Intel Boxed Core i7-6850K Processor (15M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) FC-LGA14A 3.6 6 BX80671I76850K

It works great on the Asus ROG Rampage 10 Anniversary Edition. Plenty of lanes for SLI. This 6 core processor ran at 4GHZ on all cores right out of the box without changing a single setting. I easily overclocked this CPU to 4.4ghz @1.35V with a Noctua NH-U12S dual fan cooler. I still have to tweak various voltages, I think I can get the core voltage dropped a bit. But for now it's completely stable at good temps on Prime95 AVX and non AVX, HCI Memtest, Realbench plus other various benchmarks and games. This 6850K @ 4.4 runs cooler than my old 4 core i7-950 @ 3.9. Idle temps are usually about 27-28c and gaming temps are between 35-50c average. It's also about 60-70 percent faster in single core usage and much faster in multi core usage. Great CPU for gaming and workstation use. This new quad channel build has a little over 3 times faster ram compared to my old i7-950 tri channel ram build. My current ram is quad channel DDR4 G.Skill F4-3200C14-16GTZSW 4X16GB, my old ram was triple channel DDR3 Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D 3X2GB. Benchmarks: 21-22GBPS for the 950 / 66-67GBPS for the 6850K. This DDR4 ram has a lot better latency in benchmarks as well. Update: I hooked up an Arctic Liquid Freezer 360 with six Noctua NF-F12 fans in push/pull. I overclocked this CPU to 4.5GHz core @ 1.36V & 3.8GHz cache @ 1.33V. I can probably lower the voltages although the temps are great, I'll test that another time since it's stable. Idle temp on high performance mode is between 20-26C on the cores and 32-35C on the package, depending on ambeint temps (idles a few C above ambient in high performance mode). Full load temps are between 43-60C on the cores and package, depending on the application and ambeint temps. While playing games like GTA 5 & Ark in 1080@60hz with a 1080Ti, the temps are almost constantly under 40C, with the occasional short spike up to about 50C. This CPU is awesome with this cooler. The package temps under load never exceed my hottest cores temp, literally never. It's almost like my package temp and hottest core temp are linked under load. In fact, I've had one of my cores reach 1C hotter than my max package temp once during a stress test. Here are my Aida64 RAM speeds. READ: 68478MB/S - WRITE: 81462MB/S - COPY: 79085MB/S - LATENCY: 50.6ns.

Very happy with this chip. I work in the VFX industry building/animating in Maya, AfterEffects, Nuke, etc. Right now, I wouldn't recommend any other chip for industry professionals looking to build a single-socket workstation. This chip balances single-core speeds with higher than average core count, very impressive energy efficiency, and runs surprisingly cool (even when overclocked). Usually, the more cores packed into a chip, the slower the speed. The newer quad-cores may run faster, but will not be able to pump out multi-core capable tasks as fast as just about any six-core. This particular six-core can be overclocked to turbo at 4.3ghz and possibly higher. I've put this chip to the test running a full range of CG tasks, and it is the perfect balance of single-core and multicore speeds. Believe it or not, this chip out performs other 12-24 core workstations I have used. The higher core workstations are absolutely amazing rendering machines, but when it comes to regular use, most software will not take advantage of all those cores and you'll be stuck processing with just a few cores at much slower speeds (2-3ghz, as opposed to 4+ghz).

Conventional wisdom says the quad core i7-6700k is the best gaming processor because it has better single thread performance and there are no games which fully utilize the PCIe 3.0 x16/x16 bandwidth. These guys will suggest you get an Intel Extreme processor only if do CG rendering, video encoding or software development. Guess what ? The status quo has changed. With the release of several new open world games that utilize ultra high resolution textures, graphics cards have become very bandwidth hungry, especially under SLI. Some reddit users have tested an i7-6850k, Titan XP SLI setup in x16/x16 and x8/x8 (or x16/x8) lanes per graphics card. What they found is that there is an increase of 27% in performance for Witcher 3 and 16% increase for Rise of the Tomb Raider when the graphics cards are run in x16/x16 !!! That is huge, and it is impossible to achieve unless you have a CPU that supports 40 PCIe lanes. Witcher 3 is obviously one of the most demanding games out there, but games will only get more demanding in the future. I should note that according to this test there was no difference in average frame rates for older games. I haven't done any extensive testing with my new build yet, but I did notice that I do not drop below 60 fps anymore in some games where I was previously CPU limited. One of those games is Dragon Age Inquisition, which is one the few games out there which scales up to 6 cores / 12 threads when running an SLI setup. As I am running the game on a 21:9 (3440x1440) monitor, it is very demanding on the CPU (compared to 16:9 aspect ratios) as the CPU has to process/animate more objects inside the view frustrum. DA:I runs without a glitch now that I have upgraded to 6850k. The only reason I am awarding 4 stars instead of 5 is because I think this processor is a little overpriced. The 6850k is basically an overclocked 6800k so you are paying a hefty premium for having 40 PCIe lanes. Now that is certainly important and it is the only reason I chose this over the 6700k and the 6800k but whether or not this premium is justified is somewhat debatable. Those who will not be using SLI setups will be better off buying the 6800k from a performance/price standpoint, and those who want maximum multi-threaded (non gaming) performance will purchase the 6950k.

