Core i7-8700K Reviewed by Lab501

[btarunr]

Ahead of the 5th October reviews NDA, Lab501 posted their review of the Core i7-8700K six-core processor using samples not provided by Intel, paired with an Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming motherboard. The tests reveal that the i7-8700K trades blows with the Ryzen 7 1800X in multi-threaded tests, despite two fewer cores, and has a clear leadership in single-threaded tests. It also reveals that the i7-8700K may not be as pricier than the i7-7700K as previously thought. Interestingly, the i7-8700K also spells trouble for "Skylake-X" Core i7 SKUs such as the i7-7800X and i7-7820X, as it offers multi-threaded performance in proximity to them, while being cheaper overall.

The Core i7-8700K is able to sustain its Turbo Boost frequencies of 4.20 GHz better than Intel's other Core X HEDT chips, which translates into higher gaming performance. The tests reveal that today's games still don't need six cores, and on the merit of high sustained clock speeds alone, the i7-8700K is shaping up to be among the fastest processors you can choose for gaming PC builds. Lab501 also got the i7-8700K to overclock to 5.1 GHz with relative ease. The chip runs feisty hot at overclocked speeds, but rewards with HEDT-like performance. Find other interesting findings of Lab501 in the source link below.



More results follow.


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[cryohellinc]

Impressive performance, however they use Tooth Paste again, and that is my main issue with this. Besides you need yet another new mobo...

Will wait for next Ryzen for comparison, as apparently the 12nm version will come this February.

Lets wait and see what happens then. Am4's longevity + solder is more attractive to me than 10 extra fps.

But lets wait and see.

 

[Raendor]

As expected, doesn't look like it brings more benefit in gaming over 6700/7700, but great cpu overall. Though all this z270 incompatibility nonsense definitely won't make me switch from 2-year old 6700k until at least Ice Lake and Zen 2.

 

[EarthDog]

Impressive performance, however they use Tooth Paste again, and that is my main issue with this. Besides you need yet another new mobo...

Will wait for next Ryzen for comparison, as apparently the 12nm version will come this February.

Lets wait and see what happens then. Am4's longevity + solder is more attractive to me than 10 extra fps.

But lets wait and see.

Weird... 5.1ghz overclock with toothpaste... must be terrible to work at stock and be able to overclock to 5.1ghz on toothpaste..

PS - 5.1ghz was on air... they benched cinebench at 5.2 and pifast at 5.3......all on that 'toothpaste' ...

Of course, a single copy can not set a rule, the second copy of the Intel Core i5 8600K that you will soon see in a very interesting article running stable at 5GHz with 1.35v. However, all the marks we have collected from other industry colleagues indicate that most 8600K copies can run stable at 5GHz with acceptable voltage.This means that 5GHz in everyday use, for a processor equipped with 6 cores, cooled on the air, has just become a reality!

 

[yotano211]

The power consumption is very impressive for 2 extra cores, the same has 7700k.

 

[las]

Impressive performance, however they use Tooth Paste again, and that is my main issue with this. Besides you need yet another new mobo...

Will wait for next Ryzen for comparison, as apparently the 12nm version will come this February.

Lets wait and see what happens then. Am4's longevity + solder is more attractive to me than 10 extra fps.

But lets wait and see.

10 fps? 8700K got 30 fps higher minimum than 1800X in Far Cry Primal here.
Stuff like this matters for 100+ Hz gamers, alot.

1800X is pretty much a maxed out Ryzen chip. There's barely any OC headroom. And it's more expensive than 8700K.

Not to mention that 5 GHz probably will be no problem on Coffee Lake because of 14nm++ optimization/tweaks ^^ Even cheap air cooling will be able to do 4.8 GHz.

I'll take that "toothpaste" over non-overclockable Ryzen CPU's. Reaching 4 GHz is far from easy and most fail, when 100% stability is required.

 

[goodeedidid]

People should try educate themselves for the reasons of using TIM. So many ignorant people see something online and repeated it without knowing why and they try to pretend to be smart. omg

 

[champsilva]

People should try educate themselves for the reasons of using TIM. So many ignorant people see something online and repeated it without knowing why and they try to pretend to be smart. omg

Yeah, what i saw most is this new "hit", people doesnot even knows why intel use TIM, instead of soldering.

Ofc theres a reason.

 

[Sakkun]

Yeah, what i saw most is this new "hit", people doesnot even knows why intel use TIM, instead of soldering.

Ofc theres a reason.

What is the reason?

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Weird... 5.1ghz overclock with toothpaste... must be terrible to work at stock and be able to overclock to 5.1ghz on toothpaste..

PS - 5.1ghz was on air... they benched cinebench at 5.2 and pifast at 5.3......all on that 'toothpaste' ...

Its fine until the TIM wears out, and then you have to delip and repaste the chip, which necessitates either potentially damaging your CPU or buying a tool for just that purpose.

Meanwhile, 10-15 years on, the soldered chip will work just as well as it did out of the box, as is evidenced by the plethora of old chips that still work fine.

On a 6 core CPU, there really should be solder.

People should try educate themselves for the reasons of using TIM. So many ignorant people see something online and repeated it without knowing why and they try to pretend to be smart. omg

And perhaps you should educate yourself on why people dont want TIM instead of solder. omg.

 

[Vayra86]

People should try educate themselves for the reasons of using TIM. So many ignorant people see something online and repeated it without knowing why and they try to pretend to be smart. omg

Let's face facts, those whiners are not actually in the market for buying a faster CPU.

They just want a CPU at some point and think complaining about toothpaste to the market leader will make any difference for their future (whenever that is) purchase.

Its a bit sad IMO, and its also getting very very old now.

