# Intel Core i7-10700



## W1zzard (Jun 2, 2020)

In our Intel Core i7-10700 review, we're taking a look at one of Intel's most affordable 8-core/16-thread processors. Its low TDP of 65 W makes it power-efficient, but also limits performance. We unlocked that limit and gained up to 30% real-life performance without ever risking an unstable system.

*Show full review*


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## yeeeeman (Jun 2, 2020)

Interesting product. The 10700f should be even better value.
So judging by the numbers, the 10700 at stock consumes a bit less power than 3700X while being within 3% of 3700X performance??? Just wow.
A 14nm process, 6 years old now gives you the same performance and efficiency as a state of the art 7nm product?
Not saying this CPU is the winner in this comparison, but technically it is remarkable how Intel can use such an old part to tie in performance and power consumption with the 3700x.


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## Cheeseball (Jun 2, 2020)

This one does seem to be a nice alternative for gaming, especially if you're not looking to overclock. The only problem is the memory limitation of the budget and mid-range motherboards as DDR4-2666  DDR4-2933 will hamper its overall performance. Most users won't be buying [expensive] Z-class motherboards just to put a non-K class CPU in it. Intel should've spec'd the B and H boards up to DDR4-3200 max.


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## ppn (Jun 2, 2020)

It needs at least DDR4-4266. I mean 10600K scales linearly almost with memory this having 33% more cores need to be fed properly. It really is 165 watts TDp at 4.6GHz nThreads AVX. Underclocking this CPU by 25% saves 100 watts power. Actually H410 supports 2933. 10700F unlocked to 200 watts beats 10600K for the price.


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## Cheeseball (Jun 2, 2020)

ppn said:


> Actually H410 supports 2933.



Corrected my reply above.


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## TheinsanegamerN (Jun 2, 2020)

Under the OCing section, it says that raising the power limits dramatically affects multicore performance. Now, am I blind, or are there no graphs showing this improvement? I'd be curious to see the clocks it sustains at higher PL1 TDP settings.

Also, I faintly remember back in the ivy bridge/haswell days that you could raise the boost bin on non K CPUs, so a 4.0 GHz boost hypothetical 4590 non-k for single core could be raised to 4.4, and the multi core would go from 3.6 to 4.0, ece. Or maybe it was only 200 mhz. Is this possible on the 10700? It's clock rates are so high already that if this boost tuning worked then you could hypothetically raise the 10700 to run at the same all core boost as a 10700k, and could do the same with a 10900, negating the purpose of the higher priced K series much how the 3800x is kinda pointless when the 3700x gets within 50 MHz boost.

If this worked, the $50 difference between a 10900-10900k/10700-10700k could make up the difference for the more expensive Z490 motherboard for memory overclocking.


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## W1zzard (Jun 2, 2020)

TheinsanegamerN said:


> Under the OCing section, it says that raising the power limits dramatically affects multicore performance. Now, am I blind, or are there no graphs showing this improvement? I'd be curious to see the clocks it sustains at higher PL1 TDP settings.


"Max Turbo"


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## QUANTUMPHYSICS (Jun 2, 2020)

I  won't be upgrading till we get DDR5 RAM.    The 10 generation CPU - even the i3, are damn powerful so I'm very excited for the Core i7.


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## HugsNotDrugs (Jun 2, 2020)

With the power tuning limit adjusted the 10700 seems like a great CPU, until you look at the price.

I see the 10700 being popular with OEM systems, not retail.  If a consumer wants better value by foregoing a non-K CPU they will probably end up saving even more money by going with AMD.


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## Space Lynx (Jun 2, 2020)

@W1zzard 

So am I correct in assuming, that like in previous Z390 boards when you could "enable boost" it would set all your cores to max out of box, in this case it would be 4.8ghz all 8 cores no downclocking.  Does that still exist for Z490 non-oc'able chips? I am a bit confused because you mentioned Turbo Boost several times, but is there a static turbo boost option where it will stay 4.8 at all times? I know MSI and a couple others had this feature for Z390 non-k chips last gen. Wondering if same holds true here.


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## Rowsol (Jun 2, 2020)

It's amazing how cool it runs when at stock.


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## Joss (Jun 2, 2020)

HugsNotDrugs said:


> With the power tuning limit adjusted the 10700 seems like a great CPU, until you look at the price.


Yeap, I just looked, you're right! It's $65 more than an R7 3700X.
In fact, the better buy is the 2700X for less than $200.
All this talk about the last drop of performance is nauseating already; how many of us game competitively at (very) high refresh rate? Sometimes I have the feeling the tech press writes exclusively for half demented teenagers.


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## Space Lynx (Jun 3, 2020)

Joss said:


> Yeap, I just looked, you're right! It's $65 more than an R7 3700X.
> In fact, the better buy is the 2700X for less than $200.
> All this talk about the last drop of performance is nauseating already; how many of us game competitively at (very) high refresh rate? Sometimes I have the feeling the tech press writes exclusively for half demented teenagers.



I only play single player games, but I find them more fun at higher refresh. Diablo 3 at 60 fps versus 165 fps for example, was a much more fun experience, everything just looks so smooth.


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## Caring1 (Jun 3, 2020)

Joss said:


> All this talk about the last drop of performance is nauseating already; how many of us game competitively at (very) high refresh rate? Sometimes I have the feeling the tech press writes exclusively for half demented teenagers.


