Some times I look at CPU benchmarks trying to understand how fast all the new hardware is. My understanding is that benchmarks try to plot the marks in a linear way so regular Joe understands what speed to expect (say how fast will apps compile).

Say I have i7-3770k and I am looking at comparing it to i7-6700k. Another assumption is that actual TDP is required to get all the sweet computing power.

Thermal Design Power (TDP) represents the average power, in watts, the processor dissipates when operating at Base Frequency with all cores active under an Intel-defined, high-complexity workload.

So let’s add all that to a table…

So what does that mean? The three years newer CPU has 7% worse CPU Mark per watt efficiency… Or not… Maybe there’s already TDP taken into account in the CPU Mark… Or maybe it’s not that exactly linear. I bet/hope the new CPU will compile programs faster but I just have no idea how.

Result: Do not trust values without units of measurement.