Intel Coffee Lake (8th & 9th Gen Core CPUs) + Skylake-X Refresh & W-3175X MegaThread! FAQ and Resources

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Intel 8th Gen Core ‘Coffee Lake-S’ Review Roundup
Published: 3 hours ago
Intel’s Coffee is ready

Seven months after Ryzen’s domination in multi-core mainstream market Intel finally has a response. It is rushed, so the availability might be a problem. Intel finally understood that quad-core CPUs out of interest of gamers who also like to stream or create their own content.

The 6-core family products spans across Core i7 and Core i5 series. For the first time Intel has a mainstream processor with 6 cores and for the first time, Intel has a 6-core CPU under 200 USD (i5-8400). This is a serious move from Intel, the competition in multi-core market has just begun.

Intel Coffeelake-S CPUs will only support 300 series motherboards. This means that an upgrade from Skylake or Kabylake will much more expensive. Unlike AMD, Intel did not officially confirm whether upgraded LGA1151 socket will support future CPUs, so this is something to consider before buying a new motherboard.

The new 6-core family is also likely to affect the sales of 7th Gen Core-X CPUs, especially the i7-7800X. The Coffelake-S has much better overclocking potential, it is cheaper and has lower TDP. Unless you need more PCIe lanes, the 8700K will definitely be a better choice.
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Not a big deal though, Skylake/Kabylake IPC was great anyway, more cores was what was needed on the mainstream platform.
 
Intel Core i7-8700K Review: The New Gaming King
By Steven Walton on October 5, 2017
It's long so I will add spoiler tags as requested sorry!
It's been almost eleven years since Intel released its first quad-core desktop CPU, the glued-together Core 2 Quad Q6600, and what a glorious processor it was. The 65nm quad-core chip operated at 2.4 GHz, but back then boost clocks weren't a thing and CPUs operated on a front side bus.
Since then we've seen eight major architectural updates and four die shrinks spanning a decade. Yet after all that time, Intel still only offers up to four cores on its mainstream processors, the latest of which was released in January as the $340 Kaby Lake Core i7-7700K.
Shortly after that, AMD did something we all hoped they'd do (even if we weren't convinced they could) by releasing a highly competitive CPU architecture. Ryzen certainly disrupted Intel's 'business as usual' type of attitude in the PC market and it’s been fireworks ever since.
AMD hit Intel the hardest by offering more cores for less money, which was kind of the strategy with Bulldozer, but this time the cores didn't completely suck. IPC performance is slightly below Intel's latest and greatest but Ryzen's efficiency is excellent, so AMD isn't giving anything up here. The biggest advantage Intel has right now is its superior clock speeds and this is something AMD hopes to address next year.
Before AMD can do that, Intel is hitting back with its eighth-generation Core series, which counters Ryzen with cores, lots of cores. Although Ryzen 7 will still have a core count advantage, Intel is now making six cores the standard for their higher-end parts. The new Core i5 and Core i7 processors now pack six cores and that's going to have a considerable impact.
On hand today we have a flagship part, the Core i7-8700K, which is based on Intel's new "Coffee Lake" architecture. We also have the Core i5-8400, but we'll be looking at that CPU separately in the coming days. We do not have the Core i5-8600K yet, but the plan is to get one of those shortly, too. For now, let's focus on the big guy and with six cores and 12 threads, the 8700K certainly means business.
Designed to operate no slower than 3.7 GHz, it will boost a single core as high as 4.7 GHz, and under full load should maintain an operating frequency of 4.3 GHz. Each of the six-core processors features a 256KB L2 cache while there is a much larger 12MB L3 cache. Intel has given the chip a 95 watt TDP rating and once again they are using the LGA 1151 socket, though this can be considered a second version that is in no way compatible with previous Kaby Lake or Skylake CPUs.
Pricing has been adjusted from the 7700K as the 8700K, a $20 price hike which comes in at a rather steep $360.
That also makes the 8700K $60 more expensive than AMD's Ryzen 7 1700, the company's cheapest and unlocked Ryzen 7 part. The 1700X is also priced at $360, but smart shoppers will opt for the cheaper non-X model and I've had just as much luck overclocking both to 4 GHz.
Unlike the high-end desktop Skylake-X parts on the LGA 2066 platform, the new Coffee Lake CPUs still use the ring bus and not the mesh inter-connect method of the higher core count parts. This is great news and it means the 8700K will maintain the 7700K's gaming prowess and should in fact be able to take things to the next level in this category. So without wasting any more time, let's see how this thing handles...
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System Specifications, Benchmark: Memory, and Application Performance
tlD7Rq4.png

