Review: Intel Core i7 8700K processor

Thanks for the review, Hilbert, good as always.

I'm concerned about this. I'd still go for a Ryzen CPU - better perf at lower cost. There has been no improvement in performance (IPC) from intel, and having to get a new mobo with this to boot is blatant profiteering. They're STILL nerfing performance by using inferior TIM rather than solder, which is going to kill overclocking. I'm waiting on AMD for their new APUs, really interested to see what Raven Ridge can bring to the table.

 

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

 

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

 

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.)

 

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.

 

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

 

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

 

Better than Ryzen in every way.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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).

 

"* Overall performance-per-<your currency> (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.

 

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"

 

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".

 

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.

 

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...

 

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.

 

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