They're catering to the average consumer with their bigger, faster and, must have the latest tech mentality.


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## watzupken (Jun 3, 2020)

Joss said:


> Yeap, I just looked, you're right! It's $65 more than an R7 3700X.
> In fact, the better buy is the 2700X for less than $200.
> All this talk about the last drop of performance is nauseating already; how many of us game competitively at (very) high refresh rate? Sometimes I have the feeling the tech press writes exclusively for half demented teenagers.


You still need to factor in the additional cost of a good after market cooler as well to allow this sort of boost speed. The Ryzen 7 3700X comes with a beefy Wraith Max cooler, while the Intel chip comes with a crappy thin cooler which is not fit for purpose when it comes to achieving the advertised boost speed.


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## Space Lynx (Jun 3, 2020)

watzupken said:


> You still need to factor in the additional cost of a good after market cooler as well to allow this sort of boost speed. The Ryzen 7 3700X comes with a beefy Wraith Max cooler, while the Intel chip comes with a crappy thin cooler which is not fit for purpose when it comes to achieving the advertised boost speed.



This is a good point, I have seen the 3700x cooler in person, and it is indeed quite impressive for basically being free.


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## ppn (Jun 3, 2020)

AT this point intel needs to bundle this with 224 watt cooler to be able to match 3700x in Cinebench20, and return the surplus difference in the power bill accumulated for 7 years 7/7 operation.
I cant even justify measuring 250+ watts at the wall.for just the CPU load alone.
For game it can work perfectly fine with the box, since out of the box it runs at the same 4.2GHz frequency and power as 3700x, at lower voltage .
but is probably noisy even for 65 watts, always better to replace it, I can reuse my deepcool single heatpipe cooler that can cool 100 watts to 66C in under 1000 rpm silent mode.


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## Space Lynx (Jun 3, 2020)

I just hope the rumors about ryzen 4000 chips being on 5nm+ and releasing this Fall/winter are true... AND that i can score a msi x570 tomahawk assuming they ever come in stock


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## barra (Jun 3, 2020)

watzupken said:


> You still need to factor in the additional cost of a good after market cooler as well to allow this sort of boost speed. The Ryzen 7 3700X comes with a beefy Wraith Max cooler, while the Intel chip comes with a crappy thin cooler which is not fit for purpose when it comes to achieving the advertised boost speed.


the only thing the wraith prism is good for is selling to unsuspecting 3600 owners


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## Space Lynx (Jun 3, 2020)

barra said:


> the only thing the wraith prism is good for is selling to unsuspecting 3600 owners



wraith prism is great for 65 watt 3700x. there is no reason to OC on amd chips at all, so the wraith prism makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. especially if your willing to set an aggressive PWM curve for it. this is a redeeming factor about AMD, they make gaming so much more accessible / cost effective than Intel/Nvidia, and this is true even back in the AGP days. it is one reason I am not giving up on them yet. if it was not for AMD and ATI I would never have been able to afford to play games like Stronghold in 2001, or Age of Empires 2, or even WoW in 2003-2004 beta. They gave me some amazing memories. I already decided I am going to give AMD one last chance. big navi and ryzen 4800x.  POSSIBLY i will settle for the soon to be released 3800 XT cpu... we will see.


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## barra (Jun 3, 2020)

lynx29 said:


> wraith prism is great for 65 watt 3700x. there is no reason to OC on amd chips at all, so the wraith prism makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. especially if your willing to set an aggressive PWM curve for it. this is a redeeming factor about AMD, they make gaming so much more accessible / cost effective than Intel/Nvidia, and this is true even back in the AGP days. it is one reason I am not giving up on them yet. if it was not for AMD and ATI I would never have been able to afford to play games like Stronghold in 2001, or Age of Empires 2, or even WoW in 2003-2004 beta. They gave me some amazing memories. I already decided I am going to give AMD one last chance. big navi and ryzen 4800x.  POSSIBLY i will settle for the soon to be released 3800 XT cpu... we will see.


I found the prism to be pretty average, sure it kept temps mostly below 80 degrees on my 3700x but it was far from quiet doing so. Best thing it did was cover half the cost for a better air cooler. You wont be disappointed giving AMD another go, though do expect some software inconsistencies on both CPU chipset and GPU software packages


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## R0H1T (Jun 3, 2020)

yeeeeman said:


> Interesting product. The 10700f should be even better value.
> So judging by the numbers, the 10700 at stock consumes a bit less power than 3700X while being within 3% of 3700X performance??? Just wow.
> A *14nm process, 6 years old now gives you the same performance and efficiency as a state of the art 7nm product*?
> Not saying this CPU is the winner in this comparison, but technically it is remarkable how Intel can use such an old part to tie in performance and power consumption with the 3700x.


The 3700x can also be tuned to perform a lot better, especially with manually tuned RAM oh btw did you forget the RAM support & of course the locked multiplier for the 10700 chip? Not to mention 14nm++ isn't 6 years old, neither is skylake ~ that's* patently false *

Your claim is roughly *pants on fire* on the *fact check* meter **


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## ppn (Jun 3, 2020)

At $25 more there's 10700KF. 4,6GHz is the sweet spot already where the voltage starts to ramp up especially when all the low voltage dies went for the making of 10900K. 10600 and 10700 are the garbage chips but good enough, 4,8GHz at 1,3V is just sick. DDR is the big dissatisfaction here, DDR3 topped at 2133 and DDR4 is not reaching 4266 at reasonable price and voltages yet when what they are doing is just doubling the rate for almost free as the starting point and DDR5 is almost here killing all prospects for any socket available today. If i can run the CPU with DDR and NB all at sync 4,6GHz it would be perfect. That means waiting for DDR5 and 5nm+ from both companies.


