Intel Core i7 8700K processor review

MaCk0y

2017-10-05 16:36

Hilbert Hagedoorn:

Wow - I just checked here in the EU a bit, does anybody see the procs released today listed as available / in stock?

It's listed as 'Announced for approx. end of October' on computeruniverse.net with a price tag of €400.

#5478757

Agent-A01

2017-10-05 16:40

Looks like a pretty good CPU overall. Too bad it's lacking lanes, 16 is too little. They could have upped it to 24 at least, oh well. Nice to see an easy 5ghz again. Great review HH

#5478765

JonasBeckman

2017-10-05 16:55

If it's 16x lanes doesn't that mean a single GPU (PCI-E 3.0 x16) takes all of them? Thus no room for additional devices? (At least not without contesting for lanes I guess, NVME M.2 SSD's probably being the most affected I suppose if the motherboard supports these.)

#5478771

Solfaur

2017-10-05 16:59

I have to admit, if there's something I'm jealous about with covfefe lake, then that's the OCablity of the 6-core. I mean, compared to my 5820K where I can barely go above 4.4-4.5, having a 5.0-5.3 GHz clock, not to mention the higher performance per core... 😱 Prices will go down... eventually. No wonder though that Intel wanted this badboy out asap for reviewers though.

#5478772

Loophole35

2017-10-05 16:59

JonasBeckman:

If it's 16x lanes doesn't that mean a single GPU (PCI-E 3.0 x16) takes all of them? Thus no room for additional devices? (At least not without contesting for lanes I guess, NVME M.2 SSD's probably being the most affected I suppose if the motherboard supports these.)

Like with previous CPU's the link to the chipset is comprised of 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes

#5478773

vbetts

Moderator

2017-10-05 17:00

Not a bad processor at all. I'm pretty curious about the i3's performance now!

#5478774

Darkiee

2017-10-05 17:00

Ugh... Well, life is hard sometimes, and i wanted to upgrade to Ryzen a long time ago, but wasn´t able. But what Intel provides, and with that price, i don´t have need for it. Surely, video editor´s gains a good increase in speed, if they want´t it. But for me, i´ll just try to save cash for Ryzen, or just wait for Ryzen 2 series, since my 2600k is still working for all i personally need. Thank you, again Hilbert, for the review. +1

#5478777

krakenxt

2017-10-05 17:03

Better than Ryzen in every way.

#5478780

Darkiee

2017-10-05 17:05

cryohellinc:

Looking at 1440p results - " One Zen+ Please. Thank you Sir. " http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/603/810/f57.jpg

I have to quote this, since, i personally don´t care about HD fps, i play atleast WQHD, or depending on game, full 4K. To me, the colors from HD -> WQHD is so much better. So, even on this case, Ryzen wins for me.

#5478782

Jagman

2017-10-05 17:06

Yep, great review HH So in summary - great CPU but to expensive in relation to almost any Ryzen BTW Ebuyer UK are currently selling the 1600X for £189 !! A cheap B350 can be had for easily less than £80 then add say 16GB DDR4 3200 RAM if required and you'll have spent about £400 ish.

#5478784

tunejunky

2017-10-05 17:08

another great review HH. Intel needed the 8700k badly and got a good proc in the traditional $300-400 range. while the Intel is still relatively expensive, this will calm agitated gamers and overclockers with that 5mHz target. as HH noted, the ryzen R5 is where most people should go but kudos to Intel for waking up and smelling the coffee (lake).

#5478786

Silva

2017-10-05 17:13

schmidtbag:

I disagree. The best ways to directly compare CPUs can be any of the following: * Overall performance-per-watt * Overall performance-per- (which is seen in the article) * Specifically single-threaded and multi-threaded variations of the first 2 Note this is when just comparing two CPUs; this isn't how you determine whether a CPU is the best fit for a job or the best value. Knowing Hilbert, he doesn't judge products based on price, but their overall capability, which is perfectly fine. He does point out value, but he doesn't seem to prioritize that for his final judgment - he's strictly interested in telling us what the best is, regardless of price. In other words, he caters to the interests of enthusiasts (who tend to buy things regardless of price, and are the main demographic of this site). Measuring based on strictly numbers like core/thread count or frequency are unreliable and alone don't mean very much, as products like Bulldozer or Pentium 4 have proven. Since Ryzen's IPC is so similar to Coffee Lake, the huge frequency difference alone in the 8700K vs the 1600X doesn't make them directly comparable. If the 1600X could reach the same speeds as the 8700K, it would be a better comparison, but the price difference would still be an issue. I'm not upset that the 1600X was the main comparison, because it was still very interesting to look at. I'm just saying the 1700X makes for a more accurate comparison. It's not really a big deal to me. I'm merely posting this for clarification.

"* Overall performance-per- (which is seen in the article)" I don't understand this sentence. The article compared a 405.9€ CPU to a 259.95€ one and you think it's fair? Obviously it's comparing number of cores with SMT/HT enabled, it's an unbiased way of reviewing products in my opinion witch is a great journalism practice. The review focused on performance and didn't dig deeper on what's more logic to buy price/performance, this way keeping an unbiased opinion about the products. I'd say it's a bit hard to chose a side now (Intel/AMD) as the gap is tight now: Intel is obviously faster for gaming but productivity wise it catch up, keeping a "reasonable" price. I predict 2018 will be better than 2017, if AMD keeps putting refreshes out steadily now.