 

[goodeedidid]

Its fine until the TIM wears out, and then you have to delip and repaste the chip, which necessitates either potentially damaging your CPU or buying a tool for just that purpose.

Meanwhile, 10-15 years on, the soldered chip will work just as well as it did out of the box, as is evidenced by the plethora of old chips that still work fine.

On a 6 core CPU, there really should be solder.



And perhaps you should educate yourself on why people dont want TIM instead of solder. omg.

It doesn't matter what people want, especially people who don't understand what they are talking about. Intel is not a government organization to jump at the whim of every unsatisfied baby. Even der8auer defends Intel for using TIM because he knows exactly why, while you don't.

 

[Durvelle27]

To say somewhat i'm impressed. This actually is a decent chip if priced correctly like around the Ryzen 7 1700(X) which is what most people chose over the pricer 1800(X). If i didn't already go ryzen i may have considered this. Awaiting more reviews

 

[EarthDog]

Its fine until the TIM wears out, and then you have to delip and repaste the chip, which necessitates either potentially damaging your CPU or buying a tool for just that purpose.

Meanwhile, 10-15 years on, the soldered chip will work just as well as it did out of the box, as is evidenced by the plethora of old chips that still work fine.

On a 6 core CPU, there really should be solder.



And perhaps you should educate yourself on why people dont want TIM instead of solder. omg.

delid, not delip.

Lol, never had that happen where it dries out. People claim kt does, but also dont seem to understand that is its normal consistency.

Also, people dont keep cpus for 10-15 years... lol. A P4 or A64 would make me cry if i had to use one of those for anything... and that is just 10-12 years ago..

 

[goodeedidid]

Let's face facts, those whiners are not actually in the market for buying a faster CPU.

They just want a CPU at some point and think complaining about toothpaste to the market leader will make any difference for their future (whenever that is) purchase.

Its a bit sad IMO

I don't have any issues with unsatisfied consumers if their arguments are justified with good reasoning. But people who copy and paste phrases like tooth-paste that they saw online are automatically discarded by me as trash-opinion.

 

[Vayra86]

Its fine until the TIM wears out, and then you have to delip and repaste the chip, which necessitates either potentially damaging your CPU or buying a tool for just that purpose.

Meanwhile, 10-15 years on, the soldered chip will work just as well as it did out of the box, as is evidenced by the plethora of old chips that still work fine.

On a 6 core CPU, there really should be solder.



And perhaps you should educate yourself on why people dont want TIM instead of solder. omg.

Show me all those systems you're still running with 15 year old soldered chips in them, please. It'll be nice vintage hardware to look at.

Also, while you're at it, show me a dried out TIM under a non-delidded Ivy Bridge, because that's the oldest toothpaste chip in the portfolio. I'll let you know, I have one, and it performs 100% identical to what it did on day one.

 

[goodeedidid]

Its fine until the TIM wears out, and then you have to delip and repaste the chip, which necessitates either potentially damaging your CPU or buying a tool for just that purpose.

Meanwhile, 10-15 years on, the soldered chip will work just as well as it did out of the box, as is evidenced by the plethora of old chips that still work fine.

On a 6 core CPU, there really should be solder.



And perhaps you should educate yourself on why people dont want TIM instead of solder. omg.

https://overclocking.guide/the-truth-about-cpu-soldering/

 

[FYFI13]

Pretty sure after using this CPU for 15 years you’d have bigger issues than dry TIM :-D

Anyways, 8700k seems to be pretty good performer. Let’s hope Intel doesn’t mess up with pricing.

 

[BluesFanUK]

Still not worth an upgrade from my 5820K

 

[FYFI13]

Still not worth an upgrade from my 5820K

Probably not, but as a 4790k owner I’m really looking forward to get a 8700k.

 

[FR@NK]

Its fine until the TIM wears out, and then you have to delip and repaste the chip, which necessitates either potentially damaging your CPU or buying a tool for just that purpose.

The TIM doesn't "wear out" to the point you have to reapply the paste...

Over time the thermal conductivity does decrease slighty but at stock speeds these chips have plenty of thermal headroom.

https://www.dowcorning.com/content/publishedlit/11-1688A-01.pdf

Its gunna be lols once AMD starts using paste

 

[Vayra86]

The TIM doesn't "wear out" to the point you have to reapply the paste...

Over time the thermal conductivity does decrease slighty but at stock speeds these chips have plenty of thermal headroom.

https://www.dowcorning.com/content/publishedlit/11-1688A-01.pdf

Its gunna be lols once AMD starts using paste

How dare you link an actual official specs document, people can't handle this at all!

 

[goodeedidid]

In all truth I de-lidded my 7700k to gain more thermal headroom using liquid metal and that really works, but I crippled 3 capacitors in the process.

 

[Deleted member 172152]

8600k does quite well too. Combines gaming of a 7700k (mins aren't great, but overclocking fixes that issue and makes it about as fast as a oc-ed 7700k when it comes to mins) and the raw power of a 1700 (on average) for 1600x money!

8700k is a bit too expensive for me, but the 8600k's price/performance is at least on par with ryzen I think (again, on average) and as a casual content creator my very much free programs prefer singlethread performance and games of course still LOVE high clockspeeds, although more cores never hurts. I game at 1440p though, so I want the high mins of an oc-ed 8600k or a 8700k, not so much the averages or highs, but the mins are just that much higher than on ryzen still and I can't wait for the 12nm refresh, so coffee lake seems like the best option atm.

 

[dicktracy]

Welp there goes the entire Ryzen lineup. This thing is even faster than a 7700k in gaming!? A bit faster in multithreading than their fastest model with 2 less cores!? Can overclocked to 5GHz and beyond DDR4 4200!? Price drop panic mode incoming.