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## yeeeeman (Jun 3, 2020)

R0H1T said:


> The 3700x can also be tuned to perform a lot better, especially with manually tuned RAM oh btw did you forget the RAM support & of course the locked multiplier for the 10700 chip? Not to mention 14nm++ isn't 6 years old, neither is skylake ~ that's* patently false *
> 
> Your claim is roughly *pants on fire* on the *fact check* meter **


For sure, any unlocked CPU can be tweaked to do better. But simply comparing these two products from a technical standpoint, I think my analysis stands true.
I specifically said the 3700x is the clear buy nevertheless, but you seem to have a bit of fanboyism for AMD in you, hence you don't like anyone saying anything good about intel products. But that is ok...
As for the 3700x, lets see how the 3700xt will fair, I am quite curious how the balance of perf/consumption will be kept/disturbed.
14nm is 5-6 years old. Sure, they tweaked the knobs here and there to make it run faster, but nevertheless it uses the same transistors, same machines, same tech, same library so it is the same process. And I am reiterating. For such an old piece of tech, I think it is impressive that it can keep up with the latest and greatest from amd/tsmc. This shows that AMD has a lot more work to do on the power saving schemes and that 7nm power advatange is the main reason why zen 2 parts are so good. This also shows that technically the skylake core is more efficient when it comes to work done per unit of power used vs zen 2 core. But the 7nm usage turns the tables in favor of amd. Only just.


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## R0H1T (Jun 3, 2020)

Yet you don't seem to have any bias, towards Intel, is that what you're claiming? I highlighted the specific points of your post ~ which you should know are incorrect but whatever floats your boat 

And before you go on to nitpick on this reply, why don't you post evidence to backup your initial claim that everything's (nearly) the same as it was 6 years back? For instance there's no SKL in 2014, so no backtracking room there.


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## ppn (Jun 3, 2020)

There was broadwell 14nm, almost 6 years now, IPC did not improve significantly. just cosmetic changes like DDR4.

tsmc 7nm offers only 2x density. so intels 1,5x is not bad at all, 
judging by how many times they improved the power, but that last thing doesn't seem to hold true.

"Compared to all other "14 nm nodes", Intel's process is the densest and considerably so, with >1.5x raw logic density. "
"They improved on their original process with a second process, "14nm+", offering 12% higher drive current at lower power "
"A third improved process, "14nm++", is set to begin in late 2017 and will further allow for +23-24% higher drive current for 52% less power vs the original 14nm process. The 14nm++ process also appear to have slightly relaxed poly pitch of 84 nm (from 70 nm) "


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## danbert2000 (Jun 3, 2020)

I find the power consumption pages misleading, because for all the Ryzen 3xxx processors, an x570 board is used, which drives up power consumption by 30 W or more. Seeing as these processors run just as fast on B450 or X470 boards, it would make sense to see what the power consumption is with a chipset that doesn't take so much power. All it does is make it look like Intel is closer in power efficiency than they actually are. At least some testing with the older boards as a comparison would be good. The X570 chipset is going to be replaced by the B550 and X590, but these power consumption figures will essentially be the "historical record" for this website, making very efficient AMD processors look less so based solely on the configuration of the test system.


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## W1zzard (Jun 3, 2020)

danbert2000 said:


> I find the power consumption pages misleading, because for all the Ryzen 3xxx processors, an x570 board is used, which drives up power consumption by 30 W or more. Seeing as these processors run just as fast on B450 or X470 boards, it would make sense to see what the power consumption is with a chipset that doesn't take so much power. All it does is make it look like Intel is closer in power efficiency than they actually are. At least some testing with the older boards as a comparison would be good. The X570 chipset is going to be replaced by the B550 and X590, but these power consumption figures will essentially be the "historical record" for this website, making very efficient AMD processors look less so based solely on the configuration of the test system.


Same argument for Intel chipsets I guess? This Z490 does use a lot of power too


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## danbert2000 (Jun 3, 2020)

A comparison of load minus idle would potentially give more information about a processor's power consumption than a raw reading with no "control." Since you are trying to compare processor power consumption, I would expect some desire to tease out the actual processor's contribution. It is a good point that the Z490 uses power too, but at what point are we comparing motherboard chipsets instead or in addition to processors?

The full system draw is useful for people trying to size their PSUs, but not useful for comparing single threaded and multi threaded power efficiency. Especially since AMD users can use a B board without sacrificing performance.

Even a note that X570 power consumption is a contributor to the figures would be appreciated.


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## RandallFlagg (Jun 3, 2020)

You can't just choose based on chipset, chipset <> power draw.  I think it's totally valid to use the fastest components available for a given platform (within spec, not overclocked) to test a new CPU with.  That would include power draw, as the fastest motherboards often take the most power.

Case in point, there's a 50W difference between these Z490 boards under load.  And guess what?  The fastest board, also draws the most power.  These are with a 10900K :


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## Elysium (Jun 3, 2020)

Presumably the i9-10900 could be similarly power-unlocked to provide a tangible gain in perf to catch up to the K variant whilst being a few dozen dollars cheaper? That might just about rejuvenate my interest in Comet Lake...


