# Intel Core i7-9700K



## W1zzard (Oct 26, 2018)

Intel's Core i7-9700K comes with eight cores, but lacks HyperThreading. In our testing, it still conclusively beats the 6-core/12-thread Core i7-8700K. The much more expensive Core i9-9900K is also under heavy attack: it seems the Core i7-9700K actually is the better gaming CPU.

*Show full review*


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## bug (Oct 26, 2018)

Basically, this a great chip, has everything going for it. Until we get to the price/performance graphs


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## ArbitraryAffection (Oct 26, 2018)

If this was £300 (that is the price of the 2700X here) … I honestly might have even considered it, even as a diehard AMD fangirl, lol. But i'm just not going to pay the 'Intel Tax' when i'm already pushing more than my monitor's refresh rate in essentially all games anyway. That said, if I was a competitive gamer (i'm not) and had a 144Hz+ monitor these would look a lot more appealing..


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## The Quim Reaper (Oct 26, 2018)

Would be a seriously good CPU for emulation.

5Ghz and enough threads to run the most demanding 2D & 3D based emulators out there.


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## Fleurious (Oct 26, 2018)

Looks good, if it shows up in a black friday sale it could be quite tempting.

Not having read the review fully, does it have hardware fixes for spectre/meltdown or will that come with future chips?


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## Toss (Oct 26, 2018)

amazing how crappy new intel CPUS are
no HT is only because of INTEL greed


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## arroyo (Oct 26, 2018)

@W1zzard 
Can you do the some test with same clocks set for 8700K an 9700K?
I wonder how they perform on the same clocks, because right now, the performance difference looks like it is related only to higher boost clock and not two additional physical cores.


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## bug (Oct 26, 2018)

Fleurious said:


> Looks good, if it shows up in a black friday sale it could be quite tempting.
> 
> Not having read the review fully, does it have hardware fixes for spectre/meltdown or will that come with future chips?


You don't have to read the review for that, all CFL CPUs are the same: they have hw mitigation for _some_ variants of Spectre/Meltdown. On top of that, this CPU is also hardened against all Spectre/Metldown variants that exploit hyperthreading


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## GoldenX (Oct 26, 2018)

Bad value and 0 innovation.
Why didn't Intel just named this whole series 8750k and 8900k?


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## dirtyferret (Oct 26, 2018)

Good performance chip but completely over priced also why is the i5-8600k MSRP at $280 when it launched at a $260 MSRP?  Intel is doing an excellent job of making the AMD/Intel CPU choice easier for DIY builders (and not in the Intel intended way).  I'm just glad I got my 8600k for $219.


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## Metroid (Oct 26, 2018)

The Quim Reaper said:


> Would be a seriously good CPU for emulation.
> 
> 5Ghz and enough threads to run the most demanding 2D & 3D based emulators out there.



Single thread killer for any emulator, surely the best we have so far.


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## Saxxter (Oct 26, 2018)

GoldenX said:


> Bad value and 0 innovation.
> Why didn't Intel just named this whole series 8750k and 8900k?


Cause we can't have it looking TOO much like a refresh now ehh?!?!


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## MoupitShow (Oct 26, 2018)

how is this possible ?


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## GoldenX (Oct 26, 2018)

Bad batch.


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## W1zzard (Oct 26, 2018)

MoupitShow said:


> how is this possible ?


That does look strange .. retesting both CPUs quick


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## Kamgusta (Oct 26, 2018)

Can you please try to make all these values to be consistent? That means to measure them both at the wall OR reading from the CPU package power sensor.


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## Konceptz (Oct 26, 2018)

So my take from this review is, this is the  real "gamers chip" whereas the 2700x is for anything else...


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## ZoneDymo (Oct 26, 2018)

rebrandeon said:


> ~600EUR in my country for this i7 9700k if you are lucky and can find it somewhere



debatable if you can call it luck, this has poor value compared to an 2700(X)


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## W1zzard (Oct 26, 2018)

Kamgusta said:


> Can you please try to make all these values to be consistent? That means to measure them both at the wall OR reading from the CPU package power sensor.


I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about the package power numbers in temperature testing.

Edit: Very strange, looks like the 9900K Cinebench numbers were wrong. Performance in Cinebench was lower by a similar amount, not sure what happened. I switched CPUs back to back and the new numbers have been uplaoded to both reviews


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## Assimilator (Oct 26, 2018)

@W1zzard why aren't the 9900K @ 5.1GHz results in the Power Consumption graphs, since the other 9900K results are?


