Core i7-8700K Review: Coffee Lake Brews A Great Gaming CPU

[rwinches]

The Intel prices here are per 1000 so no way will you pay $360 for i7-8700K. That makes cost per core/thread of little value especially with AMD retail prices often lower.

 

[AndrewJacksonZA]

Chipzilla ! :lol:

Unless you're living off a big trust fund or have incredibly low self esteem in need of epeen, 'general computing and gaming' works just dandy on a Kaby i5 or Ryzen 5 --- either with great combos between $300-$400.

And stay away from overhead power lines ...

I disagree with you fairly consistently a lot of the time - however you nailed it completely with that comment & then posted one of the most under rated songs of the 20th century - For that you get my gratitiude & a upvote [:madmatt30:1]

This is the Internet - why are you displaying character and integrity? 🙂

 

[vinay2070]

I want to see an 8600K @4.9 GHz performance in gaming along with 8700K @4.9.

 

[kogashuko]

Again please stop testing games like BF1 that supports directx 12 in directx 11 mode. Directx 11 has very low support for extra cores beyond 4. No one that plays BF1 will run it in DX11 mode if they are within their right mind. Sorry mantle didnt make it but it is time to stop complaining about it and step into the present day.

 

[madmatt30]

@kinggremlin

I do absolutely dislike Intel as an entity & for their business ethics over the last 10 years - absolutely no argument at all.

I don't dislike their products though ,I own a laptop , htpc & tablet all running Intel hardware.

I'm about bang for buck 100%.

Didn't say I wasn't impressed by the performance of the 8700k , just totally unsurprised seeing as its essentially a 7700k x 1.5 .

Its just not a CPU for the masses at that pricepoint & it needs expensive cooling.

Other benchmarks have seen it touch 90c at 4.9ghz on midrange 240mm aio's.

The locked i5 8400 impressed me far far more , its pricepoint is absolutely spot on , I can see it taking back a big market share from amd's ryzen 1500x & 1600s.

Once more affordable boards become available I see myself recommending it time & time again over ryzen for mid range gaming builds.

At the minute though a ryzen 1600 + b350 is some $50-60 cheaper than an 8400 & the cheapest available board.

For someone on a set budget running a sub 75htz screen that's the difference between a 1050ti & 1060 3gb or a 1060 3gb & a 6gb model.

 

[theyeti87]

Bah! It's barely faster than my 920.

There hasn't been any major breakthroughs in per-thread IPC since the original Core i-series, which means not much gain beyond the clock frequency bumps unless the software is leveraging the extra threads. That's why plenty of people who aren't obsessed with benchmarks and FPS games are still quite happy with their Sandy/Ivy computers too.

Precisely why I am still happy with my i7-950 clocked to 4Ghz, running on the X58 platform. Built big in 2010 and haven't needed to replace the cpu/motherboard.

That being said, with the launch of Coffee Lake, I am really keeping an eye on Ryzen prices as a potential upgrade.

 

[InvalidError]

Didn't say I wasn't impressed by the performance of the 8700k , just totally unsurprised seeing as its essentially a 7700k x 1.5 .

Intel is pretty close to maxed out on what per-thread IPC can be extracted from typical software, which means we are never going to see any game-changing IPC gains ever again and every future chip will scale by little more than core count and incremental clocks. The days of massive performance increases every year or two that lasted until ~2010 are dead and buried.

A large chunk of the Core i-series' IPC gain came from integrating the memory controller which cut memory access latency from 100+ns to ~60ns. That's an optimization that can only happen once and that was Intel's last major (a massive ~60%) IPC leap. Everything since has been 3-7% generation to generation.

 

[YoAndy]

The new Gaming King has arrived. This competition between Intel and AMD is great.

 

[ingtar33]

The new Gaming King has arrived. This competition between Intel and AMD is great.

it's a paper launch with pretty much zero availability. even Intel itself says not to really expect much or any availability before Q1. Remember Broadwell? was there EVER any availability for Broadwell? This is going to be the same thing. They did this because AMD sold more chips then Intel last month, and to Intel that's insufferable. So they're trying to make people who are thinking about getting a new cpu, to pump the breaks and WAIT. until Ice Lake comes out.