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## yeeeeman (Jun 4, 2020)

R0H1T said:


> Yet you don't seem to have any bias, towards Intel, is that what you're claiming? I highlighted the specific points of your post ~ which you should know are incorrect but whatever floats your boat
> 
> And before you go on to nitpick on this reply, why don't you post evidence to backup your initial claim that everything's (nearly) the same as it was 6 years back? For instance there's no SKL in 2014, so no backtracking room there.


Taken from wikipedia: "Broadwell: _14 nm_ shrink of the Haswell microarchitecture, released in September 2014". The process is 6 years old, not SKL.
Lets close this here because your clearly not being able to read and just try to invalidate my opinions.
It is fine, you'll have yours and I'll have mine. But my opinions are backed up by facts.



Elysium said:


> Presumably the i9-10900 could be similarly power-unlocked to provide a tangible gain in perf to catch up to the K variant whilst being a few dozen dollars cheaper? That might just about rejuvenate my interest in Comet Lake...


Yes, that is true.



danbert2000 said:


> A comparison of load minus idle would potentially give more information about a processor's power consumption than a raw reading with no "control." Since you are trying to compare processor power consumption, I would expect some desire to tease out the actual processor's contribution. It is a good point that the Z490 uses power too, but at what point are we comparing motherboard chipsets instead or in addition to processors?
> 
> The full system draw is useful for people trying to size their PSUs, but not useful for comparing single threaded and multi threaded power efficiency. Especially since AMD users can use a B board without sacrificing performance.
> 
> Even a note that X570 power consumption is a contributor to the figures would be appreciated.


I think it is safe to say that the 10700 is within the same range of power consumption as the 3700x, even including the chipset mismatch. Be assured that Z490 is also a power hog since it has a lot of stuff integrated inside, from TB3 to WF6... So again, the same conclusion holds, the 10th gen is a very nice surprise in terms of efficiency, especially compared to 7nm parts from AMD.


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## R0H1T (Jun 4, 2020)

yeeeeman said:


> Lets close this here because your clearly not being able to read and just try to invalidate my opinions.


Invalidate what exactly, your opinion or made up facts? Sure because you made a false comparison. From your own quote ~


yeeeeman said:


> Taken from wikipedia: "Broadwell: _14 nm_ shrink of the Haswell microarchitecture, released in September 2014". The process is 6 years old, not SKL.


6 years from your comment would imply *June* 2014, not September. There have been at least 2 major revisions to 14nm & yet you made it sound as if that's what AMD is competing against, here you go try to spin this any way you want to ~


yeeeeman said:


> *A 14nm process, 6 years old now gives you the same performance*


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## mahanddeem (Jun 4, 2020)

I have a question please about the 10700 non-k.
If you use it in a Z490 MB:
1. Can you activate XMP (my ram is 3200 16-8-18-36)
2. Can you activate sync all cores at turbo clock? Or in Asus words the MCE (core enhancement) syncing all cores to like 4.6GHz?

Thanks


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## W1zzard (Jun 4, 2020)

mahanddeem said:


> I have a question please about the 10700 non-k.
> If you use it in a Z490 MB:
> 1. Can you activate XMP (my ram is 3200 16-8-18-36)
> 2. Can you activate sync all cores at turbo clock? Or in Asus words the MCE (core enhancement) syncing all cores to like 4.6GHz?



1) yes, works exactly the same as on a K CPU
2) no


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## mahanddeem (Jun 5, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> 1) yes, works exactly the same as on a K CPU
> 2) no


Thanks


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## Melvis (Jun 5, 2020)

@W1zzard Clock speeds are wrong in your CPU chart first page for the Ryzen 3600 again.


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## mahanddeem (Jun 5, 2020)

What would you get between these 2? 10600k or 10700 for gaming at 1440p with a 1080ti.
Thinking to upgrade my 7700k


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## W1zzard (Jun 5, 2020)

Melvis said:


> @W1zzard Clock speeds are wrong in your CPU chart first page for the Ryzen 3600 again.


Fixed in all reviews and in my template, thanks


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## Dirtdog (Jun 7, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> You can't just choose based on chipset, chipset <> power draw.  I think it's totally valid to use the fastest components available for a given platform (within spec, not overclocked) to test a new CPU with.  That would include power draw, as the fastest motherboards often take the most power.
> 
> Case in point, there's a 50W difference between these Z490 boards under load.  And guess what?  The fastest board, also draws the most power.  These are with a 10900K :
> 
> View attachment 157734



May I ask where that graph is from? The ASRock boards look to have pretty high idle power draw.  I've been hoping to see a review of the Extreme4 to see if it still has the same excessive power draw issue its Z390 predecessor had.


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## RandallFlagg (Jun 8, 2020)

Dirtdog said:


> May I ask where that graph is from? The ASRock boards look to have pretty high idle power draw.  I've been hoping to see a review of the Extreme4 to see if it still has the same excessive power draw issue its Z390 predecessor had.



It's from Vortez : https://www.vortez.net/

All of their new MB reviews do overall power consumption graphs.  Also the IO performance graphs are revealing.  There are some significant differences in performance between motherboards that affect overall system performance, but rarely are CPU focused activities impacted much (games, synthetics like 'cinebench', and so on) so they redid their benchmarks to show the areas where there are real differences.  Power and IO are big differentiators.