First up let’s check out the memory bandwidth performance. These DDR4 dual-channel memory controllers look to be good for around 31-39GB/s of memory bandwidth when using 3200 memory. Please note all configurations were tested with the same DDR4-3200 CL4 memory.
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Memory.png

First up, let's check out the memory bandwidth performance. Please note all CPUs were tested using DDR4-3200 CL14 memory. That in mind, it's interesting to note that the Core i7-8700K takes a step forward here from the 7700K and is now on par with the Ryzen 5 CPUs with around 36GB/s of memory bandwidth. That said, it's still trailing the Ryzen 7 models by around 2GB/s.
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Cinebench.png

Okay so let's check out the Cinebench R15 scores. As luck would have it, after a three run average the 8700K matched the R7 1700 with a multi-threaded score of 1423 pts. That did mean it was 13% slower than the 1800X, but still an impressive result all the same.
Actually, what was impressive is its single core score and this explains how a six-core Intel CPU kept pace with an eight-core AMD CPU. The 8700K provides the same 195 point single thread score as the 7700K and by extension the 7740X. So the 8700K is looking pretty solid all round, it also completely dusts the Core i7-7800X as well so our condolences if you bought one of those recently.
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PCMark.png

Moving on we have PCMark 10 and this gives us a look at how the CPUs compare in more general use case scenarios. Core count isn't that important for the most part, it's really all about frequency. For this reason the Core i7-8700K does extremely well, outscoring the 7700K by a 5% margin.
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Excel.png

Excel is an office type benchmark which can utilize many threads, especially when running the extreme Monte Carlo simulation. The 8700K finds itself situated between the Ryzen 7 1700 and 1800X with a completion time of 2.55 seconds. This also makes it around 13% faster than Intel's six-core 7800X.
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VeraCrypt.png

Testing with VeraCrypt we see that this time the 8700K trails the Ryzen 7 1700 though it is still around 10% faster than the Core i7-7800X and 14% faster than AMD's 6-core R5 1600.
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7-zip.png

Next up we have non-encrypted compression and decompression performance using 7-Zip. The Core i7-8700K was able to out perform the Ryzen 7 1700 by a decent margin when compressing data while it was only a fraction slower when decompressing. The 8700K also edged out the 7800X for the compression test as well.
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Encoding and Rendering Performance
HandBrake.png

Handbrake is a popular application for encoding video and we've used it to convert a 4K H.264 video to 1080p using H.265 and recorded the average frame rate. Here the Ryzen 5 1700 spat out 11 fps on average while the 1800X managed 12.6 fps. Not bad but the new Core i7-8700K went complete beast mode with 13.8 fps making it 10% faster than the 1800X and 11% faster than the 7800X.
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Premiere.png

Next up we have Premiere and we know this application likes cores, but it also loves clock speed. The new Core i7-8700K completed the encode in 195 seconds which is just a few seconds slower than the Ryzen 7 1800X.
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Blender1.png

Moving on to the rendering tests we have Blender and first we're running the Ryzen Graphic 27 test. Again the 8700K finds itself in a Ryzen 7 sandwich with a completion time of 25.8 seconds. That made it almost 40% faster than the Core i7-7700K and Ryzen 5 1600 in this test.
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Blender2.png

The Gooseberry workload paints somewhat of a different picture. In this extreme benchmark the 8700K is able to pull ahead of the Ryzen 7 1800X and is now 14% faster and 8% faster than the 7800X.
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Corona.png

Corona comes as a standalone benchmark. It renders a fixed scene six times and we take the time it takes to complete the task. This time the 8700K is closer to the R7 1700 than it is the 1800X but even so a render time of just 142 seconds for the six-core CPU is mighty impressive.
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POVray.png

POV-Ray is another ray-tracer, it's been around for many years and we're using the official benchmark. Again, the 8700K is closer to the R7 1700X than it is the 1800X, but even so it's a good bit faster than the now redundant 7800X.
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Gaming Performance
BF1-1.png