 

[jimmysmitty]

From all the reviews I've check out it looks like the i5-8600k performs great in games. Most games are in 1~3 FPS and may be more deserving of the best gaming CPU. Is Intel facing game developer thread limits or optimization on the i7?

When Xbox Scorpio games start rolling , things will change alot.

Remember it is an 8 cores CPU console and most games will be ported from it to PC. more Games will take advantage of 8 threads soon within 1 year .

Nope. Optimization for the Xbox does not equate to PC. Never will thanks to a distinctive hardware design and kernel/OS design. Although the Xbox uses the Windows 10 kernel, it has a customized GUI and API layer that PC does not have.

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

Again please stop testing games like BF1 that supports directx 12 in directx 11 mode. Directx 11 has very low support for extra cores beyond 4. No one that plays BF1 will run it in DX11 mode if they are within their right mind. Sorry mantle didnt make it but it is time to stop complaining about it and step into the present day.

Since it was released BF1 always ran considerably better in DX11 with Nvidia GPUs. Maybe it has changed with updates?

 

[YoAndy]

Again please stop testing games like BF1 that supports directx 12 in directx 11 mode. Directx 11 has very low support for extra cores beyond 4. No one that plays BF1 will run it in DX11 mode if they are within their right mind. Sorry mantle didnt make it but it is time to stop complaining about it and step into the present day.

Since it was released BF1 always ran considerably better in DX11 with Nvidia GPUs. Maybe it has changed with updates?

That's correct he has no idea what he is talking about some games still run better with DX11.

 

[JCFca1992]

Can you benchmark a couple of games that are GPU bottleneck at lower graphic settings? Especially BF1 MP 64 players matches, even though in the MP there will be variance, it would still be very useful to compare between 4 core and six core processors in that game.

Agreed. Currently on a 6600k that seems to bottleneck on 64 player BF1 matches. Would love to see how the 8700k stacks up.

Too bad there isn't some way to consistently benchmark online MP

 

[3ogdy]

"Of course, while Intel's accelerated Coffee Lake-S launch makes it look today's unveiling is a direct response to heated competition, in reality, the long incubation period for new processors means it’s more likely the result of 10nm manufacturing delays. "


This IS a direct response to Ryzen. Design had been in development for a while, sure. But Intel threatening its own sales and releasing this much earlier than expected is exactly what everyone else think this is: a response to Ryzen, no matter how Intel's marketing team tells people to talk about these things. Also, the price is certainly lower than what Intel charged for such a CPU (best for gaming)...are we blind or what? Yes, Intel flexing its muscle to get competitive against AMD. Winner: us. If it wasn't for AMD, Intel would have relesed a refresh with another .3% improvement "for a whole generation".

"Ummm... Yeah, the design may have been kicking around, and ready to go before Ryzen, but when it is released months earlier than scheduled.... Saying that it wasn't a response to Ryzen seems more like misinformation more than pure fact. Yeah, I don't doubt 10nm manufacturing delays played a part in the previous release date, but Ryzen forced its release a little earlier than planned."

It IS misinformation.

 

[InvalidError]

[/b]Yeah, I don't doubt 10nm manufacturing delays played a part in the previous release date, but Ryzen forced its release a little earlier than planned."

It IS misinformation.

Were it not for 10nm delays (and 14nm delays before that), we would have had Cannon Lake a year ago, neither Kaby Lake nor Coffee Lake would have ever existed and AMD would have been possibly totally screwed because Ryzen as it is today would have been inconsequential.

Without Intel's 14nm and 10nm manufacturing hiccups, things would have turned out drastically different.

 

[Thom457]

I have and like MSI MBs but they might want to rethink this approach. Charging twice what you can actually use out of the laden feature set isn't going to win sales awards.

 

[dahliastudios82]

Simplicity is God
1700x officestress,ok gaming
Coffee? The extra push in games
Thats nailing it bro

 

[samer.forums]

From all the reviews I've check out it looks like the i5-8600k performs great in games. Most games are in 1~3 FPS and may be more deserving of the best gaming CPU. Is Intel facing game developer thread limits or optimization on the i7?

When Xbox Scorpio games start rolling , things will change alot.

Remember it is an 8 cores CPU console and most games will be ported from it to PC. more Games will take advantage of 8 threads soon within 1 year .

Nope. Optimization for the Xbox does not equate to PC. Never will thanks to a distinctive hardware design and kernel/OS design. Although the Xbox uses the Windows 10 kernel, it has a customized GUI and API layer that PC does not have.