For all those people who say this isn't worth the upgrade. I say you should look at your system setup!! 1st I've always tried to buy platforms that you could upgrade with minimal investment and would be a solid workstation/game machine that is fast or at least faster than prepackages computer systems. I have 2 ssd in raid 0 / 1- m.2/ a single 1080 / Separate sound card in a pci slot (that doesn't share pci lanes) and a 27inch 1080i 144hz 1ms tn panel upgraded to this beast from a 5820k which I had for years and worked and game on regular. I notices right away I had more choices in the bios related to my m.2 and sound card (had to completely reinstall sound card on the same slot cause the slot was sharing on the 5820k due to the lack of pci lanes) There is a difference - gaming on the low end when fire fights get to be over whelming 6850k is stronger does it always have max fps ask yourself does it matter after 144fps? If that is all the matters in your gamers mind don't get this. Pure performance yes this thing is a beast I'd say I notice the 5-10% performance increase claims chews through gaming and web searches with zero load time (I'm on Fiber) I always thought well its the machine or browsing settings , this will always be slow - but the instant page loading while browsing is worth the current 359+/- IMO. Pages load immediate! programs run faster -its just better. Especially when that's all you have to invest is 350-ish to upgrade your system (it wasn't worth it at 600+). ANYONE who argues another platform in faster your not going to only spend 350 bucks. If you can just buy this its worth it other plat forms will likely require MB/CPU/ maybe memory and will be over 1000 bucks. The 40 pci lanes will make sli work better or anything that is SHARING lanes presently in your system is bogging down your system this chip will help. If you have a graphics card /HD/ nothing else unlikely you'll see an improvement. If you buying a completely NEW system may want to get the latest and greatest and pass on this. However if you plan on loading your new computer with multiple peripherals and hard drives that take up pci lanes think through what your getting, PCI lanes shared isn't good for any processor especially if you plan on filling your system.

Very fast, and overclockable. I'm not sure what I can add to other reviewers, but it's a great balance between lots of cores and cache, while still being a somewhat reasonable price. I'm able to overclock to around 4.1 GHz and stay stable with liquid cooling. I've seen others online claim faster, but I don't want to push it too hard since the extra 100 or 200 MHz isn't going to add enough extra performance for me to risk the CPU :)

CPU died after 4 months... Luckily I still have my old i7-5820k and I bought Intel's extended warrenty. Woke up one morning and saw my pc powered down. Tried to turn it on but nothing helped... Then I tried pressing the on switch on my mobo (Asus X99 Deluxe) and only then I saw the red CPU_LED turned on and realised it was the CPU. Now I'm left to deal with Intel's RMA... hopefully my 5820k won't die any time soon.

Mine died after 4 months of use. No overclocking or video encoding - barely flexed its muscles. Just woke up one day and my new computer wouldn't boot or post. Bought new motherboard, RAM and power supply - still no boot. Called Intel and started the RMA process. They received my CPU 12 days ago and sent me an email saying they will verify it in 1 - 3 business days. It has been 10 business days since then so I get an agent in chat and ask where my CPU is. They have no clue. But they so 'helpfully' started the validation process over again. Now I have to wait 1 - 3 business days for them to validate my broken CPU (again) and send me a new one. Intel customer service and support is garbage. My 5 month old high-end PC has now been sitting dead for a month. 20% of its life so far it's been a 40lb paper weight. If you turn on your PC and it won't boot or post, is an Asus and gives you an error code "00", is an Asrock and gives no errors, then just assume it's your CPU and start the RMA process immediately instead of thinking it is the last probably piece that isn't working. This will save you WEEKS and get you back up and running much faster.

i7-6850 for EVGA Micro2 X99. Purchased at a discount. Its the fastest 6-core for the X99 chipset. Future proofed an EVGA motherboard. The processor arrived in box unopened. Because this processor became available after the motherboard release, had to order a BIOS chip with the most recent update. It works great with EVGA CLC 280. Have yet to overclock this CPU, but that was another reason to buy this processor because it is unlocked.