Time for a few quick gaming benchmarks before we look at power consumption and temperatures. Here we tested Battlefield 1 using the DX12 API with the ultra quality preset enabled. All the games have been tested using the GTX 1080 Ti and Vega 64 GPUs.
Even with a GTX 1080 Ti at 1080p, we are GPU limited in Battlefield 1 using the ultra quality settings. For that reason the 8700K is limited to the same 157 fps as the 7700K. The Ryzen CPUs mean while look quite slow despite delivering well over 100 fps at all times. There can be an issue with the Ryzen CPUs when using an Nvidia GPU in DirectX 12 titles so let's check out the Vega 64 results.
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BF1-2.png

Although we are even more GPU bound with the slower Vega 64 GPU what's key to note here is that while the 8700K and 7700K frame rates are slightly reduced the Ryzen CPUs see a rather significant boost in frame rate. They are of course still slower than the Intel CPUs but the margin is reduced. We'll take a look at this again in a moment while trying to remove the GPU bottleneck.
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Ashes-1.png

Next up we have Ashes of the Singularity and here the Core i7-8700K really shows that it can do as it roughly matches the Core i7-7820X and Threadripper 1920X in this core heavy game. The average frame rate was boosted by 17% over the 7700K and 25% over the Ryzen 7 1700.
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Ashes-2.png

Swapping out the GTX 1080 Ti for Vega 64 actually helps put the 8700K ahead of the Threadripper CPU though with that exception the rest of the margins remain much the same.
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Civ-1.png

Moving on, the Civilization VI we see that the Core i7-8700K is roughly on par with the 7700K as well as AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X and this is with the GTX 1080 Ti, so some pretty competitive looking results here.
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Civ-2.png

Please note in our Intel Core i9-7980XE & 7960X review the Ryzen 7 frame rates were higher than what's shown here and I wasn't able to determine if this was a mistake on my behalf or if it's down to a game patch or driver update. Previously, the 1800X was pushing 112 fps on average with Vega 64 and now we're down to 100 fps.
I’m constantly re-testing and sometimes we do find a change like this with some games. Mafia III for example was dropped from testing as the performance often changed quite dramatically with each update. Anyway we are still seeing vastly superior performance on the AMD Ryzen 7 CPUs with Vega 64, it's just not as extreme as previously shown.
Whereas the 8700K was 4% faster with Vega 64 compared to the GTX 1080 Ti, the 1800X is almost 20% faster, so Civilization still provides some very interesting results when comparing the GeForce and Radeon GPUs using the DX12 API.
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F1-1.png

The last game we're going to look at is F1 2017 and first up we have the GTX 1080 Ti results. Here the 8700K was actually slower than the 7700K which is a bit odd, seems this title can get a bit confused when there are more than four cores on offer. The 7700K is clearly faster than the 7600K though, as is the Ryzen 5 1600 over the 1500X.
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F1-2.png

Even with Vega 64 we find much the same between the 7700K and 8700K though there is a bit of reshuffling in the midfield and the Skylake-X parts seem to lose out. Overall though, the 8700K was slightly slower than the 7700K in this title.
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720-1.png

Okay so before we wrap the gaming up let's just quickly retest Battlefield 1 at the ultra low 720p resolution to try and remove the GPU bottleneck while still using ultra quality settings. Previously the 8700K was only able to match the 7700K and wasn't much faster than the 7600K.
However by removing the GPU bottleneck we run into another issue: Battlefield 1's 200 fps hard cap. The 8700K was able to keep the GTX 1080 Ti at 200 fps for the majority of our test and this means it could be much faster than the 10% margin we see here over the 7700K. It's now 27% faster than the 7600K and 55% faster than the Ryen 7 1800X.
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720-2.png

Although the Ryzen 7 1800X looked a little sad with the GTX 1080 Ti, it's a different story with the Vega 64 graphics card. Here the R7 1800X is only 20% slower than the 8700K and while that's still a fairly large margin it's much better than what we saw with the GTX 1080 Ti. The 7700K is also quite a bit faster with the Radeon graphics card as well, but unfortunately the 8700K is again limited by the game's artificial frame cap. Anyway, one thing is for sure: the Core i7-8700K is an incredibly powerful gaming CPU.
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Power, Temps, Overclocking
Power.png