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## Dirtdog (Jun 8, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> It's from Vortez : https://www.vortez.net/
> 
> All of their new MB reviews do overall power consumption graphs.  Also the IO performance graphs are revealing.  There are some significant differences in performance between motherboards that affect overall system performance, but rarely are CPU focused activities impacted much (games, synthetics like 'cinebench', and so on) so they redid their benchmarks to show the areas where there are real differences.  Power and IO are big differentiators.



Thanks, looks like it's this page: https://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/asrock_z490_taichi_review,5.html

So they say the Z490 Taichi has an idle power draw of 87w which is huge, but the same board reviewed by another site puts it at 70w, that's with a 10900K: https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asrock_z490_taichi_review,7.html

Vortez has the Asus ROG Max II Extreme idle power as 61w (substantially lower than they cite for the Z490 Taichi) but the Guru3D article above has that board using 75w idle. 

Tweaktown has the two respective boards using 70w and 76w: https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9473/asrock-z490-taichi-intel-atx-motherboard/index12.html

So Vortez having them using 87w vs 61w lacks credibility and draws into question their Extreme4 figures (and that board doesn't seem to be reviewed on their site in its own right either).

I notice in their conclusion and summary that they don't seem to mention the high idle power draw, which is 20-30w higher than every other board in the same class and would represent a noteworthy flaw, but they don't seem fazed by it which is very strange.


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## W1zzard (Jun 8, 2020)

Dirtdog said:


> which is very strange.


Those storage results cant be right, especially m.2


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## RandallFlagg (Jun 8, 2020)

Dirtdog said:


> Thanks, looks like it's this page: https://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/asrock_z490_taichi_review,5.html
> 
> So they say the Z490 Taichi has an idle power draw of 87w which is huge, but the same board reviewed by another site puts it at 70w, that's with a 10900K: https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asrock_z490_taichi_review,7.html
> 
> ...




The exact numbers are different between sites, but this can depend on the exact GPU, SSD, number of storage drives, and so on which are not the same for every site.

That said, the *pattern *of difference for example between Vortez and Tweaktown is similar and shows the same general conclusions.  

Below are charts from tweaktown showing a full system power of 16W between ASRock Z490 Taichi (275W) and Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Xtreme (291W), and a 67W difference between the Aorus Xtreme and the Supermicro Z490.   

Tweaktown also shows a similar pattern regarding disk IO performance (2nd graph).  

I'm not real sure how you could look at these other sites, see charts like this, and not see that there is a big difference in both power draw and IO performance on difference motherboards.  The numbers don't need to be exactly the same to see a pattern.

I suspect the difference has to do with VRM design for power, and probably BIOS for IO.  







Disk IO :





USB performance:


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## md2003 (Jul 31, 2020)

@W1zzard thanks for the review. I do have one specific question, regarding the set muliplier in overclocking scenarios, specifically when blck is set higher than 100. Is it an asus specific feature to actually set the x47 multiplier in such scenario? In msi z490 tomahawk only x46 multiplier is set/activated, no matter the settings, thus a max freq of 4.7+Ghz is achieved. With less cores enabled, i.e. 2 cores or 4 cores 4.9Ghz+ and 4.8Ghz+ are achieved, but with all cores enabled the x46 multiplier prevails.
As example, a cpu validation, where max multi is shown as 47 but the x46 is used only: https://valid.x86.fr/5su2jm


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## W1zzard (Jul 31, 2020)

md2003 said:


> only x46 multiplier is set/activated, no matter the settings


At all times? Are you sure? Try with light loads, not stress test. Also running into power limit will lower your clocks. And some monitoring software itself creates additional load on the system, enough for the CPU to not boost to highest Clock


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## md2003 (Aug 1, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> At all times? Are you sure?


When bclk is higher than 100, the multiplier is locked to x46, no matter the system load. With everything at stock, without xmp, it uses sporadically x47 and x48 too on all cores but not on high loads (so every core boosts up to 4.8GHz but not all together, which is as expected). Last but not least, in bios you can set all cores or turbo ratio per core up to x48 (it is even accepted in bios all cores simultaneously to use x48) but in windows sticks to x46.


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## W1zzard (Aug 1, 2020)

Interesting, i wasn’t aware of any correlation between bclk and multi.. on holidays for another week, will check on it when back. If you don’t hear from me, Ping me, so i won’t forget


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## md2003 (Aug 1, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> Interesting, i wasn’t aware of any correlation between bclk and multi.. on holidays for another week, will check on it when back. If you don’t hear from me, Ping me, so i won’t forget


Well, i think XMP is to blame for. I set ram timings, volts etc manually, and now i even get this x48 on all cores using higher than 100 bclk (i attach ss from bios configuration). Single core performance is where it should have been now i guess, https://valid.x86.fr/1d5i0d. Of course, i would be happy to read more from your findings.


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## W1zzard (Aug 2, 2020)

Maybe this is some kind of bios bug you’reseeing?


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## md2003 (Aug 2, 2020)

Maybe, I am not sure tbh. But definitely needs more voltage than x46 multi; with a) auto multi applied is stable using ~1.2V (max boost using >100 black was 4.73Ghz thus x46 multi), b) setting multiplier manually at x48 needs 1.27V+ or bsod. Default, the motherboard sets voltage at a) 1.32v and b) 1.42v correspondingly. 
Have you tried any high frequency ddr4 kit? I ve bought some cheap 3600 cl19 16bgb and runs fine, but was wondering if  4200+ would work too.


