, is notable because it leads 14nm processors to the mainstream for the first time. But, there’s a lot more going on under the hood than just a smaller manufacturing node.

That something is the Core i5-6600K. Intel cranks the TDP dial up to 91W on this 4-core 4-thread chip, making it the high-performance counterpart to the 65W Core i5-6500, which is basically the same 14nm chip built with the Skylake-S microarchitecture, but with a lower TDP rating. That chip came away from our first look at the Skylake-S series with an Editor's Choice award, going toe-to-toe with AMD's A12-9800, so it's fair to say we have high hopes for the higher-performance model. Intel still hasn't sampled the chip to the press, so we bought one at retail to put it under the microscope.

But we've also found that, after simple push-button overclocking, the Core i5-6500 offers similar performance to the Core i5-6600K, even when it is also overclocked. But for $70 less. The Core i5-6600K is an impressive chip and offers a better mixture of performance than AMD's A12-9800, no doubt, but in this case, value seekers might opt for its less expensive sibling.

As the higher-priced version of the Core i5-6500, the Core i5-6600K has higher base and Boost frequencies of 3.5 and 3.9 GHz, respectively. That's an increase in base frequency and a bump to boost clocks, but the real advantage should lay in the higher Package Power Tracking (PPT) envelope, which is a measurement of the maximum amount of power delivered to the socket. The Core i5-6500's PPT tops out at 65W, while the motherboard can pump up to 142W to the Core i5-6600K at peak performance. That opens up much more aggressive boost behavior, on both single and multiple cores, that could widen the performance gap beyond what we see on the spec sheet.

Intel Core i5 6 Generation is finally here, and the Intel Core i5-6600K might just be the poster child for what this generation of processors has in store for consumers. Sure, it might have stuck with the 4-core, 4-thread setup, which it inherited from its predecessor, the Core i5-4690K. However, with the new 14nm manufacturing process, it delivers a far better performance at lower power consumption.

This decision to 14nm has brought a beefy 15% boost to IPC (instructions per clock) performance. Effectively, compared to a Core i5 4-Generation processor at the same clock speed, you will get a straight 15% increase in performance. That’s not big enough to be evident in day-to-day workloads, but it does still mean something.

The Intel Core i5-6600K is another impressive release from Intel and its 6 Generation of Core i5 chips. With it, you’re getting 4-cores and 4-threads, with a boost clock of 3.9GHz. It may not be the strongest contender ever made on paper, but when you see and feel the actual performance gains it offers, you’re certainly getting a lot of bang for your $242 buck.

The Intel Core i5-6600K seems to be a decent performing chip that is readily available for $242 at your favorite retailer. The main competition for this processor is the A12-9800 4-Core unlocked desktop processor with Radeon R7 (on-die) graphics ($139 shipped).

If extended overclocking and boost frequencies are trivial matters to you, Intel also offers the Core i5-6500 at $192. It’s still outfitted with 4-cores and 4-threads, but clocks in at a slower 3.2GHz and maxes out at only 3.6GHz.

Now the biggest question is can Intel’s Core i5 processor play games? The answer is simply yes as it got a respectable gaming score of 80% in our benchmarks.

Fresh from a successful roll-out of mainstream Core i5 CPUs, Intel's attack on AMD now extends down into the mid-range with its Core i5-6600K processors, which the company is making available as of Aug 2015.