It's important to measure power consumption with something that stresses all cores and I've found Corona works well for providing accurate results, so these load figures are based on the Corona benchmark after a single pass and I'm reporting the maximum logged result. This is total system draw and I'm using a Cabac Power-Mate to measure from the wall draw.
When it comes to power draw the Core i7-8700K is certainly on the high side but it’s not as extreme as what we saw from the Skylake-X CPUs. The 7800X for example was not only slower in every single test but it also pushed total system draw 17% higher. Compared to the 1800X, the 8700K did increase system consumption by 18% so Intel isn't quite as efficient because they've had to increase frequency quite aggressively in order to keep pace with AMD's 8-core Ryzen 7 processors.
Still overall I’m impressed with what Intel has been able to achieve here, the 8700K looks very solid all-round. With that let’s see how this thing overclocks...
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Overclocking and Power Consumption
OC-1.png

If you delided the 7700K you could get 5.0 GHz out of it, maybe 5.1 GHz. With very little effort I pushed my 8700K chip to 5.2 GHz and here it was 100% stable. I could even boot into WIndows at 5.3 GHz and run a few tests but it will require finer voltage tuning for 100% stability and we didn't have too much time to play around with overclocking so I settled for 5.2 GHz.
Even so, this is a mighty impressive result and it means the 8700K is now able to match the multi-core score of the 1800X in Cinebench R15 while devastating the single thread result. That said, you can of course overclock the 1800X as well and this allows it to remain ahead in productivity workloads.
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OC-2.png

Speaking of which, this is how the overclocks change Corona's results. The 1800X was only two seconds quicker to completion than the 8700K at 5.2 GHz. The overclock meant that the 8700K was able to complete the task 15% faster. That said, the 1800X saw a 20% improvement once overclocked.
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OC-3.png

The Ryzen 7 1800X overclock increased system power draw by a whopping 42% and this was the exact same increase seen from the 8700K as well, though it never provided anywhere near that kind of performance gain so as usual efficiency goes out the window when you overclock.
Temps
I haven’t had a chance to build my new Core i7-8700K test system yet but I will in the next week or so and that will be my new GPU testing machine. For now I'm using the DeepCool Captain 240EX RGB, it's all all-in-one liquid cooler with a 240mm radiator. It's a decent solution though the Noctua NH-D15 air-cooler has been reported to deliver slightly better temperatures on an overclocked 7700K for example. That said, the D15 is about as good as air-coolers get.
Anyway, with a room temperature of 21 degrees the 8700K idled at 25 degrees. Stressing both the CPU and FPU caused the temps to hit 84 degrees while only stressing the CPU saw temps max out at 60 degrees.
Once overclocked to 5.2 GHz, we reached within six degrees of the TjMAX while running the CPU stress test, peaking at 97 degrees briefly. Obviously a delid would help tremendously for those seeking extreme overclocks, and/or a more extreme cooling solution.
IPC Performance
Intel made some pretty big performance claims when it comes to the 8th-gen Core series, but with 50% more cores on the Core i5 and Core i7 parts, it isn't that bold for them to claim up to 25% more frames in games. That said, are these gains down to the extra cores or have some architectural improvements been made to increase IPC? Some sources have suggested up to a 10% increase in this departmnet, so let's look into that. What I've done is lock the 8700K and 7700K at 4.5 GHz in addition to disabling two of the 8700K's cores, essentially mimicking the configuration of the 7700K.
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IPC-1.png

First up we have Cinebench R15 and as you can plainly see with four cores and eight threads clocked at 4.5 GHz, just like the 7700K, the 8700K delivers basically the same scores. It was actually a fraction slower in the multi-threaded test after reporting the three run average. As expected, that nearly 50% increase in score comes from a 50% increase in cores.
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IPC-2.png

Testing with Corona we again see that the 7700K is slightly faster than the 8700K when they are both matched with the same core and thread count at 4.5 GHz. Again adding two more cores makes the 8700K almost 50% faster.
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IPC-3.png

