Intel Core i7-5950HQ Review

The Core i7-5950HQ is one of Intel's high-end Laptop processors. It was released in 2015 with 4 cores and 8 threads. With base clock at 2.9GHz, max speed at 3.8GHz, and a 47W power rating. The Core i7-5950HQ is based on the Broadwell 14nm family and is part of the Core i7 series.

Core i7-5950HQ is also the successor of Intel's last gen Core i7-4950HQ processor that was based on the Haswell and 22nm process and was released in 2013.

Now, we're asking ourselves whether or not the Intel Core i7-5950HQ finally dethrones the FX-9830P as the de facto ruler of the mainstream processors. Ultimately, it depends: the Core i7-5950HQ doesn't reach the same single-core performance as AMD, but we're starting to see more games adopt multi-threaded CPUs, so that doesn't matter as much.

Intel Core i7 5th Generation, and the Broadwell 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.

The Core i7-5950HQ takes the basic ingredients of the Broadwell microarchitecture, which brings an average of 15% more instructions per cycle (IPC) throughput, and 14nm process and melds them into a high-performance chip that is impressive across our test suite, especially when we factor in the competitive pricing, backward compatibility with most FCBGA1364 socket motherboards, unlocked overclocking features, and bundled cooler.

As the higher-priced version of the Core i7-5850EQ, the Core i7-5950HQ has higher base and Boost frequencies of 2.9 and 3.8 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 i7-5850EQ's PPT tops out at 47W, while the motherboard can pump up to 142W to the Core i7-5950HQ 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.

But, like most humans, if you do things other than gaming, the Core i7-5950HQ offers a better mixture of performance in single- and multi-threaded applications. The Core i7-5950HQ offers twice the threads of the price-comparable FX-9830P, and it wields them to great effect in threaded workloads. As such, rendering and encoding remain a strong suit of the Core i7 chips, and Intel's improvements to AVX throughput have yielded impressive results.

Intel Core i7 5 Generation is finally here, and the Intel Core i7-5950HQ 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, 8-thread setup, which it inherited from its predecessor, the Core i7-4950HQ. 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 i7 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.

What this all means is that the Intel Core i7-5950HQ is an absolute beast when it comes to multi-threaded workloads, especially at this price point. If you're counting on doing some video editing or compiling one hell of an Excel spreadsheet, you're going to see firsthand a performance boost with the Core i7-5950HQ.

One of the nice things about the Intel Core i7-5950HQ processors is that the retail boxed models come with a CPU cooler. So, you can pick something like the Intel Core i7-5950HQ up for $623 and don’t need to spend any extra money on CPU cooling.

The Intel Core i7-5950HQ retail boxed processor comes with the traditional ‘pancake’ CPU cooler. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done on this processor which is rated at 47W TDP. You do not need to have an aftermarket cooling solution unless you want to.

If extended overclocking and boost frequencies are trivial matters to you, Intel also offers the Core i7-5850EQ at $380. It’s still outfitted with 4-cores and 8-threads, but clocks in at a slower 2.7GHz and maxes out at only 3.4GHz.

Intel arms Core i7-5950HQ with a 2.9 GHz base frequency that jumps as high as 3.8 GHz under lightly-threaded tasks. The Core i7-5950HQ also offers a 2.9 GHz clock rate with all cores active. Meanwhile, AMD keeps its FX-9830P operating at a static 3.7 GHz clock rate.