Skip to content

Main Navigation

Puget Systems Logo
  • Solutions
    • Recommended Systems For:
    • Content Creation
      • Photo Editing
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe Lightroom Classic
        • Adobe Photoshop
      • Video Editing
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe After Effects
        • Adobe Premiere Pro
        • DaVinci Resolve
        • Foundry Nuke
      • 3D Design and Animation
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk 3ds Max
        • Autodesk Maya
        • Blender
        • Cinema 4D
        • Houdini
        • ZBrush
      • Real-Time Engines
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Game Development
        • Unity
        • Unreal Engine
        • Virtual Production
      • Rendering
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • OctaneRender
        • Redshift
        • V-Ray
      • Digital Audio
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Ableton Live
        • FL Studio
        • Pro Tools
    • Engineering
      • CAD
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk AutoCAD
        • Autodesk Inventor
        • Autodesk Revit
        • SOLIDWORKS
      • Photogrammetry
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • ArcGIS Pro
        • Agisoft Metashape
        • Pix4D
        • RealityCapture
    • Scientific Computing
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Data Science
      • Machine Learning / AI
      • Scientific Computing
    • More
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Compact Size
      • Live Streaming
      • NVIDIA RTX Studio
      • Quiet Operation
      • Virtual Reality
  • Products
    • Intel Core i7 & i9
      Workstations with 13th Gen Intel Core i7 & i9 processors on Z690 and Z790 chipsets
    • AMD Ryzen 7 & 9
      Workstations with AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors on B650 and X670 chipsets
    • AMD Threadripper PRO
      Workstations with AMD Threadripper PRO 5000 WX processors on the WRX80 chipset
    • Intel Xeon W
      Workstations with Intel Xeon W 3300 processors on the C621E chipset
    • Rackmount & Server
      Servers and workstations in rackmount chassis
    • Custom Computers
      Customize a desktop workstation from scratch
    • Custom Servers
      Customize a rackmount server from scratch
    • QNAP Network Attached Storage
      Check out our external storage options as an authorized reseller for QNAP
    • Recommended Third Party Peripherals
      View our list of recommended peripherals to use with your new PC
  • Publications
    • Articles
    • HPC Blog
    • Blog Posts
    • Case Studies
    • Podcasts
    • Press
  • Support
    • Contact Support
    • Support Articles
    • Warranty Details
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Press Kit
    • Testimonials
    • Careers
  • Talk to an Expert
  • My Account
  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Hardware Articles
  4. /
  5. Unreal Engine 4.16 CPU Comparison: Skylake-X, Kaby Lake-X, Broadwell-E, Skylake, Ryzen 7

Unreal Engine 4.16 CPU Comparison: Skylake-X, Kaby Lake-X, Broadwell-E, Skylake, Ryzen 7

Posted on July 12, 2017 by Matt Bach
Always look at the date when you read an article. Some of the content in this article is most likely out of date, as it was written on July 12, 2017. For newer information, see our more recent articles.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Test Setup
  • Open Project
  • Package for Win64
  • Launch Level Editor Play
  • Editor Viewport FPS
  • Build Lighting
  • Compile Engine From Source
  • Conclusion

Introduction

It is very common for video games to be used in hardware reviews, but the development platform for those games are typically completely ignored. Today, we are going to help alleviate this problem by looking at a how a number of CPUs perform in the Unreal Editor for Unreal Engine 4.16. This includes the latest CPUs from both Intel (Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X) and AMD (Ryzen 7) in addition to CPUs from the slightly older Intel Broadwell-E and Skylake lines.

One thing to note is that although the Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X CPUs are officially launched, Intel has only released the 4, 6, 8, and 10 core models so far. According to Intel's E3 press release, there will be a 12 core model available in August along with 14, 16, and 18 core models in October. Unreal Engine has a number of tasks that are very well threaded (where a higher core count improves performance) including building lighting and compiling, so this is really only a taste of how the Skylake-X line as a whole might perform in Unreal Editor.

There are a wide variety of tasks we could test in Unreal to see how all these CPUs perform, but in this article we will specifically be looking at the following tasks:

  1. Time to open a project
  2. Time to package a project for Win64
  3. Time to launch the level editor "play" for standalone and mobile preview
  4. FPS in the editor viewport
  5. Time to build lighting (preview, medium, high, and production quality settings)
  6. Time to compile engine from source

If you would like to skip over our test setup and analysis of the individual benchmarks, feel free to jump right to the conclusion section.

