Skylake CPU Scaling P-State vs. CPUFreq Intel Core i5-6500 testing with a Gigabyte Z170M-D3H-CF and Intel Sky Lake on Ubuntu 15.10. Benchmarks by Michael Larabel for a future article on Phoronix. P-State Powersave: Processor: Intel Core i5-6500 @ 3.60GHz (4 Cores), Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170M-D3H-CF, Chipset: Intel Sky Lake, Memory: 8192MB, Disk: 120GB KINGSTON SV300S3, Graphics: Intel Sky Lake (1050MHz), Audio: Realtek ALC892, Monitor: DELL P2415Q, Network: Intel Connection OS: Ubuntu 15.10, Kernel: 4.3.0-999-generic (x86_64) 20151013, Desktop: Unity, Display Server: X Server 1.17.2, Display Driver: intel 2.99.917, OpenGL: 3.3 Mesa 11.0.2, Compiler: GCC 5.2.1 20151010, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 3840x2160 P-State Performance: Processor: Intel Core i5-6500 @ 3.60GHz (4 Cores), Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170M-D3H-CF, Chipset: Intel Sky Lake, Memory: 8192MB, Disk: 120GB KINGSTON SV300S3, Graphics: Intel Sky Lake (1050MHz), Audio: Realtek ALC892, Monitor: DELL P2415Q, Network: Intel Connection OS: Ubuntu 15.10, Kernel: 4.3.0-999-generic (x86_64) 20151013, Desktop: Unity, Display Server: X Server 1.17.2, Display Driver: intel 2.99.917, OpenGL: 3.3 Mesa 11.0.2, Compiler: GCC 5.2.1 20151010, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 3840x2160 CPUFreq Performance: Processor: Intel Core i5-6500 @ 3.20GHz (4 Cores), Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170M-D3H-CF, Chipset: Intel Sky Lake, Memory: 8192MB, Disk: 120GB KINGSTON SV300S3, Graphics: Intel Sky Lake (1050MHz), Audio: Realtek ALC892, Monitor: DELL P2415Q, Network: Intel Connection OS: Ubuntu 15.10, Kernel: 4.3.0-999-generic (x86_64) 20151013, Desktop: Unity, Display Server: X Server 1.17.2, Display Driver: intel 2.99.917, OpenGL: 3.3 Mesa 11.0.2, Compiler: GCC 5.2.1 20151010, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 3840x2160 CPUFreq Powersave: Processor: Intel Core i5-6500 @ 3.20GHz (4 Cores), Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170M-D3H-CF, Chipset: Intel Sky Lake, Memory: 8192MB, Disk: 120GB KINGSTON SV300S3, Graphics: Intel Sky Lake (1050MHz), Audio: Realtek ALC892, Monitor: DELL P2415Q, Network: Intel Connection OS: Ubuntu 15.10, Kernel: 4.3.0-999-generic (x86_64) 20151013, Desktop: Unity, Display Server: X Server 1.17.2, Display Driver: intel 2.99.917, OpenGL: 3.3 Mesa 11.0.2, Compiler: GCC 5.2.1 20151010, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 3840x2160 CPUFreq Ondemand: Processor: Intel Core i5-6500 @ 3.20GHz (4 Cores), Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170M-D3H-CF, Chipset: Intel Sky Lake, Memory: 8192MB, Disk: 120GB KINGSTON SV300S3, Graphics: Intel Sky Lake (1050MHz), Audio: Realtek ALC892, Monitor: DELL P2415Q, Network: Intel Connection OS: Ubuntu 15.10, Kernel: 4.3.0-999-generic (x86_64) 20151013, Desktop: Unity, Display Server: X Server 1.17.2, Display Driver: intel 2.99.917, OpenGL: 3.3 Mesa 11.0.2, Compiler: GCC 5.2.1 20151010, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 3840x2160 FLAC Audio Encoding 1.3.1 WAV To FLAC Seconds < Lower Is Better P-State Powersave ... 5.61 |=================================================== P-State Performance . 5.62 |=================================================== CPUFreq Performance . 5.63 |=================================================== CPUFreq Powersave ... 5.61 |=================================================== CPUFreq Ondemand .... 5.61 |=================================================== LAME MP3 Encoding 3.99.3 WAV To MP3 Seconds < Lower Is Better P-State Powersave ... 12.06 |================================================== P-State Performance . 12.07 |================================================== CPUFreq Performance . 12.08 |================================================== CPUFreq Powersave ... 12.08 |================================================== CPUFreq Ondemand .... 12.06 |================================================== OpenArena 0.8.8 Resolution: 1920 x 1080 Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better P-State Powersave ... 49.50 |========================================== P-State Performance . 48.93 |========================================== CPUFreq Performance . 58.70 |================================================== CPUFreq Powersave ... 58.63 |================================================== CPUFreq Ondemand .... 58.67 |================================================== Tesseract 2014-05-12 Resolution: 1920 x 1080 Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better P-State Powersave ... 