Intel Core i7-8700K 6-Core 12-Thread Processor Review

Intel Core i7-8700K Both Intel and AMD have been locking horns over the last few months, something we haven't seen on a competitive level for years now. We've had Ryzen and Threadripper go head to head with Intel's previous/current gen, as well as their new X299 platform chips like the 18c 16t thread 7980XE. Now Intel is back again, this time with their Coffee Lake Z370 CPUs. These are what I would call mid-to-high-end consumer processors, unlike the more enthusiast and professionally focused X299 platform. We kick things off for today with the high-end Intel Core i7-7820X, one of the first mainstream Intel CPUs to now use 6 cores instead of their long-standing 4 core models. Not only that, but this CPU also offers up 12 threads. That puts it in line with the faster Ryzen 5 CPUs, but Intel typically have better per-core performance and higher clock speeds, so the Ryzen 7 series should be in for some fierce competition in terms of all-0out performance. Features Does Z370 offer much in the way of innovation? Not really, aside from some of the CPUs offering increased core counts, Z370 feels like a tribute album of songs we've already heard a dozen times. You can't use the previous generation CPUs either, despite the use of the same socket. Is it a bit of a pain in the arse? Yes, but for those upgrading from a few years old systems, there's no point looking at Z270 now, as what I would call Z270-v2 is here. Controversy of upgradability and hardware support aside, I'm here to check performance, and if that's up to scratch, almost all is forgiven. Just one more addition, Intel provided us with one of their lovely Optane Memory drives. This will be used on all our Intel Z370 CPU and motherboard reviews where there is compatability. Specifications Cores: 6 Threads: 12 Base Clock: 3.7 GHz Max Turbo: 4.7 GHz Cache: 12 MB Max Memory Size: 64 GB Memory Types: DDR4 2666 PCIe Lanes: 16 TDP: 95W Optane Ready: Yes Lithography: 14 nm Testing and Methodology Test Procedure Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to CPU reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Rember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there's always a margin for error when using the software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Each benchmark runs three times, and the average figure is taken to try to reduce the effect of hardware variation. Of course, any relevant details regarding the parameters will be listed below. Test Systems Z370 Motherboard - Gigabyte AORUS Ultra Gaming RAM - Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Quad-Channel 32GB + Optane CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X399 Motherboard – MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC RAM – Crucial Ballistix 32GB (4x8GB) 2400MHz CPU Cooler – CM Master Liquid 120mm (will be retested with Noctua D15S with dual fans in coming weeks) Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X299 Motherboard - Gigabyte AORUS Gaming 9 RAM - Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Quad-Channel 32GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit AM4 Ryzen R3, R5 and R7 Motherboard - MSI XPower Titanium X370 RAM - GeIL DDR4 2977MHz Dual Channel 16GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X99 - Our GPU Review Test Bench Motherboard – Asus Rampage V Extreme X99 RAM – Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Open Air Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 64-bit Games Used All games are tested at both 1920 x 1080 and 2160 x 3840 (4K) on a 60 Hz display with V-Sync off for all tests. Previously we would use "extreme" presets, but these have now been adjusted to "Medium" or equivalent to better test the capabilities of the CPU, not the GPU. Rise of the Tomb Raider (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Pure Hair Off Deus Ex (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Ghost Recon: Wildlands (Uplay) Medium Preset Turf Effects Off Far Cry Primal (Uplay) Normal Preset Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download) FireStrike (1080p) Benchmark Unigine Superposition (download) 1080p Extreme Benchmark PCMark 10 Professional (download) Express Benchmark WPrime (download) 32M and 1024M Power usage recorded at 1024M 50% complete, thermals recorded at 75% CineBench R15 (download) CPU Multi CPU Single Handbrake (download) Custom MP4 to MKV 4K conversion (details below) AIDA64 Engineer (download) CPU-Z (download) HWMonitor (download) Handbrake To stress processors to their absolute limit and accurately judge their performance in video editing workloads, we transcode a 7.7GB compilation of gaming footage; this particular file is freely available from here. The captured footage is 22 minutes and 12 seconds long, it has a bit rate of 50.1 Mbps and it uses the Advanced Video Codec. Additionally, the video runs at a constant 30 frames-per-second and opts for a 3820 x 2140 (4K) resolution. Once loaded into Handbrake, we then transcode the 4K MP4 to an MKV file using the "normal" profile. Other Notes A rest period of 2-5 minutes is observed between each piece of software allowing the system to return to its idle power usage and temperatures. Background services like Windows Update are checked to not be running during the testing period by setting WiFi to Metered Connection. Thanks Thank you to Noctua, Crucial, ASUS, Gigabyte, Lian-Li, be quiet!, OCZ, for providing the hardware that helps makes these tests possible! Synthetic Benchmarks 3DMark Firestrike Straight away, the new i7 is off to a flying start, delivering a score of 21760 in Firestrike. That's a nice upgrade over the last generation, and even beats out the X299 i7-7740X, which for the record performs identically to the popular Z270 based i7-7700K. Overclocking rocketed the score further, pushing it to our second highest ever score to date, with the i9 holding onto a strong lead. Stock Overclocked Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme This test is all about the GPU, and shows us how well the PCIe throughput performance of the CPU compares. There's barely a difference between anything here, but the 8700K managed a solid 5536 points stock and 5515 while overclocked. Stock Overclocked PCMark 10 Express For day to day system performance at home or in the office, that increased core count is bringing the good, delivering our 3rd fastest score by a nice margin over the 7820X. Overclocking kept it in the top three spots, virtually neck and neck with the 7740X and 8400. Stock Overclocked WPrime 32M and 1024M It's no surprise that the most expensive CPUs are fastest when it comes to WPrime, but for a consumer CPU, the 8700K put out a time that sits nicely between the Ryzen 1700 and the 1700X at stock, although both those Ryzen CPUs tipped into the lead a little while overclocked. Still a great time though, and right in the ballpark of what we expected for the specifications. Stock Overclocked Cinebench R15 i7's are well known for being better at video rendering tasks compared to the i5, and the i3 ranges. Of course, the 8700K doesn't slack in this task, with a nice score of 1418, although the Ryzen 7 series is still pulling ahead thanks to their 8-cores vs the Intel's 6-core design. Furthermore, overclocking did bring good improvements, but the overall order of the CPUs remained about the same. Stock Overclocked Handbrake MP4 to MKV Conversion 4K Again, the video transcoding performance is fantastic. It may look slow-ish, but we've been spoilt by £1000-2000 monster CPUs recently, the 8700K is still the fastest "consumer" CPU to date, and that's something! Stock Overclocked AIDA 64 Memory Bandwidth and Latency As we've come to expect from the Intel platform, memory support is superb, and the XMP profiles ticked off without a hitch. The Z370 platform delivered results where we expect for our chosen memory kit too, so no issues here. The biggest win, however, is that the latency is the lowest we've had since overhauling our test bench! Gaming Performance The mainline Intel i5 and i7 CPUs are a big hit for gamers. Of course, this is really what the Z370 platform is going to be most popular for too, and thankfully the 8700K delivered the goods in style. While overclocked, it set the highest FPS we've seen to date and was competitive at 4K too. It was one of the faster CPUs at 1080p in Rise of the Tomb Raider also, clocking 211.4 FPS while overclocked, and again it was competitive at 4K. Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a tough beast, but again, Intel dominated the 1080p performance at stock, and was in 3rd place just behind the 1800X while overclocked at 140.8 FPS, and gave us our second highest 4K score. Like a freak of nature, it set an insanely high benchmark for 1080p Far Cry Primal, and hammered that much further while overclocked. Finally, it also became one of the fastest for 4K Far Cry at 4K too. Any doubts about the new i7's gaming performance on Z370 are gone, this is a killer gaming CPU and by any measure. