Monday, September 10th 2018

First Intel Core i7-9700K Review Surfaces

Spanish language tech publication El Chapuzas Informático published the first almost-complete review of Intel Core i7-9700K processor. Without Intel disclosing the pricing of this chip, the review doesn't include price/performance numbers or a conclusion that explores the competitive landscape. You still get a sumptuous serving of 14 tests, from which 9 are some of the latest AAA games.

The bottom-line is that the i7-9700K locks horns with the Ryzen 7 2700X in most multi-threaded tests except Cinebench nT; and owing to its high clock speeds, it will end up as the fastest gaming processor around the $350-400 mark. Interestingly, the i7-9700K isn't 33% faster than the i7-8700K despite 33% more cores, because HyperThreading is sorely missed. The distinction could be reserved for the Core i9-9900K, although samples of that chip are far too rare.
More graphs follow.

Source: El Chapuzas Informático
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88 Comments on First Intel Core i7-9700K Review Surfaces

#26
Metroid
Everyday i come to these leaks i'm more inclined to think the i5 8400 will still be the best cost effective cpu to get, if the i7 9700 is more than $350 then i give up to see any benefit in buying it.
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#27
thekaidis
Xx Tek Tip xXThanks intel? More like thanks amd if it wasn't for ryzen 8700k would be 4c4t and a refreshed 7700k so wake up.
Well, it would have been 4c8t, but yes.
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#28
B-Real
dwadeTriggered easily by facts I see.
So you think Intel would have made a 6, then an 8 core consumer CPU suitable for gamers in 1 year (!!!) after havin 6 or 7 years with 4 cores, even if Ryzen wasn't there. Poor guy.
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#29
phill
As usual if this is all Intel has to offer, then I'm still better off with my 920 D0 or 2600k or 4770k or 6700k or even my 5960X... These newer CPUs do hardly anything for gaming and I'm guessing all of these gaming tests where done at 1080P where things might show up a little more than at 1440P or 4k.. As for the more CPU intense tasks we test them in, it's certainly not value if I have to spend £350 to £500 to save maybe a few seconds. Different if I was using it as a workhorse but I'm not.

I'm unimpressed, I'm not wooed and certainly not going to rush out and buy a new 9700k or even a 9900k because of any of these results.. That said I have just gone out and bought two Ryzen 1700X CPUs for £150 and to me, that's amazing value. The 2700X being about £300 or so (double the price) does not give me double the performance and is certainly not double the value of money considering the 1700X's cost. Even more so for the systems these two CPUs will be used in will be complete overkill as it is.. But on the plus when I do ever upgrade them, I'm not going to have to change the socket/board and spend even more.. But I digress.. Another boring CPU release from Intel... again....
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#30
neko77025
I really need to see pricing for these.... I dont think they are worth 450 - 500.

yea i get they are faster then Ryzen ... but the value is not. Ryzen can still game fine with A good GPU .. its not like you wont be getting your 60+ FPS.


I am self am looking for 16 thread CPU for VM - ESXi or UNRAID Server to replace A few computers. If its 500+ for the CPU .. i would just jump to A threadriiper 2950x .

As far as gaming goes ... my 4790k is till crushing all these new games ... no need.
....
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#31
Rahmat Sofyan
no too convincing, early test perhaps.. but still if those number true, I'm stick with my 86K
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#32
Batailleuse
makes me laugh when you see some people going "woaaaaa intel so good, crushing the competition"

90-95% of the FPS in games is from the GPU,
intel having 5-10% more FPS I barely noticeable at best... I mean sure it's up to 10% but if you're doing literally anything else than gaming on your computer AMD crushes Intel in pretty much every professional use.

Also Memory speed has little to no effect on Intel CPU, you can be having 2600Mhz or 4266Mhz you gain what ... 5% , while It does a lot for AMD, with a 4266Mhz combined with an AMD 2700x there's literally less than 5% difference in games, your GPU is the real bottleneck for games, I really thing that AMD has a better long game approach to its lineup.

I had Intel for like 10 Years (after switching from AMD when I had an Athlon FX) so little evolved in 10 years, AMD is coming back like a bullet, and 2700X being already good. (its actually my next upgrade for Xmas)

Now Ryzen 7nm is on the horizon, probably going to support ddr5 at some point, which will Obviously boost even more its perf if Intel doesn't changes its Arch, I honestly thing that by 2019 AMD will severely crush any Intel on any workload.

EPYC is already destroying Intel for server area at any workload, Threadripper just put all the X gen of intel to shame both in Performance and Price/perf. so I wouldn't be surprise if ryzen 7nm does it too.
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#33
Emu
If the 9700K is in the same price bracket as the 8700K then I will probably be buying one for my next computer upgrade. Why? Well, according to the rumors, the 9700K will overclock to 5.3GHz on air while most 8700Ks overclock to around 5-5.3GHz after de-lidding with water cooling. This shows that the soldering instead of thermal paste is worth it and that hopefully the 9700K is a bit more efficient in relation to voltage requirements for overclocking. To be honest though, if they had a soldered 6 core K-variant in the 9x00 generation then I would be considering that over the 9700K if the pricing was right.