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## W1zzard (Aug 2, 2020)

md2003 said:


> Have you tried any high frequency ddr4 kit? I ve bought some cheap 3600 cl19 16bgb and runs fine, but was wondering if 4200+ would work too.


I have not, but 4000+ should be np on Intel, gains will be minimal


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## Viperl0 (Aug 5, 2020)

Just got this CPU, would be greatful if someone could tell me how I increase the power limit? MSI z490-A pro

Thanks


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## Dirtdog (Aug 5, 2020)

Viperl0 said:


> Just got this CPU, would be greatful if someone could tell me how I increase the power limit? MSI z490-A pro
> 
> Thanks



Good question.  I got the same board myself this week but only with an i5-10600.  As far as I can tell, the power limits are off by default.  But as the manual doesn't explain and the BIOS itself is not very intuitive, I'm still not sure.


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## md2003 (Aug 5, 2020)

@Viperl0 & @Dirtdog, in Bios go to Overclocking->Advancec CPU configuration and se the Long/Short duration power limit and duration and CPU current limit (A) to max. I think an XMP profile does that automatically too, check the image:


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## Dirtdog (Aug 5, 2020)

Mine is on 288W, 28s, 288W and 256A by default.  I guess maxing them out on my particular chip is moot but maybe it makes a difference on the i7.


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## W1zzard (Aug 5, 2020)

Dirtdog said:


> Mine is on 288W, 28s, 288W and 256A by default.  I guess maxing them out on my particular chip is moot but maybe it makes a difference on the i7.


That is definitely not default, at least by Intel standards. Which board are you using? Some mobo vendors decided to come up with their own defaults


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## Dirtdog (Aug 5, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> That is definitely not default, at least by Intel standards. Which board are you using? Some mobo vendors decided to come up with their own defaults



MSI Z490-A Pro.  The defaults seem to work well, with my CPU at least, and vcore is not excessive (~1.1v under load) so it's all good.  I think the MSI BIOS leaves a bit to be desired though, with somewhat unintuitive menus and uninformative / cryptic descriptions (and sometimes with misspellings).  The Z97 ASRock board I had previously, I would say had a superior BIOS.


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## Viperl0 (Aug 6, 2020)

*@md2003 That's exactly what I need. Really appreciate it. Noticeable improvement with these settings and BCLK at 102.95 . Thanks again *


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## W1zzard (Aug 6, 2020)

Ah those msi boards, yeah, no way to switch to the stock intel value because you always have to enter the power limit values manually. So unless you know what to enter, you can’t run stock. Besides bios these boards work fine though


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## phints (Aug 10, 2020)

Does anyone believe/verify these i7-10700 gaming benchmarks? The cons are overly harsh considering the gaming benchmarks are the same as top gaming CPUs: 10700K, 9900K, and 9700K and destroys Ryzens. Considering it's priced at only $310, runs at only 65W, is much more available than the rip off K-series versions, runs with DDR4-3200 RAM on Z motherboards, and doesn't even need an OC to crush gaming, doesn't this effectively make this the best gaming CPU on the market? (Btw, TechPowerUp really needs to start including 1% lows in their benchmarks).

tldr - if these benchmarks are legit, this is effectively the BEST gaming CPU on the market. It seems like this processor should be much more talked about and recommended.


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## W1zzard (Aug 10, 2020)

phints said:


> Does anyone believe/verify these i7-10700 gaming benchmarks? The cons are overly harsh considering the gaming benchmarks are the same as top gaming CPUs: 10700K, 9900K, and 9700K and destroys Ryzens. Considering it's priced at only $310, runs at only 65W, is much more available than the rip off K-series versions, runs with DDR4-3200 RAM on Z motherboards, and doesn't even need an OC to crush gaming, doesn't this effectively make this the best gaming CPU on the market? (Btw, TechPowerUp really needs to start including 1% lows in their benchmarks).
> 
> tldr - if these benchmarks are legit, this is effectively the BEST gaming CPU on the market. It seems like this processor should be much more talked about and recommended.


Of course the benchmarks are legit.

Other than availability, why would you prefer 10700 over 10600K ?


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## phints (Aug 10, 2020)

Although they are close and both are strong CPUs, it seems obvious to chose the 10700 over the 10600K for most situations. It's performing better a lot of benchmarks (green bar using DDR4-3200 RAM), it runs cooler and consumes less power, and long-term more games will use more threads for 8C/16T, especially since next-gen consoles out in a few months with 8C/16T 3.5GHz (essentially using downclocked Ryzen 3700). The 10700 just seems like a better buy to me long term. A quick look on Amazon, the 10700 is also cheaper. These benchmarks unfortunately don't show 1% lows which is very important in gaming, I suspect more threads will do better there too.


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## W1zzard (Aug 10, 2020)

Oh wow .. 10600K == 10700 price in the States .. that's crazy .. here in Europe it's € 250 vs € 320

OC on the 10600K will give you a percent or so that 10700 cannot, in the grand scheme of things it barely matters. and for the current pricing situation and for people who are more gamers than overclockers, 10700 is a decent choice indeed. Personally I would buy 10400F and a faster GPU with the savings


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## argon (Aug 14, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> Personally I would buy 10400F and a faster GPU with the savings


If you not playing at high Hz (120+) there no reason to take intel over amd, you just spending more on intel.
if you playing 1440p or 2160p around 90hz or even 144 , the ryzen 3600 is more than enough for any games at the moment, and the 3600x is still cheaper than 10700 at least there in europe, and you can save more for the gpu!