39.24 |=============================================== P-State Performance . 39.03 |=============================================== CPUFreq Performance . 41.10 |================================================= CPUFreq Powersave ... 41.52 |================================================== CPUFreq Ondemand .... 41.34 |================================================== Xonotic 0.8 Resolution: 1920 x 1080 - Effects Quality: Low Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better P-State Powersave ... 50.53 |================================================ P-State Performance . 50.41 |================================================ CPUFreq Performance . 52.39 |================================================== CPUFreq Powersave ... 52.42 |================================================== CPUFreq Ondemand .... 52.45 |================================================== Xonotic 0.8 Resolution: 1920 x 1080 - Effects Quality: High Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better P-State Powersave ... 25.55 |================================================ P-State Performance . 25.61 |================================================ CPUFreq Performance . 26.67 |================================================== CPUFreq Powersave ... 26.70 |================================================== CPUFreq Ondemand .... 26.73 |================================================== Xonotic 0.8 Resolution: 1920 x 1080 - Effects Quality: Ultra Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better P-State Powersave ... 21.13 |================================================ P-State Performance . 21.17 |================================================ CPUFreq Performance . 21.89 |================================================== CPUFreq Powersave ... 21.92 |================================================== CPUFreq Ondemand .... 21.94 |================================================== Xonotic 0.8 Resolution: 1920 x 1080 - Effects Quality: Ultimate Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better P-State Powersave ... 16.43 |================================================= P-State Performance . 16.45 |================================================= CPUFreq Performance . 16.87 |================================================== CPUFreq Powersave ... 16.86 |================================================== CPUFreq Ondemand .... 16.89 |================================================== Timed Linux Kernel Compilation 3.18-rc6 Time To Compile Seconds < Lower Is Better P-State Powersave ... 127.77 |================================================= P-State Performance . 127.62 |================================================= CPUFreq Performance . 128.02 |================================================= CPUFreq Powersave ... 127.98 |================================================= CPUFreq Ondemand .... 128.18 |================================================= x264 2014-08-30 H.264 Video Encoding Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better P-State Powersave ... 141.89 |================================================= P-State Performance . 142.50 |================================================= CPUFreq Performance . 140.90 |================================================ CPUFreq Powersave ... 140.00 |================================================ CPUFreq Ondemand .... 140.71 |================================================ C-Ray 1.1 Total Time Seconds < Lower Is Better P-State Powersave ... 23.41 |================================================== P-State Performance . 23.41 |================================================== CPUFreq Performance . 23.41 |================================================== CPUFreq Powersave ... 23.42 |================================================== CPUFreq Ondemand .... 23.41 |================================================== FFmpeg 2.6.2 H.264 HD To NTSC DV Seconds < Lower Is Better P-State Powersave ... 9.92 |============================================ P-State Performance . 10.01 |============================================= CPUFreq Performance . 11.23 |================================================== CPUFreq Powersave ... 11.23 |================================================== CPUFreq Ondemand .... 11.22 |================================================== OpenArena 0.8.8 Resolution: 1920 x 1080 - Total Frame Time Milliseconds < Lower Is Better P-State Powersave ... MIN: 14.0 AVG: 20.1 MAX: 54.0 P-State Performance . MIN: 14.0 AVG: 20.1 MAX: 70.0 CPUFreq Performance . MIN: 13.0 AVG: 16.7 MAX: 52.0 CPUFreq Powersave ... MIN: 13.0 AVG: 16.6 MAX: 52.0 CPUFreq Ondemand .... MIN: 14.0 AVG: 16.8 MAX: 55.0