Silicon Lottery is selling pre-binned Intel Core i7-10700K processors on its online store. If CPU overclocking on your own isn't your cup of tea, Silicon Lottery's offerings are a dream come true -- if you're willing to pay a premium.
Binning specialist Silicon Lottery shared its binning stats for the Core i7-10700K. Sadly, the company didn't specify the size of its sample. Still, Silicon Lottery found that 100% of its samples achieved a 4.9 GHz all-core overclock. Out of the tested chips, 68% managed to hit 5 GHz or higher. Suprisingly, 20% of Silicon Lottery's Core i7-10700K CPUs could run at 5.1 GHz stably. The figure might look underwhelming, but it's actually pretty impressive if you compare it to AMD's Ryzen 3000-series (Matisse) processors lack manual overclocking headroom.
Overall, the data looks pretty encouraging, since more than half of the Core i7-10700K chips reached or surpassed the 5 GHz mark. Silicon Lottery's results seem to contrast MSI's early findings. MSI's data showed that only 5% of its Core i7-10700K was Level A grade, while the other 58% and 32% were Level B and Level C grades, respectively.
The Core i7-10700K, which hails from the 10th Generation Comet Lake-S family, comes with eight CPU cores, 16 threads and 16MB of L3 cache. Intel markets the 14nm K-series chip with a 3.8 GHz base clock and 5.1 GHz boost clock. The all-core boost clock speed, which Intel doesn't publicly advertise, is rated for 4.7 GHz.
For reference, the processor has a PL1 (Power Level 1) of 125W and a PL2 (Power Level 2) that scales up to 229W. Although Intel lists an MSRP of $374 - $387 for a stock Core i7-10700K, the octa-core Comet Lake-S processor typically sells for as high as $409.99.
| Processor | All-Core Boost Clock (GHz) | 4-Core Boost | Vcore (V) | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i7-10700K @ 5.1 GHz | 5.1 | 5.2 / 5.1 | 1.400 | $559.99 |
| Core i7-10700K @ 5.0 GHz | 5.0 | 5.1 / 5.0 | 1.375 | $469.99 |
| Core i7-10700K @ 4.9 GHz | 4.9 | 5.0 / 4.9 | 1.350 | $429.99 |
| Stock Core i7-10700K | 4.7 | ? | ? | $374 - $387 |
The highest-clocked Core i7-10700K from Silicon Lottery runs at 5.1 GHz across all eight cores with a 1.4V Vcore. Alternatively, it can do 5.2 GHz on four cores and 5.1 GHz on the other four cores. This premium part carries a $559.99 price tag, which is up to $150 more expensive than the Core i7-10700K's street price.
Lower binned versions of the Core i7-10700K feature all-core boost clock speeds up to 4.9 GHz and 5.0 GHz and cost $429.99 and $469.99, respectively.
For the binned Comet Lake-S parts, Silicon Lottery sticks with a AVX offset value of 1 that subtracts 100 MHz from the advertised speeds when the processor is engaged in AVX workloads. The company specifies a Load-Line Calibration (LLC) value of 3 for Asus' ROG Maximus XII series of motherboards (Apex, Extreme, Formula, Hero). For Z490 motherboards from other brands, Silicon Lottery recommends a value of 4.
As expected, Silicon Lottery offers the delidding treatment for the Comet Lake-S chips. The service, which costs $49.99, should help decrease the operating temperatures anywhere from 5 degrees to 10 degrees Celsius when the overclocked Core i7-10700K is submitted to heavy workloads.