Test Setup

Since the new processors from Intel include two different CPU architectures, our testing platform is less straightforward than normal. Most of the new CPUs support DDR4-2666 RAM, although the Intel Core i7 7740X (Kaby Lake-X) CPU only supports four sticks of RAM rather than eight. In addition, the Intel Core i7 7800X (Skylake-X) only supports DDR4-2400 RAM for some odd reason. We typically test with the highest officially supported RAM configuration for each CPU, so components used in our X299 test platform requires an entire table just for itself:

X299 Test Platform
Motherboard: Gigabyte X299 AORUS Gaming 7 (rev 1.0)
CPU: Intel Core i7 7740X 4.2GHz
(4.5GHz Turbo) 4 Core

~$339

Intel Core i7 7800X 3.5GHz
(4.0GHz Turbo) 6 Core

~$389

Intel Core i7 7820X 3.6GHz
(4.3/4.5GHz Turbo) 8 Core

~$599
Intel Core i9 7900X 3.3GHz
(4.3/4.5GHz Turbo) 10 Core

~$999

RAM: 4x DDR4-2666 16GB
(64GB total)
8x DDR4-2400 16GB
(128GB total)
8x DDR4-2666 16GB
(128GB Total)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 8GB
Hard Drive: Samsung 960 Pro 1TB M.2 PCI-E x4 NVMe SSD
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Software: Unreal Editor 4.16.2

To act as a comparison to the new Intel CPUs, we will also be testing AMD's Ryzen 7 1700X/1800X CPUs as well as the Intel Core i7 7700K (Kaby Lake) and Intel Core i7 6850K/6900K/6950X (Broadwell-E) CPUs. Again, we will be testing with the best officially supported RAM configuration for each CPU.

Comparison Test Platforms
Motherboard: Asus PRIME X370-Pro Asus PRIME Z270-A Asus X99 Deluxe II
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X 3.4GHz
(3.8GHz Turbo) 8 Core

~$399
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X 3.6GHz
(4.0GHz Turbo) 8 Core

~$499
Intel Core i7 7700K 4.2GHz
(4.5GHz Turbo) 4 Core

~$339

Intel Core i7 6850K 3.6GHz
(3.7/4.0GHz Turbo) 6 Core

~$617
Intel Core i7 6900K 3.2GHz
(3.5/4.0GHz Turbo) 8 Core

~$1089
Intel Core i7 6950X 3.0GHz
(3.4/4.0GHz Turbo) 10 Core

~$1723

RAM: 4x DDR4-2400 16GB
(64GB total)
4x DDR4-2400 16GB
(64GB total)
8x DDR4-2400 16GB
(128GB Total)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 8GB
Hard Drive: Samsung 960 Pro 1TB M.2 PCI-E x4 NVMe SSD
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Software: Unreal Editor 4.16.2

Inconsistent RAM aside, one thing we do want to point out is how much more affordable the Skylake-X CPUs are compared to the previous generation Broadwell-E CPUs. Where a six core CPU from Intel used to cost over $600, you can now purchase an eight core CPU for roughly the same cost. In fact, the i7 7800X is even a hair less expensive than AMD's Ryzen 7 CPUs. This means that regardless of any performance gains we may see, Skylake-X is at the very least a big deal in terms of cost.

In order to accurately benchmark the different CPUs, we tested the performance across two sample projects that are freely available for download. Our testing will obviously not be 100% accurate for any project you might create, but these two projects are different enough to help us identify a number of performance trends.

Infiltrator Demo [Marketplace]

Epic Zen Garden [Marketplace]

Open Project

Unreal Engine Editor Skylake-X 7900X 7820X 7800X Kaby Lake-X 7740X Ryzen 7 Project Open Benchmark

The time it takes to open a project may not be a terribly exciting way to start our testing, but it is something you do multiple times a day, every single day. Performance here may not be your number one priority, but the less time you spend waiting on your system, the more productive you will be.

The key thing to note in this test is that the lower core count CPUs (which tend to have higher single-threaded performance) are clearly the best for this task. The new Intel Core i7 7740K (Kaby Lake-X) is the fastest overall, although the Intel Core i7 7700K (Kaby Lake) was only a tiny 1.5% slower. The Intel Core i7 7820X was the next fastest, followed by the rest of the Intel CPUs which all performed roughly on par.

The lowest performing were the AMD Ryzen 7 CPUs, although that is somewhat to be expected as those CPUs do not have particular great single-threaded performance.

