Core i7-6950X: specs and benchmarks
Aggregated performance score
It provides poor benchmark performance at 11.28% of a leader's which is Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX.
Summary
Intel started Core i7-6950X sales 31 May 2016 at a recommended price of $1,723. This is a Broadwell-E architecture desktop processor primarily aimed at office systems. It has 10 cores and 20 threads, and is based on 14 nm manufacturing technology, with a max turbo frequency of 4000 MHz and an unlocked multiplier.
Compatibility-wise, this is FCLGA2011 processor with a TDP of 140 Watt and a maximum temperature of 72 °C. It supports DDR4 memory.
General info
Core i7-6950X processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and pricing.
| Place in performance ranking | 622 | |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | |
| Value for money | 3.83 | |
| Market segment | Desktop processor | |
| Series | Intel Core i7 (Desktop) | |
| Architecture codename | Broadwell-E (2016) | |
| Release date | 31 May 2016 (7 years ago) | |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $1,723 | of 305 (Core i7-870) |
| Current price | $499 (0.3x MSRP) | of 15701 (Xeon Platinum 8276L) |
Value for money
Performance per price, higher is better.
Technical specs
Basic microprocessor parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters can generally indicate CPU performance, but to be more precise you have to review its test results.
| Physical cores | 10 (Deca-Core) | |
| Threads | 20 | |
| Base clock speed | 3 GHz | of 4.7 (FX-9590) |
| Boost clock speed | 4 GHz | of 6.2 (Core i9-14900KS) |
| Bus support | 9.6 GT/s / QPI | |
| L1 cache | 32K (per core) | of 7475.2 (Apple M2 Pro 10-Core) |
| L2 cache | 256K (per core) | of 98304 (Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX) |
| L3 cache | 25 MB (shared) | of 768 (EPYC 7373X) |
| Chip lithography | 14 nm | of 3 (Apple M3 Max 16-Core) |
| Die size | 246 mm2 | |
| Maximum core temperature | 67° | of 110 (Atom x7-E3950) |
| Maximum case temperature (TCase) | 72 °C | of 105 (Core i7-5950HQ) |
| Number of transistors | 3,800 million | of 9900000 (Ryzen 5 7645HX) |
| 64 bit support | + | |
| Windows 11 compatibility | - | |
| Unlocked multiplier | Yes |
Compatibility
Information on Core i7-6950X compatibility with other computer components and devices: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.
| Number of CPUs in a configuration | 1 | of 8 (Opteron 842) |
| Socket | FCLGA2011 | |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 140 Watt | of 400 (Xeon Platinum 9282) |
Technologies and extensions
Technological capabilities and additional instructions supported by Core i7-6950X. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.
| AES-NI | + | |
| AVX | + | |
| Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST) | + | |
| Turbo Boost Technology | 2.0 | |
| Hyper-Threading Technology | + | |
| Idle States | + | |
| Smart Response | + | |
| Turbo Boost Max 3.0 | + | |
| Status | Discontinued |
Security technologies
Processor technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.
| TXT | + | |
| EDB | + |
Virtualization technologies
Supported virtual machine optimization technologies. Some are specific to Intel only, some to AMD.
| VT-d | + | |
| VT-x | + | |
| EPT | + |
Memory specs
Types, maximum amount and channel number of RAM supported by Core i7-6950X's memory controller. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequency may be supported.
| Supported memory types | DDR4 | |
| Maximum memory size | 128 GB | of 786 (Xeon E5-2670 v3) |
| Max memory channels | 4 | of 12 (Xeon Platinum 9221) |
| ECC memory support | - |
Peripherals
Specifications and connection types of supported peripherals.
| PCIe version | 3.0 | of 5 (Core i9-12900K) |
| PCI Express lanes | 40 | of 128 (EPYC 7551P) |
Benchmark performance
Single-core and multi-core benchmark results of Core i7-6950X. Overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.
Combined synthetic benchmark score
This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.
Passmark
Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance.
Benchmark coverage: 68%
GeekBench 5 Single-Core
GeekBench 5 Single-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses only a single CPU core.
Benchmark coverage: 42%
GeekBench 5 Multi-Core
GeekBench 5 Multi-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses all available CPU cores.
Benchmark coverage: 42%
Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core
Cinebench R10 is an ancient ray tracing benchmark for processors by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. Its single core version uses just one CPU thread to render a futuristic looking motorcycle.
Benchmark coverage: 20%
Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core
Cinebench Release 10 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R10 using all the processor threads. Possible number of threads is limited by 16 in this version.
Benchmark coverage: 19%
3DMark06 CPU
3DMark06 is a discontinued DirectX 9 benchmark suite from Futuremark. Its CPU part contains two scenarios, one dedicated to artificial intelligence pathfinding, another to game physics using PhysX package.
Benchmark coverage: 19%
Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core
Cinebench Release 11.5 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R11.5 which uses all the processor threads. A maximum of 64 threads is supported in this version.
Benchmark coverage: 17%
Cinebench 15 64-bit multi-core
Cinebench Release 15 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R15 which uses all the processor threads.
Benchmark coverage: 15%
Cinebench 15 64-bit single-core
Cinebench R15 (standing for Release 15) is a benchmark made by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version (sometimes called Single-Thread) only uses a single processor thread to render a room full of reflective spheres and light sources.
Benchmark coverage: 15%
Cinebench 11.5 64-bit single-core
Cinebench R11.5 is an old benchmark by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version loads a single thread with ray tracing to render a glossy room full of crystal spheres and light sources.
Benchmark coverage: 14%
TrueCrypt AES
TrueCrypt is a discontinued piece of software that was widely used for on-the-fly-encryption of disk partitions, now superseded by VeraCrypt. It contains several embedded performance tests, one of them being TrueCrypt AES, which measures data encryption speed using AES algorithm. Result is encryption speed in gigabytes per second.
Benchmark coverage: 13%
WinRAR 4.0
WinRAR 4.0 is an outdated version of a popular file archiver. It contains an internal speed test, using 'Best' setting of RAR compression on large chunks of randomly generated data. Its results are measured in kilobytes per second.
Benchmark coverage: 13%
x264 encoding pass 1
x264 version 4.0 is a video encoding benchmark uses MPEG 4 x264 compression method to compress a sample HD (720p) video. Pass 1 is a faster variant that produces a constant bit rate output file. Its result is measured in frames per second, which means how many frames of the source video file were encoded per second.
Benchmark coverage: 13%
x264 encoding pass 2
x264 Pass 2 is a slower variant of x264 video compression that produces a variable bit rate output file, which results in better quality since the higher bit rate is used when it is needed more. Benchmark result is still measured in frames per second.
Benchmark coverage: 13%
Geekbench 3 32-bit single-core
Benchmark coverage: 5%
Geekbench 3 32-bit multi-core
Benchmark coverage: 5%
Geekbench 2
Benchmark coverage: 5%
3DMark Fire Strike Physics
Benchmark coverage: 4%
Geekbench 4.0 64-bit multi-core
Benchmark coverage: 2%
Geekbench 4.0 64-bit single-core
Benchmark coverage: 2%
Send your test results of Core i7-6950X.
AMD equivalent
According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to Core i7-6950X is Ryzen 7 2700X, which is faster by 1% and higher by 2 positions in our ranking.
Here are some closest AMD rivals to Core i7-6950X:
Similar processors
Here is our recommendation of several processors that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.
Recommended GPUs
People consider these graphics cards to be good for Core i7-6950X, according to our PC configuration statistics.
These are the fastest graphics cards for Core i7-6950X in our user configuration statistics. There is a total of 166 configurations based on Core i7-6950X in our database.
