Is Intel Core I7 6700 Still Good? Cpu Revisit
Introduction
Intel i7 6700 is already 6 and a half years old, and since I have one in my office today, I will test it in the most popular games and try to answer all of your questions about this legendary processor.
Let’s cut the story, and jump into the article!
Is Intel Core I7 6700 Still Good – Short Topic Answer
With 4 cores and 8 threads, Intel Core I7 6700 is still a good processor for most people. Although you cant use it as a streaming CPU or play modern titles in high frames, this processor will be more than enough for casual gaming and task managing. Pair it with a good GPU to get the most out of it.
If you want to see results in video games and more about this CPU, continue reading!
Intel I7 6700 Specifications
| Number of Cores | 4 cores |
| Number of Threads | 8 threads |
| Base Frequency | 3.4 GHz |
| Turbo Frequency | 4.0 GHz |
| Cache | 8 MB |
| Bus Speed | 8 GT/s |
| TDP | 65W |
Best Intel I7 6700 Offer At The Moment
Intel Core I7 6700 Cons in 2022
Since this processor is almost 7 years old, it’s normal that it has some cons. Of course, this all depends on the user, but I need to make sure you know these things before spending money on it.
Although Intel Core I7 6700 is still a good processor, you need to know that it has some downsides also. If you planed to stream video games, your stream won’t work as smoothly as it worked back in the day. Games are more demanding right now and you will need more than 4 cores for streaming.
Also, you shouldn’t expect high fps in 1080p resolution since that resolution is most CPU-demanding from popular ones. If you play games in 2k or 4k resolution with a good graphics card, you won’t find any bottleneck.
How Good Is Intel I7 6700 For Gaming?
Intel Core I7 6700 is still a great processor for gaming for most people. This processor perhaps won’t give you the best results in the newest games, but if you pair it with a good graphics card and play games at higher resolution, you will get more than a good experience.
In order to get the best image of how good is this processor for gaming in 2022, I will pair it with both mid-range and high-end graphics cards and I will try them together in some popular games. You can find the results below.
Intel Core I7 6700 And Mid-Range Graphics Card
Firstly, I will test Intel Core I7 6700 with Nvidia GTX 1060 6 Gb. Since GTX 1060 is released in 2016 and Intel i7 6700 was released in 2015, I think it would be good to test them together in some modern games.
Although these games aren’t the newest titles, I think they will be more than enough to test these two together.
As you can see in the table below, I tried all these games in 1080p, and in each of them, this CPU-GPU combo easily achieved more than 60 fps on average.
Games that I tested weren’t on the best possible graphics details, but I think that overall experience was more than good.
The game that challenged the i7 6700 the most was probably Battlefield 1 since it’s known that this game is CPU demanding.
Have in mind that you can increase the fps even more if you lower the graphics details, which means that you can even play these games on higher refresh rate monitors.
Take a look at the table!
| specs: Intel i7 6700,Gtx 1060 6GB, 16Gb ddr4 2400 Mhz, 1Tb SSD | AVERAGE FPS | 1% LOW FPS | CPU USAGE (%) | CPU TEMP (°C) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Playerunknown's Battlegrounds (High Settings -1080p) | 100 fps | 51 fps | 50 % | 46 °C |
| Project Cars (High Settings -1080p) | 77 fps | 53 fps | 49 % | 44 °C |
| Grand Theft Auto V (High Settings / X16 -1080p) | 89 fps | 62 fps | 58 % | 51 °C |
| The Witcher 3 (High Settings -1080p) | 86 fps | 52 fps | 83 % | 50 °C |
| Battlefield 1 (High Settings -1080p) | 92 fps | 64 fps | 96 % | 57 °C |
Intel Core I7 6700 And High-End Graphics Card
Of course, in order to really see the ages of this processor, I paired it with Nvidia RTX 3070 and tested it on Max settings in all 5 games.
Have in mind that I tested them in 1080p resolution, which is as I said the most CPU-demanding. If I tried the 2k or 4k, it will be more than playable since the majority of the game will rely on GPU.
Although I tested all these games on Highest possible settings in 1080p, I got almost 60 fps or more in the 4 games that I tested.
Unfortunately, this processor showed its age in this testing, especially in some CPU-Demanding games.
Take a look at the table.
| specs: Intel i7 6700,RTX 3070 8 GB, 16Gb ddr4 2400 Mhz, 1Tb SSD | AVERAGE FPS | 1% LOW FPS | CPU USAGE (%) | CPU TEMP (°C) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Grand Theft Auto 5 Max Settings - 1080p) | 54 fps | 41 fps | 96 % | 56 °C |
| (Cyberpunk 2077 High Settings - 1080p) | 57 fps | 41 fps | 79 % | 54 °C |
| (Crysis Max Settings - 1080p) | 42 fps | 21 fps | 80 % | 55 °C |
| (Minecraft Fancy Settings + Shaders - 1080p) | 73 fps | 44 fps | 67 % | 56 °C |
| ARK: Survival Evolved (Max Settings - 1080p) | 94 fps | 37 fps | 42 % | 54 °C |
Best Graphics Card To Pair With Intel I7 6700
Best Mid-Range GPU For Intel I7 6700
The best Mid-Range GPU that you can pair with the Intel i7 6700 is Nvidia GTX 1060 6Gb. Since they both got released in one year of time (2015 & 2016), they are meant to work together. This 4 core 8 threads processor will work just fine with GTX 1060 in 1080p resolution and they will give you smooth gameplay.
You can see the test in games for these two together in the first table in this article above.
Best High-End GPU For Intel I7 6700
The best graphics card you should pair with the Intel i7 6700 is RX 5700 XT. With this GPU, you will probably experience a little bit of bottleneck in 1080p resolution, but you would always have a space for upgrade and you can play games in higher resolutions like 2k and 4k without problems.
You can find the best review of this GPU here.
Can You Stream With Intel i7 6700?
You can stream with Intel core i7 6700 only if you are planning to either play some less CPU-Demanding games or something else that doesn’t require that much of your processor itself. If you want to stream some newer games, maybe you will need to upgrade your processor first.
Conclusion
The Intel i7 6700 is still good for average users that know its limits. It’s 2022, and even if this CPU seems like it’s only a few years old, time is going fast, so this processor is also getting worse and worse. Of course, you can play most games and do most tasks with this CPU, but don’t expect too much.
If you want to play games with it, you can easily play higher resolutions with a good GPU since that’s not too hard for older processors.