And finally power consumption, this is an interesting one. The 8700K does pack 50% more L3 cache to support those extra cores and this isn't something we can disable when turning those cores off. When comparing the four-core/eight-thread configurations, the 8700K does push system consumption 10% higher at the same clock speed. Then with the extra cores enabled, total system draw is increased by 33%.
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Price vs. Performance, Conclusion
Before wrapping up this review we should probably check out a few price vs performance scatter plots to work out just how well the 8700K stacks up in terms of value.
Looking at the Premiere results we see that the Core i7-8700K is a good step forward from the recently released 7800X. It's both faster and cheaper. Compared to the Ryzen 7 1700, the 8700K was 8% faster but it also costs 20% more, though it is a much better value than the R7 1800X. Overclocking muddies the water a bit so we're not going to focus on that for this review. I'll cover overclocking and how that changes the value of these CPUs in a future video.
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PricevsPerf1.png

For now the R7 1700 looks to provide content creators with the best value option but the Core i7-8700K is certainly a viable option where as I felt the 7800X wasn't.
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PricevsPerf2.png

For the extreme blender workload the 8700K does well, again it's 20% more costly than the R7 1700 but it's also 20% faster out of the box. In terms of value, the R5 1600 is still the best option but for it to get anywhere near the stock 8700K you'd have to overclock it to 4 GHz. So Intel has put forth an extremely compelling option here.
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PricevsPerf3.png

For high-end gaming, especially high refresh rate gaming, it's pretty obvious that the Intel CPUs are the way to go in terms of performance and value. As we saw with the 720p results, the 8700K is GPU limited at 1080p. I snuck the 720p testing in as I was finishing up the review so I don't have a price to performance scatter plot but needless to say Intel wins quite comfortably here.
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PricevsPerf4.png

Using Vega 64 we are again GPU limited though it has to be said the Ryzen CPUs perform much better with a Radeon GPU when using the DirectX 12 API. So for gamers hoping to maximize their dollar, the Ryzen 5 1600 still presents a great value option and is arguably the most cost effective choice for anyone who isn't after extreme high refresh rate gaming.
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PricevsPerf5.png

Finally, looking at the Ashes of the Singularity results with Vega 64, we again see an extremely impressive result from the 8700K as it's a good bit faster than the previous gaming king, the 7700K. These figures really suggest that the 8700K isn't just the new king of gaming but will be well into the future as well.
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Conclusion
Intel's new mainstream flagship Core i7 processor is a beast. For gamers seeking the ultimate solution there is simply nothing better than the Core i7-8700K. Out of the box performance is incredible, overclocking is even more incredible, power consumption is impressive for a CPU running at over 4 GHz by default and needless to say, this chip is going to find its way into my new gaming rig.
At $360 the Core i7-8700K is a costly affair. Although that's barely higher than the $340 7700K it replaces, compared to the $215 Ryzen 5 1600 for example, it's not a great value, though you do get what you pay for.
I still feel that the majority of gamers will be better served by the R5 1600, but before you take my full word we have to check out the Coffee Lake Core i5 range first (soon!). The 8700K makes the most sense for those going after extreme frame rates with the latest and greatest GPUs, and not those playing CS:GO on a GTX 1060.
Once you dish out $360 for the 8700K you really want to spend another $100 or so on a decent cooler. Realistically, you could spend as little as $20 for a basic air-cooler, but that'd be doing this incredible overclocker a disservice. Anyway, let's say ~$30 to be conservative, we're now at over $400 and once you factor in the price of a decent Z370 board for around $150, we're talking $550+.
Moving on from gaming, how does Intel's new series handle productivity?
Well, the Core i7-8700K has the Ryzen 7 1800X beat and it almost wasn't even a contest. However, the 1800X was already a dead chip in our eyes before the 8700K even came along thanks to the great value offered by its less expensive siblings.
Compared to the R7 1700 in terms of value, the 8700K is about on par but with both overclocked to the max the Ryzen 7 CPU should offer a little more for your money. Even so, it will vary from one application to the next and I'd say overall they are similar. Again, those on a budget will opt for Ryzen as it's cheaper and will deliver similar performance without much trouble.
Overall, the Core i7-8700K has proven to be much more of an all-rounder than the 7700K was and now I can't wait to check out the rest of the Coffee Lake range. 2017 has been a spectacular year for PC hardware and it's great to see so many impressive options available.
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After reading about Ice Lake and the non-commitment from Intel to continue using the same platform, I think I am now afraid of moving to Coffee Lake, even if it's quite the performer. Ice Lake is 1 year away? Or something like that?

Cheers!
 