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## W1zzard (Oct 26, 2018)

Assimilator said:


> @W1zzard why aren't the 9900K @ 5.1GHz results in the Power Consumption graphs, since the other 9900K results are?


We include OC numbers only for the tested CPU, otherwise there would be too many results. I'm sure people have reasons to request OC numbers to be included for 2700X, 2600, 8700K, 9900K, 2950X, 7900X


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## E-curbi (Oct 26, 2018)

bug said:


> Basically, this a great chip, has everything going for it. Until we get to the price/performance graphs



Yep a great CPU. And a great review WIzzard Sir. 

Kinda like I predicted the 9900K/9700K and 8700K/8086K are gonna just trade blows on Cinebench ST Single Core performance, depending on how high the "individual" CPUs clock.

We still don't know how high these 9700Ks will clock, I predicted to the Siliconlottery.com guy the 9700Ks would hit a stable 5.4Ghz small percentage and the 9900Ks 5.3Ghz small percentage. From recent findings, we know that may be dependent on a delidding and a sanding of the die. We can't win for losing with Intel. lol 

Not complaining too darn much, Intel Coffee Lake are still the highest performing CPUs for single and slightly threaded workloads, what I use everyday with my three work applications.

Siliconlottery.com will report his 9700K performance findings - high bin chips and the range of clocks, this coming Sunday October 28th.

https://siliconlottery.com/collections/coffeelake-r

W!zzard's 9700K Cinebench ST score is 223 (1st pic). My 8086K Cinebench ST score is 236 (2nd pic). Like I said, Coffee Lake and Coffee Lake-R are only going to trade blows depending on the silicon lottery ie quality-efficiency of the silicon per processor, no real significant difference either way, high or low.


A 9700K highest bin at 5.4Ghz might test at a Cine ST score of 250, idk. I'm totally guessing, but still not significant enough for an upgrade.

For me, waiting for Ice Lake and 10nm is the best plan, and grabbing either a 6/12 or an 8/8 at that time. 


Thank you for the review W!zzard 


...addendum: did I just dramatically butcher W1zzard's username 3times? lol


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## Turmania (Oct 26, 2018)

I'm probably going to tie myself down to i7 9700k with Asus rog strix z390 mini itx board with modest overclock of 5ghz on all cores. As my next cpu has to hit 5ghz at least. Lets call it mind barrier to hit 5ghz.


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## E-curbi (Oct 26, 2018)

Turmania said:


> I'm probably going to tie myself down to i7 9700k with Asus rog strix z390 mini itx board with modest overclock of 5ghz on all cores. As my next cpu has to hit 5ghz at least. Lets call it mind barrier to hit 5ghz.



Have you seen the new Z390 Maximus XI Apex?

I found brand new photos from an Asus announcement in Malaysia, check out my build log signature link below, last entry Batman Build. The board looks like the best choice for high stable clocks of Coffee Lake 8th and 9th Series.

The unveiling was only like 36hours ago. 

And the webpage is still under construction.

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-XI-APEX/


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## ifkopifko (Oct 26, 2018)

Hi, looking at the results of the new Intel CPUs... is there any explanation for the power consumption numbers being lower in Prime95 when compared to consumption in Cinebench? Power virus detection or something?


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## Turmania (Oct 26, 2018)

E-curbi said:


> Have you seen the new Z390 Maximus XI Apex?
> 
> I found brand new photos from an Asus announcement in Malaysia, check out my build log signature link below, last entry Batman Build. The board looks like the best choice for high stable clocks of Coffee Lake 8th and 9th Series.
> 
> ...



It is nice MB, but I have a Mini -Itx case in form of NZXT Manta, for many reasons I want to ditch it to go for atx form factor but that case has some kind of hold over my will


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## W1zzard (Oct 26, 2018)

E-curbi said:


> The board looks like the best choice for high stable clocks of Coffee Lake 8th and 9th Series.


Is it really worth it spending that much money for 100 MHz more CPU clock? Which is like 2%



ifkopifko said:


> Hi, looking at the results of the new Intel CPUs... is there any explanation for the power consumption numbers being lower in Prime95 when compared to consumption in Cinebench? Power virus detection or something?


I noticed that too. No idea, could be some sort of throttle


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## E-curbi (Oct 26, 2018)

W1zzard said:


> Is it really worth it spending that much money for 100 MHz more CPU clock? Which is like 2%



I try to add it up two ways. I use three single-slightly threaded apps all day long while working an 8-10hour day, and my one primary application moves my 8086K out of SpeedStep idle simply by typing keystrokes to 5.4Ghz. (or whatever I have set max clock in bios) if it makes my work move smoother faster with greater responsiveness and lower latency the roi is easy to justify for a work computer.