I do play 1080p 240hz at the moment I dont have money for upgrade but If I had to upgrade now, a 10600k would be my best pick for price/performance, so I can spend money on AIO/custom watercooling for take it around 5.1/5.2ghz and Im sure it will be better perfomance than this 10700 or even 10900k at stock where games don't utilize more than 6 core (90% of games use around six core),

Yes, 10700 can be overlclocked via BLCK, but I don't think if you got a 900$ motherboards your route is the 10700 with no overclocking feature, this reviews has no sense on the overclocking things, If we take a 10700 we don't have 900$ to buy a Z490 Maximus XII Extreme. I would have seen this review with a cheapy motherboard like the Asrock Z490 Gaming 4 and see if they can hit the 102blck overclocking even on that cheapy z490 motherboard.


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## phints (Aug 14, 2020)

No the motherboard they use is absurd and nobody should entertain the thought of spending more than $200 on a motherboard then that nonsense wouldn't exist.


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## W1zzard (Aug 14, 2020)

phints said:


> No the motherboard they use is absurd and nobody should entertain the thought of spending more than $200 on a motherboard then that nonsense wouldn't exist.


100% agree with you. But that ASUS motherboard is what was provided to me for testing, at at a time where 0 motherboards were available in retail


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## Lateshow (Aug 26, 2020)

This article actually put the 10700 on my radar.  Lots of sites have the same sentiment of the 10700 being good at everything, but master of none. It games better than the 3700x, which is something that matters to many, and is more future proof than the 10600k with a small performance hit in gaming. If you don't need what AMD does better, or the extra frames the k chip gives you, it comes down to price.  

The 10700 has been on sale for  $300,  or less for months now.  It's currently $290 at my local retailer while the 10600k is the same or more if you can find one. K chips need a z mobo, and probably 3200mhz ram, so there's also some savings by going with a B, or H mobo, and 3000mhz ram.  When comparing chips, you have to factor in the price of the CPU, mobo, and RAM.  You loose some performance with 3000mhz ram, but it also costs less. I save $50-$60+ by going 10700 over the 10600k currently.

The 3700x is it's direct competitor, and it's $270 locally, but you still have to factor in the motherboard, and 3600 CL16 RAM (seems to be the sweet spot).  The 10700 actually comes out to less when you factor those in. It games slightly better, and that makes it a very solid option.  If AMD had cheaper motherboard options, it would be a toss up depending on needs, but the current AMD B-series carries a premium over the last gen.  

I even think the 10100 ($100 locally) ends up being a better buy than the Ryzen 3100 ($100), and the 3300x ($150ish when in stock).  If I needed to build a budget rig, I'd probably go 10100.  Save $50-$100 over the Ryzens, and buy a better video card.


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## r9 (Aug 29, 2020)

Can you adjust Max Turbo on B460 mobos and achieve similar OC/boost ?


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## TigerF15 (Aug 31, 2020)

I have Asus Z490-P, Does removing power limits harm the CPU/Motherboard ?


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## Dirtdog (Aug 31, 2020)

TigerF15 said:


> I have Asus Z490-P, Does removing power limits harm the CPU/Motherboard ?


No it won't do any harm.


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## spudknife (Aug 31, 2020)

According to this https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-10700/19.html Temparute is 43° on laod I think I have an issue with my CPU cooler because I am at 16 threads 3700Mhz 65°  ?

Also I have an asrock h410m-itx/ac  I can't change power limit so 65W.

My CPU cooler : enermax LiqTech ELC-LT120X-HP
https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6340/enermax-liqtech-120x-aio-liquid-cpu-cooler-review/index.html

Thanks you in advance


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## dragontamer5788 (Aug 31, 2020)

In the general case, I expect AMD 3700x 32MB of L3 (and 512kB of L2 per core) to beat out the 10700's 16MB L3 (and 256kB of L2). The benchmarks seem to confirm this case: with the Intel chip requiring an overclock to beat a AMD 3700x at stock settings (and I'm sure the AMD 3700x can be overclocked, especially since its an unlocked processor). Combined with PCIe 4.0 support (albeit only on the most expensive x570 boards), the AMD chip seems like the superior buy.

Nonetheless, Intel's chip still comes with the standard suite of software that will keep its niche. Intel has single-clock PEXT / PDEP instructions (which are really cool, and AMD's core remains terribly slow at these instructions). Intel's VTune and hardware performance counters are known to be superior to use over AMD's uProf. And finally, Intel continues to somehow have a superior gaming benchmark suite: I really wonder why video games (and WinRAR) like Intel so much when so few other applications seem to match that performance pattern?

All in all, it looks like we're in for the standard set of recommendations once again. With AMD having better general performance specs, while Intel wins in video games (slightly), as well as having a few other soft-advantages for obscure low-level programmers.


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## Powerline304 (Sep 2, 2020)

Hi,
I bought one of these CPUs to do some gaming and streaming (had I read this before buying I would have moved differently). I'm having trouble with performance and it appears that power limit throttling may be the case. Intel XTU shows me that I'm constantly throttling. Additionally, during the benchmark my maximum processor frequency has not budged past .8 GHz, with a highest temp of 29C. 