Package for Win64

Unreal Engine Editor Skylake-X 7900X 7820X 7800X Kaby Lake-X 7740X Ryzen 7 Package for Win64 Benchmark

Packaging (whether it be for Win64, Win32, Android, etc.) is a task that some readers may expect to finish faster on a higher core count CPU, but our results indicate that more cores is definitely not better.

Just like in the previous section, the lower core count CPUs (which have higher single-threaded performance) are again the best for this task. The higher core count CPUs did better than they did when opening a project, but none of them are able to quite match the quad Core CPUs. The new Intel Core i7 7800X and 7820X along with the Core i9 7900X were the closest as they trailed the Core i7 7740X by only 4-8%.

Also once again, the lowest performing CPUs were the AMD Ryzen 7 1700X and 1800X which were about 15-25% slower than the Core i7 7740X.

Launch Level Editor Play

Unreal Engine Editor Skylake-X 7900X 7820X 7800X Kaby Lake-X 7740X Ryzen 7 Level Editor Play Benchmark

The first time you launch the level editor "Play" can take a significant amount of time depending on your project and the mode you are using. For this test, we decided to measure the time it took to get into your game with both the "Mobile Preview (PIE)" and "Standalone Game" modes.

It may be feeling a bit repetitive at this point, but we again saw the best performance with the quad core Intel CPUs. The new Skylake-X CPUs were not far behind, however, with the Core i7 7820X only performing about 4% slower on average. Across the other CPUs we tested, the results are pretty closely in line with what we saw in the previous two sections.

Editor Viewport FPS

Unreal Engine Editor Skylake-X 7900X 7820X 7800X Kaby Lake-X 7740X Ryzen 7 Editor Viewport FPS Benchmark

We considered doing a whole host of FPS testing, but given that the FPS is heavily dependent on the GPU we decided to stick with just the FPS in the editor viewport rather than measuring the FPS in a variety of situations. Note that unlike every other test, this time a higher result is better since we are looking at frames per second rather than the time it takes to complete a task.

Overall, the results for the new Skylake-X CPUs are a bit odd. For the 6-10 Core across both the Broadwell-E and Skylake-X product lines, we saw a clear increase in FPS as we got into the higher core counts. What is weird is that the new Skylake-X gave much lower FPS than the Broadwell-E CPUs. Since the Skylake-X CPUs have out-performed the old Broadwell-E CPUs on virtually every test we have run over the last few months, this looks more like a new architecture bug than anything else. If maximum viewport FPS is a major concern for you, we would recommend holding off on purchasing a Skylake-X CPU for now but we expect these results to rise dramatically in the coming months.

Build Lighting

Unreal Engine Editor Skylake-X 7900X 7820X 7800X Kaby Lake-X 7740X Ryzen 7 Build Lighting 1 Benchmark

Unreal Engine Editor Skylake-X 7900X 7820X 7800X Kaby Lake-X 7740X Ryzen 7 Build Lighting 2 Lightmass Benchmark

Building lighting can take a significant amount of time and since we wanted to see if there was a difference in relative performance depending on the quality setting this one test took longer than all our other tests combines. The short answer is that while the lower quality modes are certainly faster to complete, the relative performance difference between each CPU did not change to a significant degree.

Building lighting is one of the few tasks in Unreal Editor than can take great advantage of having a high number of CPU cores, but oddly this seems to only apply to the Intel CPUs. While the AMD Ryzen CPUs have 8 cores, they were only about to beat the Core i7 7740X quad core CPU by around 5% on average and were roughly half the performance of Intel's 8 core CPUs.

The new Core i7 7800X 6 core was a bit disappointing as it is slower than the old Core i7 6850K 6 core – although given its much lower price the price-to-performance ratio isn't terribly bad. However, the real outstanding CPU in this test is the new Core i7 7820X. Even though it is fairly middle of the road in terms of price, it gave terrific performance and was only slightly slower than the much more expensive Core i9 7900X.

Compile Engine From Source

Unreal Engine Editor Skylake-X 7900X 7820X 7800X Kaby Lake-X 7740X Ryzen 7 Compile Engine from Source Benchmark

While compiling the Unreal Engine from source is technically done outside the Unreal Editor itself, we feel it is still a very valid benchmark for Unreal Engine developers.

Like build lighting, compiling is a task that can benefit greatly from having a high number of CPU cores. There are a few oddities in our results – such as the i7 7740X being slower than the i7 7700K – but overall the results line up pretty much as you might expect. If you spend a decent amount of time compiling, the new Core i7 7820X and Core i9 7900X are terrific and likely the go-to option.