As for those who claim "a i7 2600K is good enough for modern GPUs", tests do show that "good enough" is dependent on how good your GPU is. A 7700K at 5.0GHz is actually slow enough to bottleneck a GTX 1080 ti at resolutions up to 4K depending on the game. The CPU needs to be fast enough to not bottleneck the GPU until the GPU has hit it's peak performance. With the imminent release of the RTX 20x0 series, the older i7 CPUs are just not going to cut it if the performance of the GPUs is a good 20%-30% over the 10x0 series as is claimed by Nvidia.

*edited* fixed a brainfart with the 7700K clock speeds lol
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#34
Jism
These benchmarks are just 'procentual'.
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#35
RealNeil
Performance isn't enough to change out my two 8700Ks ~or~ my 1700X.

It will sell well if they price it right.
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#36
ViperXTR
Where's Ryzen 3000 series? -__-
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#37
TheOne
If only Intel would go ahead and announce the 9th generation with specs, pricing, and availability.
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#38
R-T-B
dwadeTriggered easily by facts I see.
Alternative facts seem to be popular with fanboys. I mean even Intel had an earlier 8-core proc.
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#39
hat
Enthusiast
R-T-BAlternative facts seem to be popular with fanboys. I mean even Intel had an earlier 8-core proc.
Not in the mainstream space. The first one I remember was the 5960x (an x99 HEDT chip), barring Xeons.
Posted on Reply
#40
R-T-B
hatNot in the mainstream space. The first one I remember was the 5960x (an x99 HEDT chip), barring Xeons.
His only criteria was "gaming?"
Posted on Reply
#41
hat
Enthusiast
His criteria is...

Posted on Reply
#42
Raendor
EmuIf the 9700K is in the same price bracket as the 8700K then I will probably be buying one for my next computer upgrade. Why? Well, according to the rumors, the 9700K will overclock to 5.3GHz on air while most 8700Ks overclock to around 5-5.3GHz after de-lidding with water cooling. This shows that the soldering instead of thermal paste is worth it and that hopefully the 9700K is a bit more efficient in relation to voltage requirements for overclocking. To be honest though, if they had a soldered 6 core K-variant in the 9x00 generation then I would be considering that over the 9700K if the pricing was right.

As for those who claim "a i7 2600K is good enough for modern GPUs", tests do show that "good enough" is dependent on how good your GPU is. A 7700K at 5.0GHz is actually slow enough to bottleneck a GTX 1080 ti at resolutions up to 4K depending on the game. The CPU needs to be fast enough to not bottleneck the GPU until the GPU has hit it's peak performance. With the imminent release of the RTX 20x0 series, the older i7 CPUs are just not going to cut it if the performance of the GPUs is a good 20%-30% over the 10x0 series as is claimed by Nvidia.

*edited* fixed a brainfart with the 7700K clock speeds lol
Poor amd users then. All of their cpus are bottlenecked then, since they perform lower than 7700k in gaming. Same goes for poor 8400/8600k users, since 7700k is usually between the two. And yet I don’t see cries of despair or any sign of significant performance benefit from 9700k over 6700k even in aforementioned graphs. The moar cores marketing from Intel definitely worked on you. These marginal benefits and slight 1080p “bottlenecks” with fps over 100 are not platform switch for the asking price of the refreshed Skylake on steroids.
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#43
GoldenX
Seems like just more of the same.
C'mon Intel, one single jab and you're on your knees with the referee counting to 10? We need competition, do better than this.
Posted on Reply
#44
hat
Enthusiast
GoldenXSeems like just more of the same.
C'mon Intel, one single jab and you're on your knees with the referee counting to 10? We need competition, do better than this.
Wait until the next major architecture (what is it, Cascade Lake now?), which should be on 10nm, to see what they can really do...
Posted on Reply
#45
GoldenX
hatWait until the next major architecture (what is it, Cascade Lake now?), which should be on 10nm, to see what they can really do...
I hope so, because if this keeps up, Ryzen's prices are going to rise (heh).
I hope 10nm is not just another Haswell to Beoadwell.
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#46
londiste
Depending on settings, GTX1070 does bottleneck some of these these newer games even at 1080p.
Actually, these results are pretty impressive given it is an 8c/8t competing successfully enough with 6c/12t and sometimes with 8c/16t competition.
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#47
lexluthermiester
londisteDepending on settings, GTX1070 does bottleneck some of these these newer games even at 1080p.
Not that I've seen. What games?
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#48
Octopuss
dwadeThe world's first gaming 8 core CPU. Thanks Intel!
Why hasn't this troll been banned yet? Just look at his postings.
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#50
Vanzetti
One of the worst tech web pages here in Spain, and this "review" is an example of that.
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