Yep Z390. But I think it's going to be evenly matched on clock speeds next year, AMD said Ryzen was a worst case scenario. That's really good news, so we should see very high clocks on Ryzen next year along with Ice Lake.

Also, could we keep quotes down to a minimum guys?? A few of your posts have an insane amount of quotes. PLEASE use the spoiler tags if you need to quote that much. Thank you!
 
I have to agree with Yuka with a node jump within a year you have to ask yourself. Is there anything I can't do now with my system that forces me to upgrade now vs. wait for 10nm which will offer much better performance, and possible lower power consumption? Also, considering how long 14nm has been around and how hard of a time Intel has had making 10nm it's pretty reasonable to say 10nm will be a very long node like 14nm probably longer, and offer similar performance to all the rebranded Intel CPU's for the next 4 years to come.

Edit: With performance capped by node we should expect higher core count CPU's in the future. We might also see a force to innovate in new ways from what has been the standard in computing!
 


I can will add spoilers! Sorry!
 


Does anyone really upgrade to the next gen up anyway? Its usually such a small boost it doesnt matter to me anyway - if it lasts as long as my sandy bridge platform I couldnt care less about new gens going on different motherboards.
 


I also thought of that, but it doesn't make sense to upgrade now if you're Sandy/Ivy+ when Intel already announced Ice Lake will have 8C/16T models in the line up. Might as well wait for them instead of upgrading to the stop gap.

As much impressed as I am with slapping 2 extra cores to Kaby Lake and getting that performance, I'm just thinking at how Ice Lake will perform when it arrives compared to Coffee Lake. Now, a years time is quite a lot and many things can happen, but if you're not pressed for an upgrade, I have to say given current information it will be hard to say the jump will be worth while.

Cheers!

EDIT: Neanderthalisms.
 


I think ill get the 8700k. 6c/12t will be enough for my home desktop for a few years, and ive had the upgrade itch for a while. Want all the new features too.
 
So I was looking at the Ryzen 5 1600(x maybe) and giving consideration to the Ryzen 7 1700. Now I'm more confused. The i7-8700k is only a little more than the R7 1700, but the price jump from the R5 1600 to i7-8700k is steep. Initially I thought that going AMD will be great because of their commitment to the AM4 platform (until 2020), but when I look at the i7-8700k (and hearing how many of you are still on much older architecture), will I really need to upgrade again in 3 years if I go Coffee Lake?

I feel like the money I save with Ryzen (plus the free decent cooler) could be used for a GPU upgrade which I definitely need.
 


It's not a bad purchase at all, don't get me wrong. It's just the prospect of having Ice Lake on the horizon makes it a hard call, at least for me.



This is an interesting point. As an "overall" platform cost, AMD is still a tad better than Intel comparing the 1700 (non-X) and 1600(X) to their respective price tier competitors, specially when you want to OC. The Z platform is expensive, no other way around it, and the other MoBos seem like will be available very late (at least end of year?) where in the AMD camp you can still start from very low to get a very comparable experience.

That being said, I do think going for the i5 K is better and OC as much as you can. The only reason to go AMD is if you trust their promise on delivering stuff in AM4 (implying same MoBos, I hope) so you swap whatever you get for their upgrade equivalent. This is a bit more troublesome for me at least, but to some might be a good idea due to immediate savings. I'm not sure what is the lowest priced entry in the new line up for Intel that won't leave you stranded. The i3 K might also fit the bill as a "save now, upgrade later".

It's nice to have options, I must say.

Cheers!
 


R5 1600 still offers really good price to performance at current prices vs. Intel's current line up. Upgrade path for the future with AM4 is a good path if AMD follows through on their promise like they have done in the past you could see a 7nm Ryzen upgrade in your future. You could also get a i3-8350K(7600K) for now, and upgrade to the 8700K later if you wanted as well. If you are gaming at 1080p@60HZ than more than likely the 1600 offer similar performance in gaming with comparably priced Intel product and a mid grade graphics card, but the 1600 will offer better multi-threading and streaming capabilities. Depending on what you have now it's probably better to buy a higher end graphics card now, and save money for a platform change next year. That way you won't have to shoulder the entire burden of up front cost now. The graphics card you buy now will be great in a future platform change!
 


From a 2600K, that's a very nice, substantial jump, and makes sense if gaming, IMO....

GOod luck with it!
 
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