I'm using: 
MSI Z490 Gaming Plus 
MSI RTX 2060 Gaming Z
16GB Corsair Ram 

Thanks,


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## W1zzard (Sep 2, 2020)

Adjust the PL1 and PL2 settings in your motherboard BIOS


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## Dirtdog (Sep 2, 2020)

Powerline304 said:


> Hi,
> I bought one of these CPUs to do some gaming and streaming (had I read this before buying I would have moved differently). I'm having trouble with performance and it appears that power limit throttling may be the case. Intel XTU shows me that I'm constantly throttling. *Additionally, during the benchmark my maximum processor frequency has not budged past .8 GHz, with a highest temp of 29C.*
> 
> I'm using:
> ...



What are your Windows power settings, is the maximum CPU speed set to 100% as it should be? (It is okay for the minimum to be on 5%.)


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## Powerline304 (Sep 3, 2020)

Thanks for replying. I've actually found that turning the turbo boost and short turbo boost power max wattage down alleviates the problem. While the throttling may still occur, it seems more normal staying around 4.5Ghz. I set both values to 64 watts because that's one lower than the max wattage. I'll check those things as well


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## serenity_blue (Sep 3, 2020)

Hello W1zzard. For some reason I am getting higher scores in the Blender and Cinebench R20 benchmarks. I changed MCE from "auto" to "off" in my ASUS BIOS, but that didn't change much. My results are the following:

Blender 2.81 BMW27- 213.22 seconds
R20- 3892

Thank you.


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## Powerline304 (Sep 4, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> Adjust the PL1 and PL2 settings in your motherboard BIOS



What is the recommended value? 

Thanks for responding by the way.


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## Caring1 (Sep 5, 2020)

Powerline304 said:


> Thanks for replying. I've actually found that turning the turbo boost and short turbo boost power max wattage down alleviates the problem. While the throttling may still occur, it seems more normal staying around 4.5Ghz. I set both values to 64 watts because that's one lower than the max wattage. I'll check those things as well


Turning them down should increase power limit throttling.
Long term boost should be higher than short term boost.


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## AddSub (Sep 7, 2020)

argon said:


> If you not playing at high Hz (120+) there no reason to take intel over amd, you just spending more on intel.
> if you playing 1440p or 2160p around 90hz or even 144 , the ryzen 3600 is more than enough for any games at the moment, and the 3600x is still cheaper than 10700 at least there in europe, and you can save more for the gpu!
> 
> I do play 1080p 240hz at the moment I dont have money for upgrade but If I had to upgrade now, a 10600k would be my best pick for price/performance, so I can spend money on AIO/custom watercooling for take it around 5.1/5.2ghz and Im sure it will be better perfomance than this 10700 or even 10900k at stock where games don't utilize more than 6 core (90% of games use around six core),
> ...








CPU choke is a CPU choke.... CPU bottleneck, if you prefer.


...
..
.


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## archagon (Sep 22, 2020)

Could somebody check my thinking here? I'm trying to pick out a CPU for a SFF gaming PC. In order to run cool, the CPU should really have a 65W TDP. This review seems to imply that when running in "regular turbo" mode, this chip is roughly on par with the 3700X in terms of perf/temp/power draw and maybe 5–10% better gaming-wise. It also costs about the same: $310 vs. $300 right now. With these constraints in mind, this should be a competitive chip for the use case, right? Mostly, I want to make sure that "regular turbo" (i.e. 65W TDP) mode is no worse than a 3700X, even when gaming for prolonged periods of time. (I'm also leaning towards Intel over AMD because the only good micro-ITX mobo with Thunderbolt is an Intel one, but it's not a deal-breaker.)

For example, the Reddit comments here seem to paint a darker picture of this chip in 65W mode than this review: 




__
		https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/hl44yf/_/fwzpw3k


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## dragontamer5788 (Sep 22, 2020)

archagon said:


> In order to run cool, the CPU should really have a 65W TDP.



Do you know that all CPUs have temperature sensors, and will be as hot as possible within specifications?

The 65W TDP is just an estimate for speccing out cooling elements. From there on out, the CPU, whether you use AMD or Intel, will overclock itself to the best of its ability in your use case. But if the chip is 30C (because its been nearly idle for the last 10 minutes), and you suddenly do a heavy load (3d rendering, video games, whatever), it will shoot up to 65C or even 90C, taking advantage of the latent coolness of the inside of the physical tower (or laptop, or whatever you stuck the chip inside).

That's how these chips work these days. Advanced cooling solutions will allow the chip to remain at an overclocked "turbo" state longer and improve performance. But all of this stuff is pretty automatic and easy with modern systems.


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## archagon (Sep 22, 2020)

dragontamer5788 said:


> Do you know that all CPUs have temperature sensors, and will be as hot as possible within specifications?
> 
> The 65W TDP is just an estimate for speccing out cooling elements. From there on out, the CPU, whether you use AMD or Intel, will overclock itself to the best of its ability in your use case.


Fair enough, but it's the best heuristic I have for finding a CPU that will work well with a 7L case, and with a 42mm cooler. I'm also assuming that having a CPU run at max temp and constantly underclock itself is not great for the hardware.

In any case, the review's temperature measurements suggest the 10700 runs quite cool: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-10700/19.html

Basically, what I'm trying to suss out is whether the conventional wisdom that AMD chips are significantly more efficient than Intel chips is still true, because this review seems to draw the opposite conclusion.


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