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided 1080p Stock 1080p Overclocked 2160p Stock 2160p Overclocked Rise of the Tomb Raider 1080p Stock 1080p Overclocked 2160p Stock 2160p Overclocked Ghost Recon: Wildlands 1080p Stock 1080p Overclocked 2160p Stock 2160p Overclocked Far Cry Primal 1080p Stock 1080p Overclocked 2160p Stock 2160p Overclocked Power Consumption and Temperatures Power Consumption The 8700K is a powerful hex-core CPU, so obviously it uses a fair bit of power. It actually used more power than any Ryzen 7, but again, it is turning that wattage into raw performance, so it's not like it's wasting it. Stock Overclocked Temperatures At 66c under full load, it's pretty easy to keep this CPU cool. It did freak out a bit at 5 GHz, but 90c is still manageable, and we expect a delidding will cure that classic Intel mistake of not soldering their CPUs. Stock Overclocked Final Thoughts Pricing The Intel Core i7-8700K 6 core 12 thread CPU is set to hit retail stores today, with an MSRP of around £350 here in the UK and $400 in the US. That's pretty fantastic value in my eyes, and while it's not cheap, it's one of the fastest desktop CPUs on the market today without looking at i9, Threadripper and other "extreme" or "professional" solutions. The Ryzen 7's are a strong alternative though, and a smidge cheaper, which is best is up to the consumer, but it's great to see some robust options for consumers. Overview Having spent the last few months testing X299 CPUs such as the insanely powerful and expensive i9's, as well as the AMD Threadripper CPUs, I really didn't know what to expect from the new i7's. There have been rumours kicking around that it would be quite close to the 7700K performance, but that's certainly not the case. This CPU takes any task you give it with ease, and that's great news for any system builder. Home or Office? As Zoidberg would say, "why not both". The i7-8700K is a jack of all trades. It's easily one of the fastest consumer level CPUs when it comes to WPrime, Cinebench, and other heavy lifting tasks such as 4K video rendering. That's great news for productivity at home or in the office. The strong PCMark 10 score further highlights this nicely. Of course, Skype calls, spreadsheets, and photoshop is far from all we do on our computers. And no, I don't just mean 30 Chrome tabs of dank memes. When it comes to gaming, it's certainly got the chops, and it set incredible scores all round. Of course, it's competitive at 4K, which is still a mostly GPU bound workload. However, when it comes to gaming at 1080P and 1440P, even more so at extreme frame rates well above 60 FPS, the 8700K is incredibly fast for the money. It even beat out some of the extreme £1000-2000 CPUs that are on the market today, and that's obviously impressive. Should I buy one? Well, that's opening up a can of worms, isn't it‽ When it comes to outright performance, it's a great option for any system builder right now. It shows that 6 cores is enough for most tasks, even more so thanks to the ability to easily overclock it to 5 GHz on air; something you simply cannot do with the Ryzen CPUs. If you're rocking a 7700K right now and looking at your wallet, put it away, that's my opinion. It would be a nice little upgrade, but with the requirements of needing a new motherboard, it's also a kick in the pants for any Intel fan. However, if you're still rocking Z170, X99, or older, this could be a tidy little upgrade for those looking to spark new life into their gaming and workflow. A few years old is a lifetime in the PC market, and Z370 is delivering serious bang for buck right now. Pros One of the fastest consumer CPUs to date 6 Core 12 Thread design Easily overclocks to 5 GHz on air Can break 5.2 GHz on enthusiast cooling Incredible 1080p gaming performance Competitive 4K gaming performance Powerful performance for productivity Cons Requires a new Z370 motherboard "Many may be on the fence with the whole Z370 motherboard upgrade, but if you're looking to build a new system right now, or upgrade one that's got a few years on the clock, the i7-8700K is a killer piece of hardware for any system builder."