Intel Core i5 8600 processor (65W) review - Introduction

The 65W Core i5 8600 Tested
A Fresh cup of Coffee

Intel released a new six-core proc the Core i5 8600 (non-K model) through our benchmark paces. This $239 USD proc is again a six-core processor that you will need to seat on a Z370, H370 or B360 chipset based motherboard. While it isn't fitted with hyper-threading, it might, however, be one sweet gaming processor with its low 65W TDP, a 3.1 GHz base-clock and a turbo passing 4.1 GHz.

Let me once again start by stating that Intel has not been a part of this review whatsoever. As I have mentioned before and will keep mentioning, Intel is ignoring the bigger part of EU press. And as such we have not received a shred of information let alone a single processor for review. That means we use a processor supplied by the industry. This is a proper Core i5 8600 (ES) processor. But it would be SO GOOD, if anyone from Intel who reads this would take notice and step up, to solve this sad situation in EU for the Nordic region specific.

In this article we'll have a look at a new Core i5 8600 processor from Intel, the new 65W six-core part is based on Coffee Lake(S) architecture and is the direct answer and effect from what AMD has been pursuing aggressively in the desktop processor channel. With this first 'mainstream' step from Intel, we'll get 6-core processors. These will need to be paired with a new motherboard chipset and thus motherboard, the Z370 / H370 based ranges. As you probably have figured out, Intel still does not have a mainstream priced 8-core processor available. With the introduction of Ryzen and more recently the announcement of Threadripper processors the processor market and channel have been turned upside-down, and Intel is slowly waking up from its S3 deep-sleep state finally realizing that they cannot keep serving just quad-core processors in the mainstream, as they have been doing for subsequent years now. AMD gave Intel a serious awakening call and as such, they needed to step up, significantly. Intel’s primary processor business has been releasing and refreshing quad-core processors for many years combined with high-margin spicy priced E type (e.g. Broadwell-E / Haswell-E / Skylake-X) processor release every now and then. You can't really blame Intel either as there simply was no competition - hence they had no rush and have been relaxed all the way for years now. 

The new Intel Core i5-8600 6-Core 3.1GHz is a pretty spiffy CPU based on Intel's 8th Gen 14nm, Coffee Lake microarchitecture. It offers 6 physical cores (6 logical thus no SMT  slash Hyper-threading), initially clocked at 3.1GHz, which may go up to 4.3 GHz on a single core using Turbo Boost, or 4.0 GHz if all six cores are boosted. It doesn't have an unlocked multiplier, it can't be overclocked using traditional methods. It has 9MB of L3 Cache. This processor also supports DDR4 based RAMs with maximum memory support of 64GB. It has a maximum Thermal Power Design of 65W. Features include Intel Enhanced Speedstep, Turbo Boost 2.0 and Virtualization are activated. The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 is on board as well with a base frequency of 350MHz that can run towards up to 1GHz, including offering DirectX 12 support.

We have been able to borrow the new Core i5 8600 for this review. On the next few pages, I will take you guys a little deeper into the architecture and processor series that is Coffee lake.