Conclusion

Unreal Editor is an interesting application to test since it has a combination of lightly threaded tasks and heavily threaded ones. Because of this, which CPU is best for you is going to depend on the tasks you typically find yourself waiting on.

Unreal Engine 4.16 Skylake-X 7900X 7820X 7800X Kaby Lake-X 7740X Overall Benchmark Results

To help you decide which CPU you should use, we first normalized our results to the Intel Core i7 6850K which has typically been a great mid-range CPU for game developers. After that, we separated our results into three categories:

  1. Overall results across all tasks
  2. Lightly threaded tasks – open project, package for Win64, launch level editor "play, and viewport FPS
  3. Heavily threaded tasks – build lighting and compile engine from source

Starting with the lightly threaded tasks, it is no surprise that the Core i7 7740X and Core i7 7700K were the top performers. While these CPUs only have four cores, they excel at tasks where it is more important to have faster cores rather than having more cores. The new Core i9 7900X and Core i7 7820X were the next best CPUs coming in at about 10-13% slower than the quad core CPUs.

On the more heavily threaded tasks, the Core i9 7900X was overall the fastest CPU we tested, trailed by the Core i7 7820X and Core i7 6950X which were about 9% slower. Considering that the Core i9 7900X is almost half the cost of the Core i7 6950X and the Core i7 7820X is almost a third the cost, this is terrific from a price-to-performance standpoint! The only bit of disappointment from the new Skylake-X CPUs is the Core i7 7800X which was only a tiny bit faster than the quad core CPUs. However, given its $389 price tag it really is only slightly worse than we expected.

Although the AMD Ryzen CPUs are often touted as being an excellent value for heavily threaded tasks, they really did not do all that well in our Unreal Editor testing. Even the somewhat disappointing Core i7 7800X was still both faster and cheaper than the AMD Ryzen CPUs. And while the Core i7 7820X is certainly a bit more expensive than the AMD Ryzen CPUs, the fact that it was twice as fast for heavily threaded tasks speaks volumes for how much more effective an Intel CPU is for Unreal Editor at the moment. 

Overall, if there was only one CPU we could recommend to Unreal Editor users it would be the Core i7 7820X. It may not be the absolute fastest for any single task, but it is a great balance for anything you might do. If you spend a significant amount of time building lighting or compiling, the Core i9 7900X would also be an excellent choice if you have a bit larger of a budget. On the other hand, if you rarely build lighting or compile the engine from source, either the Core i7 7740X or Core i7 7700K are terrific at most other Unreal Editor tasks while also costing significantly less.

CTA Image
Unreal Engine Workstations

Puget Systems offers a range of powerful and reliable systems that are tailor-made for your unique workflow.

Configure a System!
CTA Image
Labs Consultation Service

Our Labs team is available to provide in-depth hardware recommendations based on your workflow.

Find Out More!
Tags: Broadwell-E, Game Development, Kaby Lake-X, Ryzen 7, Skylake X, Unreal Editor, Unreal Engine

Who is Puget Systems?

Puget Systems builds custom PCs tailored for your workflow

Extensive in-house testing
making you more productive and giving you more performance for your dollar

Reliable workstations
with fewer crashes and blue screens means more time working, less time waiting on your computer

Support that understands
your complex workflows and can get you back up and running ASAP

Proven track record
check out our customer testimonials and Reseller Ratings

Get Started

Browse Our Workstations

Fractal Design Define 7 Chassis with Puget Systems Logo

Select your workflow:

Content Creation
Engineering
Scientific Computing
More

Latest Articles

  • Basic Guide to Identify and Remove Malware
  • Should I Upgrade My Gpu
  • Case Study with Lost Boys Interactive
  • Samsung 990 Pro Critical Firmware Update
  • How To Use Linux Kernel Boot Options
View All

Post navigation

 X299 vs X99: What is the Difference?An Introduction to Understanding 8-bit vs. 10-bit Hardware 
Puget Systems Logo
Build Your Own PC Site Map FAQ
facebook instagram linkedin rss twitter youtube

Optimized Solutions

  • Adobe Premiere
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Solidworks
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Machine Learning

Workstations

  • Content Creation
  • Engineering
  • Scientific PCs
  • More

Support

  • Online Guides
  • Request Support
  • Remote Help

Publications

  • All News
  • Puget Blog
  • HPC Blog
  • Hardware Articles
  • Case Studies

Policies

  • Warranty & Return
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Delivery Times
  • Accessibility

About Us

  • Testimonials
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

© Copyright 2023 - Puget Systems, All Rights Reserved.