Intel Core i7-8700 Review: Stock Cooler Falls Flat

[DerekA_C]

Personally the iGPU on highest end Intel is a waste of silicon space and adds to the TDP of the damn thing they could easily replace that pathetic iGPU with more cores and keep the same TDP or even lower it a tad, along with that ridiculous TIM Intel just hates it's customers I think and loves their money.

 

[Co BIY]

When I finished with the article I thought:

Final Analysis: i5-8600K for the win! - i7 not needed. i5-8400 is the budget Intel option.

Am I wrong ?

(I realize I ignored all AMD. I need to pick an Intel winner then compare the AMD)

 

[rantoc]

Considering Intel have cheapen out with toothpaste between the die and lid rather than do proper soldering its hardly surprising they cheapened out on the included cooler either. Not that many would use the included cooler but if its included it should at-least keep the cpu from throttling in typical cases or it shouldn't been included in the first place!

 

[GR1M_ZA]

Why no chart with temps?

 

[AgentLozen]

When I finished with the article I thought:

Final Analysis: i5-8600K for the win! - i7 not needed. i5-8400 is the budget Intel option.

Am I wrong ?

I see where you're coming from with this. The 8600K has a price/performance ratio that makes more sense than the 8700K. For a strict gaming only scenario, the 8600K has you covered. The 8400 does the job just as well for that matter.

The 8700K offers two things over the 8600K that still makes it worthwhile.
1. Its (probably) a higher binned part. Intel hand picks their best quality CPUs from the production line to become 8700Ks. They are more reliable at higher clock speeds and are a better choice for aggressive overclocks.

2. Hyperthreading is enabled on the 8700Ks. It doesn't mean anything to games but applications with heavy thread optimizations enjoy the extra logical processors. Video encoding, for instance, performs better with Hyperthreading enabled.

The 8700K has a place but its certainly not for everyone. If I bought an Intel CPU today it would have to be an 8600K.

 

[Olle P]

What about the power consumption?
Intel states that the TDP can be exceeded for a short period of time before temperature and power restrictions apply.
Typically that should result in the CPU sitting fixed at the base frequency with all cores heavily loaded, unless the motherboard also allows more power to be drawn (as can be seen in these tests).

Performance should thus be pretty motherboard related (in addition to cooling).

 

[ubercake]

When I see the posted pricing on these reviews, it makes me and my wallet grateful we live near a Micro Center.

 

[10tacle]

When I see the posted pricing on these reviews, it makes me and my wallet grateful we live near a Micro Center.

Not to go off topic, but you too huh? The last four new chipset builds I've built revolved around a Micro Center CPU/motherboard bundle discount offer that beat the snot out of NewEgg even after paying sales tax (last one was my i5 4690K/ASUS Z97-AR bundle for $40 off combined). Heck I could have driven 100 miles one-way to a store and still saved nearly $30 after gas over E-tailer solutions. Checking their current Intel bundle offers, it's $30 off with selected CPU/motherboard combos.

 

[cryoburner]

It looks to me that the circumstances where the 8700 overwhelms its cooler are few and far between. For someone looking for great gaming performance, but might not have all the cash needed for an 8700K and cooler, they could get the 8700, not give up much performance, and just get a better cooler later when workloads catch up.

The benchmarks paint a pretty nice picture of the 8700. I believe you, Tom's, when you say that the cooler can be overwhelmed, but your benchmarks don't really seem to indicate much of a loss when/if it is happening, especially in gaming.

Honestly though, why don't they differentiate the designation. Intel should have the 8700 at stock 8700K speeds, but just have the K unlocked. It isn't exactly deserving of the 8700 designation if it is clocked 500MHz lower. Just another thing Intel does that irks me.

I think you missed the parts where they repeatedly stated that these are best-case scenario results for Intel's stock cooler, since they are benchmarking the hardware on an open testbed, outside of a case where temperatures can build up, with the CPU cooler's fan locked to max speed and making a lot of noise, and that you should expect more throttling in a typical PC setup. If they wanted to properly highlight the issue, they should have ran a third set of results with their testbed hardware moved into a typical case, with the cooler set to stock speeds, though that would add a lot of variables into the results.

On your other point, when provided with adequate cooling, the 8700 is not actually clocked significantly lower than an 8700K, since their boost clocks (which matter most) are nearly identical. With 4+ cores active, the two processors are clocked identically, and even with fewer cores active, there's only a 100MHz (about 2%) difference between them. Base clocks mainly just apply to what's happening at idle, or when a processor is overheating. So, they are pretty much doing what you are asking for this generation, again, provided the stock cooler is replaced with something better.

The similar boost clocks are definitely something good that this processor has going for it. If someone is not planning on investing significantly more money into a better cooler and a higher-end motherboard to handle overclocking, then it's not worth spending $50 more on an 8700K for virtually identical performance. You may still want to get a better cooler for the 8700, but there are plenty of lower-end tower coolers costing around $30 or less that would handle the processor just fine, and perform far better and quieter than the stock cooler. To significantly overclock an 8700K, you would likely need to be looking at more expensive coolers. So, even if you replace the stock cooler, an 8700 setup is likely to cost well over $100 less than an overclocked 8700K setup. Considering the 8700's stock boost clocks are already relatively high, and most games and applications won't benefit much from an overclock, the 8700 can arguable be considered the better option for many.

