Intel
Intel Core i7-5930K
The middle Haswell-E part: the same 6C/12T silicon as the i7-5820K but with all 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes enabled and 200 MHz more clock, which was the entire justification for the ~$200 premium. Only makes sense today if the lane count is what you actually need from an X99 build.
Pros
- Full 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes from the CPU — genuine x16/x16 dual-GPU, or several NVMe and HBA cards at once
- 6C/12T and fully unlocked; around 4.4 GHz all-core with good cooling
- Highest stock clocks in the Haswell-E line at 3.5 GHz base / 3.7 GHz turbo
- Quad-channel DDR4 and 15 MB L3 for bandwidth-hungry content work
- Drops into any X99 board and reuses LGA2011-v3 coolers
Cons
- Roughly 50% more expensive than the i7-5820K at launch for only a few percent more CPU performance
- 140 W with no bundled cooler, and it runs hot once overclocked
- Six Haswell cores at 3.7 GHz are slower per thread than modern budget CPUs
- Official DDR4-2133 support and a 64 GB memory ceiling
Below average
Computed from specs & benchmarks via our public methodology.
Full specifications
Everything we track for the Intel Core i7-5930K
General
- Announced
- 2014
- Socket
- LGA2011-v3
- Process
- 22 nm
- Base TDP
- 140 W
- Unlocked multiplier
- Yes
- Cooler included
- No
Cores & Clocks
- Cores
- 6
- Performance cores
- 6
- Efficiency cores
- 0
- Threads
- 12
- Base clock
- 3.5 GHz
- Boost clock
- 3.7 GHz
- L2 cache
- 2 MB
- L3 cache
- 15 MB
Memory
- Memory support
- DDR4-2133
- Max memory
- 64 GB
- Memory channels
- 4
Platform
- PCIe version
- 3
- CPU PCIe lanes
- 40
Benchmarks
- Geekbench 6 (single)
- 1,050
- Geekbench 6 (multi)
- 5,050
- Cinebench R23 (single)
- 920
- Cinebench R23 (multi)
- 6,800
- PassMark
- 13,300
Quick answers
Is the Intel Core i7-5930K good in 2026?
The Intel Core i7-5930K earns an Inno Score of 29.6/100 (“Below average”) based on its specs and benchmark results. The middle Haswell-E part: the same 6C/12T silicon as the i7-5820K but with all 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes enabled and 200 MHz more clock, which was the entire justification for the ~$200 premium. Only makes sense today if the lane count is what you actually need from an X99 build.
What are the key specs of the Intel Core i7-5930K?
Cores: 6 · Threads: 12 · Boost clock: 3.7 GHz · Socket: LGA2011-v3
What are the closest alternatives to the Intel Core i7-5930K?
Its closest rivals on InnoReviews are Intel Core i7-7700K, Intel Core i7-5820K, Intel Core i5-8400 — open the comparison pages for a spec-by-spec breakdown.