Adding in the hobby aspect and pure enjoyment of setting up 5.7 5.6 5.5 5.2 5.2 5.2 single core boost profile stable (pics attached) and yea, I have no problem paying $880 for a high binned 6-core CPU.

I was reluctant to purchase the highest bin from SL my last four CPUs and went for the 2nd highest to save some money, a 6700K at 4.8 (not 4.9), a 6800K at 4.3 (not 4.4), an 8700K at 5.2 (not 5.3). For the 8086K have no idea why I clicked the 8086K 5.3 bin that night, against all financial logic, but so happy I did.

Some hardware makes you more money and some hardware just makes you happy. Binned processors for me, do both. 

Luckily, getting the 8086K high bin, I can take a break for 14months or so, before any new processor is needed to keep up with *the highest single and slightly threaded performance available on planet Earth. *mumbo jumbo. 

Could have paid much more for Skylake X or Threadripper, yet those platforms would actually slow my work down.

...I should add that all my 8086K overclocking so far has been completed with Noctua single tower air. NH-C14S. Have another one coming in today from Amazon. It's some sweet silicon.


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## WikiFM (Oct 26, 2018)

@W1zzard Is 9600K review coming soon? I wanna know if 9600K is made of a new chip with STIM and HW mitigations, or if it is just a 8600K with higher boost clocks (same chip) but no STIM and no mitigations. If it is a new chip it could be the one that will make me upgrade from my 3570. Thanks.


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## W1zzard (Oct 26, 2018)

E-curbi said:


> the roi is easy to justify for a work computer.


really nice, there's not a lot of people that really think this through



WikiFM said:


> @W1zzard Is 9600K review coming soon? I wanna know if 9600K is made of a new chip with STIM and HW mitigations, or if it is just a 8600K with higher boost clocks (same chip) but no STIM and no mitigations. If it is a new chip it could be the one that will make me upgrade from my 3570. Thanks.


I have no plans for 9600K review at time, doesn't look so interesting tbh.


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## WikiFM (Oct 26, 2018)

W1zzard said:


> really nice, there's not a lot of people that really think this through
> 
> 
> I have no plans for 9600K review at time, doesn't look so interesting tbh.



It does not look interesting because is just a 8600K with factory OC? Hehehe, that means same chip right?


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## E-curbi (Oct 26, 2018)

W1zzard said:


> really nice, there's not a lot of people that really think this through



Let my mind become the digital paper in front of me with no interference of structure or time.


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## Assimilator (Oct 26, 2018)

W1zzard said:


> We include OC numbers only for the tested CPU, otherwise there would be too many results. I'm sure people have reasons to request OC numbers to be included for 2700X, 2600, 8700K, 9900K, 2950X, 7900X



Fair enough, but I feel this is a special case because every man and his dog (well, everyone except Intel employees) is gonna want to see how it fares again 9900K at the same clocks.


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## MKRonin (Oct 26, 2018)

"The lack of HTT is a boon rather than a bane as the processor has fewer PPCs than the i7-8700K, and hence, its boost-clock application headroom is spread across just 8 PPCs instead of 12. "

What is a PPC?


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## John Naylor (Oct 26, 2018)

dirtyferret said:


> Good performance chip but completely over priced also why is the i5-8600k MSRP at $280 when it launched at a $260 MSRP?  Intel is doing an excellent job of making the AMD/Intel CPU choice easier for DIY builders (and not in the Intel intended way).  I'm just glad I got my 8600k for $219.




Why is Intel charging more ?  Cause they can.  Anxious to see what prices will be once suply catches up with demand.   At that point I expect for those building a new gamng system, the 9700k / 9600k  will be the obvious choice ... as for upgrades from 8xx or 7xxx not justifiable but it never is .... that's been true ever since Sandy Bridge.


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## Basard (Oct 26, 2018)

W1zzard said:


> We include OC numbers only for the tested CPU, otherwise there would be too many results. I'm sure people have reasons to request OC numbers to be included for 2700X, 2600, 8700K, 9900K, 2950X, 7900X


Perhaps you could start doing CPU and VGA charts.... kinda like Tom's used to do back in the late 90's.    

Seems like a lotta work, but you've got minions--Don't you?


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## CandymanGR (Oct 26, 2018)

GoldenX said:


> Bad value and 0 innovation.
> Why didn't Intel just named this whole series 8750k and 8900k?



Marketing trick for the ignorant masses=more money.