Does not change the fact that most of the games will be ported from Xbox Scorpio. I was talking about using more threads which is common in both PC and console. the software layers that makes the PC slower has nothing to do with using 8 cores (or 8 threads) .. so the i5 as the best Gaming CPU will be history soon IMO.

 

[InvalidError]

Does not change the fact that most of the games will be ported from Xbox Scorpio. I was talking about using more threads which is common in both PC and console. the software layers that makes the PC slower has nothing to do with using 8 cores (or 8 threads) .. so the i5 as the best Gaming CPU will be history soon IMO.

The XBOne and PS4 are already eight-cores machines and that has had very little impact on PC ports so far. Scorpio having only ~30% more processing power isn't magically going to change that overnight - that's still going to be significantly slower than an i5-7600 and no competition for an i5-8400.

 

[samer.forums]

Bah! It's barely faster than my 920.

It is not about your 920 alone ...

you dont have USB3 , you dont have Sata3 and you dont have bootable NVME , you dont even have Trim support for your SSD , and your ports are old DMI which means very very low bandwidth for modern SSD ...

 

[samer.forums]

Does not change the fact that most of the games will be ported from Xbox Scorpio. I was talking about using more threads which is common in both PC and console. the software layers that makes the PC slower has nothing to do with using 8 cores (or 8 threads) .. so the i5 as the best Gaming CPU will be history soon IMO.

The XBOne and PS4 are already eight-cores machines and that has had very little impact on PC ports so far. Scorpio having only ~30% more processing power isn't magically going to change that overnight - that's still going to be significantly slower than an i5-7600 and no competition for an i5-8400.

True but they lacked the powerful GPU that can make good use of the more powerful CPU. The scorpio GPU is 3.5 times faster than Xbox one GPU ...

Scorpio has the potential to bottleneck the 8 cores with 6 terafplos GPU. 8 threads games are coming and I am really happy about it (about time)

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

Bah! It's barely faster than my 920.

It is not about your 920 alone ...

you dont have USB3 , you dont have Sata3 and you dont have bootable NVME , you dont even have Trim support for your SSD , and your ports are old DMI which means very very low bandwidth for modern SSD ...

I think he was being sarcastic.. But anyway, you are correct.

 

[randomizer]

It is not about your 920 alone ...

you dont have USB3 , you dont have Sata3 and you dont have bootable NVME , you dont even have Trim support for your SSD , and your ports are old DMI which means very very low bandwidth for modern SSD ...

As noted by the poster above, I was being sarcastic.

Nevertheless, it's true that I'm missing a fair few modern features, but not all of them matter much. I don't have any USB 3 or NVMe devices, and I don't tend to move much data so the limitations of first gen DMI and SATA 2 don't impact me significantly. As for TRIM, I think that limitation is only on RAID, which I'm not using either. If not, then I've been running SSDs without TRIM since 2009. It's not a crisis.

 

[samer.forums]

It is not about your 920 alone ...

you dont have USB3 , you dont have Sata3 and you dont have bootable NVME , you dont even have Trim support for your SSD , and your ports are old DMI which means very very low bandwidth for modern SSD ...

As noted by the poster above, I was being sarcastic.

Nevertheless, it's true that I'm missing a fair few modern features, but not all of them matter much. I don't have any USB 3 or NVMe devices, and I don't tend to move much data so the limitations of first gen DMI and SATA 2 don't impact me significantly. As for TRIM, I think that limitation is only on RAID, which I'm not using either. If not, then I've been running SSDs without TRIM since 2009. It's not a crisis.

well at least you can still run Windows XP on your system .. My favorite windows OS. You will still need a Titan or GTX 780 ti to run on Win XP , the last GPUs with win XP drivers.

 

[InvalidError]

Nevertheless, it's true that I'm missing a fair few modern features, but not all of them matter much. I don't have any USB 3 or NVMe devices, and I don't tend to move much data so the limitations of first gen DMI and SATA 2 don't impact me significantly.

THG is heavily biased on the enthusiast end of the spectrum which heavily over-emphasizes every little detail. Most of these things are nice to have but not deal-breakers for most people's everyday life. Many enthusiasts want everything including the kitchen sink even if they never do the dishes.