The 8700K offers two things over the 8600K that still makes it worthwhile.
1. Its (probably) a higher binned part. Intel hand picks their best quality CPUs from the production line to become 8700Ks. They are more reliable at higher clock speeds and are a better choice for aggressive overclocks.

That's not entirely accurate though. The highest-binned chips get sold as 8086Ks. Those sold as 8700Ks are technically seconds. : P

 

[honkuimushi]

It would be interesting to see how much cooler is needed in a case, especially something in the mini-ITX range. Maybe if you review the Cryorig C7 CU, a test like that would be useful. Maybe compare it to the Cooler Master G100M and the Noctua L9i or L9x65. Though I suppose comparisons between a stock 8700K and how far you can overclock it on each cooler would work as well.

I know the non-K i7s were popular in SFF builds because of the lower TDP and lower prices, especially because overclocking can be limited or counter productive in those use cases. The inadequate cooler really shoots the value proposition in the foot. It would be nice to know how much extra you have to spend for stock performance.

 

[zodiacfml]

The title addresses its huge drawback. CPU is enthusiast or workstation class but the cooler isn't. Better not include it for a price reduction

 

[ubercake]

When I see the posted pricing on these reviews, it makes me and my wallet grateful we live near a Micro Center.

Not to go off topic, but you too huh? The last four new chipset builds I've built revolved around a Micro Center CPU/motherboard bundle discount offer that beat the snot out of NewEgg even after paying sales tax (last one was my i5 4690K/ASUS Z97-AR bundle for $40 off combined). Heck I could have driven 100 miles one-way to a store and still saved nearly $30 after gas over E-tailer solutions. Checking their current Intel bundle offers, it's $30 off with selected CPU/motherboard combos.

They'll also match online pricing in most cases. I just picked up a Define R6 case at Micro Center for Newegg's $109 price while staring at a $165 price tag for it in the store.

They are super competitive.

 

[haydnfan]

This CPU doesn't seem to know who it wants to target. Users who are budget constrained would get better value out of the i5 8400. Demanding gamers and power users should be looking at the i7 8700K or Ryzen 2700X.

In what context does it make sense to buy this CPU?

I agree that the i5 provides a better bang for the buck, but the Ryzens at that price point make more sense.

I disagree that either you buy a base i5 or you splurge on the flagship i7. My personal experience is that the overclockable Intel cpus do not offer enough performance boost in gaming to warrant the price differential. The review supports that assertion.

Based on what I've seen in gaming the past few years most games are not cpu intensive, but the ones that are greatly benefit from multi-core usage and only modestly benefit from overclocking. And I expect that trend to continue. I'm thinking not just what Coffee lake does today but what it will do 2-4 years down the road. I'm going with the Digital Foundry verdict that an i7 offers future proofing due to the hyperthreading, but I'm not interested in overclocking.

 

[10tacle]

I disagree that either you buy a base i5 or you splurge on the flagship i7. My personal experience is that the overclockable Intel cpus do not offer enough performance boost in gaming to warrant the price differential. The review supports that assertion.

Based on what I've seen in gaming the past few years most games are not cpu intensive, but the ones that are greatly benefit from multi-core usage and only modestly benefit from overclocking.

That is indeed correct. In the old days even up to a few years ago, if running at 1080p resolution that was not the case though. Only at higher than main stream resolution was that not the case at the time. You can go back to the early 2000s in game reviews to see that history trend. Like for example in 2001 the most popular/main stream resolution was 1280x1024. Running a higher 1600x1200 monitor at the time didn't show as much performance improvement with a CPU overclock.

These days however and even in games from a few years ago, running at the mainstream 1080p or even lower 720p in games overlocked doesn't gain many FPS for the increased power draw and thermals. It's just not worth it anymore. I yield little FPS gains running my i5 at say 4.5Ghz vs. stock 3.5GHz on all four cores in games these days between 1080p-1440p.

About the only game/sim I see real gains from (noticeable without benchmarking) running faster CPU clocks are in the single threaded MS Flight Simulator X - since it, as in previous iterations of the MSFS series, revolves around CPU power vs. GPU power at any resolution.

This review of an i7 8700K running 3.7GHz stock on all cores vs. overclocked to 5.0GHz says it all (one of two pages of game benchmark links).

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i7_8700K/12.html

One can only deduce that this is because the newer GPUs have become so powerful these days that game developers are prioritize coding for their power vs. CPU power.

 

[Olle P]

Based on what I've seen in gaming the past few years most games are not cpu intensive, but the ones that are greatly benefit from multi-core usage and only modestly benefit from overclocking.

I must say that really depends on haw far back you go and so on.

Right now I mostly play Fallout 4, and in that game going between scenes is where the CPU really makes a difference.
While the player sit idle and wait for the next scene to be processed one thread in the CPU is locked at 100% load. Speeding up that one core should reduce the waiting time (anywhere from 20 seconds to 5 minutes) accordingly.

 

[The Paladin]

so anyone here surprise Intel stock cooler are less than performance items ? No really? don't tell me it is so!!!
seriously anyone using a Intel cpu for ANYTHING other than workstation, will not use the intel cooler on it. that just common sense.