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## B-Real (Oct 27, 2018)

Konceptz said:


> So my take from this review is, this is the  real "gamers chip" whereas the 2700x is for anything else...


The 9700K has an 8% advantage ahead of the 2700X with the best last gen GPU. It may be around 12% with a 2080Ti. But these GPUs will be used in FHD in maybe 1 of 100 owners. In any other cases (1440p, 4k) you don't have a real-life advantage. And it costs 100$ more. Ridiculous.



John Naylor said:


> Why is Intel charging more ?  Cause they can.  Anxious to see what prices will be once suply catches up with demand.   At that point I expect for those building a new gamng system, the 9700k / 9600k  will be the obvious choice ... as for upgrades from 8xx or 7xxx not justifiable but it never is .... that's been true ever since Sandy Bridge.



They can, but gamers will realize that they don't have a real life advantage compared to Ryzens except for competitive gamers - who give maybe 1% of the gaming community.


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## Durvelle27 (Oct 27, 2018)

The value of this doesn't seem all that great compared to the i7-8700K. This really only has a slight advantage due to the higher boost clocks


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## coozie78 (Oct 27, 2018)

Lets see...
I get to pay about £200 more AND have to add a high end cooler in order to get a relatively small improvement over a 2700X unless I'm using Neolithic single core software all day? Even when ( if ) it ever gets down to MSRP it's still pi## poor value.
If this is the best Intel can come up with I'm glad I moved over to AMD for my current build.


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## GoldenX (Oct 27, 2018)

Hey, at the very least we don't get a new socket with this one.
*insert it' something meme here*


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## Prima.Vera (Oct 29, 2018)

Cool. Long live my 3770K CPU (3K Gaming)


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## Assimilator (Oct 29, 2018)

Prima.Vera said:


> Cool. Long live my 3770K CPU (3K Gaming)



I'll join you in that boat.

I wonder how many times Intel has kicked themselves for making SNB and IVB so damn good, that people are still using those systems to play today's games on *7 years* later.


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## Nephilim666 (Oct 29, 2018)

3930k @ 4.6ghz here. 32GB of quad channel 2133 9-11-10-28. Still no reason to upgrade 7 years later.


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## Robcostyle (Oct 29, 2018)

I suggest you can't add any 8700K@5GHz results, cause intel's gonna be mad, right? All these new cpus work at 4.7-5GHz on average, whilst 8700K pushes 4300-4500 max, soooo, I think those 4% - its all about the clocks. Dunno, if additional 2 cores to 6 available already did made a difference.

But then, 9900K won't look that cool, heh?


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## bug (Oct 29, 2018)

Robcostyle said:


> I suggest you can't add any 8700K@5GHz results, cause intel's gonna be mad, right? All these new cpus work at 4.7-5GHz on average, whilst 8700K pushes 4300-4500 max, soooo, I think those 4% - its all about the clocks. Dunno, if additional 2 cores to 6 available already did made a difference.
> 
> But then, 9900K won't look that cool, heh?


I suggest you go back and read previous TPU reviews. They never did that before, they're just sticking to their guns.
Picking and choosing benchmarks in order to paint one product in rosy or not so rosy colors, now that's bias.


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## Robcostyle (Oct 30, 2018)

bug said:


> I suggest you go back and read previous TPU reviews. They never did that before, they're just sticking to their guns.
> Picking and choosing benchmarks in order to paint one product in rosy or not so rosy colors, now that's bias.


You might check previous reviews aswell, cause I've did it before ranting - they've changed the GPU from 1080Ti to 2080Ti, so now it's no more relevant/possible to compare 8700K's test at 5GHz and 9900K 5GHz, thus getting clear result. It would be great to see that kind of tests, since it looks like there was Zero improvement in terms of manufacturing and 14nm, and 9900K is pushed to the max, that means you can't overclock it as much further, as 8700K from it's base clock. It would be nice to see what actually could 9900K give.

Moreover, I can't find anything regarding 5GHz: 8700Kvs9700K/9900K at all :/


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## SpeedHunter (Nov 14, 2018)

So no need to upgrade from my i7 3770k @ 4.5Ghz to a Ryzen 2700x ... I will not see a more stable system in gaming  ... I found in BF1 even with my new VEGA64 fps drop as low as 45fps (on 2k ultra setting 144hz monitor) so a modern cpu will not help me on these circumstances ???


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## ItPro44 (Dec 16, 2018)

What cooler was used for the temperature tests?


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## darkblue (May 30, 2019)

ItPro44 said:


> What cooler was used for the temperature tests?


W1zzard, could you please answer this?


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