#5478792

kruno

2017-10-05 17:26

geogan:

Second. Will reserve my final thoughts after reading! Negatives: Only 16 PCIe lanes - miserly Dual channel DDR4 No USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) on chip Integrated graphics - waste of die space that could be used for more useful things (like more PCIe lanes or USB3.1) THAT INTEL ONLY GIVES A crap SINCE COMPETITION FROM THREADRIPPER APPEARED (corporate consolidation?) Positives: Price (compared to the i9 series) 10x USB 3.1 Gen1 (5 Gbps) through the chipset So CPU has 16 lanes and Z370 chipset has "up to 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes". So does that mean a typical Z370 board will have 40 lanes available or not? Typos in this sentence: "The Core i7 8700K with six-cores and one thread will cost €389,- / 359 USD the 8600K with six cores and threads €273 / 257 USD." Still reading!...

CPU->GPU 1x16,CPU->PCH(chipset) 1x4,and then chipset has x24 PCIE lanes,but you are bottlenecked just 1x4 to the chipset. Edit: Sorry didn't noticed that "still reading" 🙂

#5478793

TieSKey

2017-10-05 17:27

Nice review as always HH. Personally, I wound not emphasize the nice temps when using water cooling though (even if an AIO) . As a side note, I think it would be nice to have a "full system" comparison once in a while (u did some buyer's guide back in the day iirc) as it is really easy to get lost on the performance per $ and fps per $ metrics when comparing only single hardware pieces with the rest of the system "maxed out".

#5478795

TLD LARS

2017-10-05 17:29

Silva:

First! Lets read XD EDIT: Looks like the iGPU doesn't suck as mush as before, at least is finally competing with AMD APU line dedicated for what it is. Now let's see how the Zen+Vega APU will change this picture. As single thread performer, nothing changed and that's a great sign: more cores didn't mean loss in performance. As a multi-threaded performer it's a bit low from what I expected, but still a solid performer for what it is: what Intel should have launched 2 years ago. I think the majority of gamers will be inclined to the i5 because of the price point, that will be interesting to compare to the R5 1600(x). Finally Intel moved it's ass, thanks to AMD. Let's hope AMD doesn't sleep 6 more years because this is a great CPU for who have been waiting with their i5/7 2500/2600/2700!

It still sucks when it is worse then a 65W TDP AMD A10 APU from 2014. (on sale for less then 100$) It is very close to the 7700k iGPU and NotebookCheck rates it as only able to play games like Overwatch, Rocket league, Fifa, World of Warcraft and Farming simulator at 720P League og Legends and Dota 2 should be ok at 1080P.

#5478800

waltc3

2017-10-05 17:36

Biggest reason to go Zen, aside from all of the normal ones, is upcoming socket compatibility with Zen +, Zen 2, and possibly even beyond as AMD plans far ahead with its socket designs; PCI lanes, etc. Intel: knee-jerk reaction to AMD that is too little, too late, and far overpriced--pricing tiers and 0 availability must mean very poor yields. Looks like the review samples were all cherry picked and premature. Ugh. Really, Intel has nothing to offer anyone who actually cares about these things. IMHO--of course...Competition is good, but so far Intel hasn't provided any...

#5478805

Hilbert Hagedoorn

Administrator

2017-10-05 17:49

TieSKey:

Nice review as always HH. Personally, I wound not emphasize the nice temps when using water cooling though (even if an AIO) . As a side note, I think it would be nice to have a "full system" comparison once in a while (u did some buyer's guide back in the day iirc) as it is really easy to get lost on the performance per $ and fps per $ metrics when comparing only single hardware pieces with the rest of the system "maxed out".

Yeah I was actually planning that however prices have been unknown up-to today for the mobos. On the liquid cooling temps, it's a LCS which offers pretty much the same temps as a good (Noctua or something similar) heatpipe cooler. But sure, you gain a bit more capacity on LCS.

#5478806

H83

2017-10-05 17:54

So i´ve just read the review and noticed that in gaming there´s basically no difference between the 8700K and the 7700K... No to mention the 7600K is "only" 10% slower in one or two games... So what are the 2 extra cores and 4Mb of L3 cache doing??? Also the MT performance is a little disappointing because is not much faster then the R5 1600X. Quite frankly i´m disappointed with this CPU if it "only" offers this kind of performance... But at least it means my 7600K is going to continue to be good for gaming for the next couple of years. Just one questions that i already asked before: is there any physical change in the CPU or socket that requires a new MB for 8700K os this is just Intel trying to milk some even more their customers??? Great review as always! P.S. Hilbert just a quick "remark", please avoid writing on a review that somethings feels or looks better because that´s extremely subjective and it´s open to different interpretations that can cause confusion or worse... Just a suggestion.

#5478807

krakenxt

2017-10-05 17:55

Looks like AMD has no answer to this. The i5 is the better buy with that kind of performance.

#5478810

Loophole35

2017-10-05 18:01

H83:

Just one questions that i already asked before: is there any physical change in the CPU or socket that requires a new MB for 8700K os this is just Intel trying to milk some even more their customers???

Socket pinout is different. Another site actually posted the pinouts of 270 and 370.