Core i7-8700K Review: Coffee Lake Brews A Great Gaming CPU
Why you can trust Tom's Hardware
Project CARS, Far Cry Primal & Rise of the Tomb Raider
Project CARS
There's a solid scaling trend from Intel's disappointing Core i7-7800X up through its impressive -8700K.
Core i7-8700K does offer better performance than -7700K out of the box, but as you get more graphics-bound, the two increasingly converge. That means enthusiasts specifically focused on gaming will see little benefit from upgrading, particularly if they own lower-end graphics cards.
Far Cry Primal
Far Cry Primal is another title that doesn't respond as well to Core i7-8700K as we would expect. Again, lower performance than the -7700K at stock settings implies that we just aren't getting the full benefit of Coffee Lake yet. It does gain some ground when we lock both CPUs at 4.9 GHz, but -8700K fails to completely overtake Kaby Lake.
The Ryzen processors obviously trail Intel's offerings in this game and many others. But they're still solid value plays benefiting from lower prices and more affordable platforms. One of Ryzen's greatest advantages is higher performance in threaded workloads like rendering. Coffee Lake challenges this with more cores, so our content creation benchmarks could upset the narrative we've been telling since Ryzen's launch.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Core i7-7700K and -8700K offer strong, but similar performance in Rise of the Tomb Raider. The Core i5-7600K bests them both at stock settings, though.
MORE: Best CPUs
MORE: Intel & AMD Processor Hierarchy
MORE: All CPUs Content
Current page: Project CARS, Far Cry Primal & Rise of the Tomb Raider
Prev Page Grand Theft Auto V, Hitman & Shadow of Mordor Next Page DTP, Office, Multimedia & Compression PerformanceStay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
-
cknobman Looks like it might be time for AMD to lower prices.Reply
AMD really has shaken Intel up, never would I have dreamed (before this year) I'd see Intels best gaming cpu (especially a K model) release at $360. -
AgentLozen AMD's price per core is still very strong. It struggles in gaming at 1080p but Tomshardware didn't provide data in 1440p or 4K.Reply
I'm not yet convinced that AMD is in trouble. -
saunupe1911 Hmmm is it worth a skylake 6700K that's stable at 4.6 Overclock to upgrade? Probably not. I wouldn't mind 6 cores though. I wonder how many will hit 5.0!Reply -
jroc188 8700k is $480ca got the R5 1600 for $255ca and mobo for $120ca. $375 all together and more then happy with the gaming results. But the 8700k dose look sweet on the benchmarks. AMD with a price drop will still sell wellReply -
shrapnel_indie Of course, while Intel's accelerated Coffee Lake-S launch makes it look today's unveiling is a direct response to heated competition, in reality, the long incubation period for new processors means it’s more likely the result of 10nm manufacturing delays.
Ummm... Yeah, the design may have been kicking around, and ready to go before Ryzen, but when it is released months earlier than scheduled.... Saying that it wasn't a response to Ryzen seems more like misinformation more than pure fact. Yeah, I don't doubt 10nm manufacturing delays played a part in the previous release date, but Ryzen forced its release a little earlier than planned. -
bloodroses To AMD fanbois who claimed that Intel was toast and couldn't respond to Ryzen's release, here's Intel's Mic drop. *thud*Reply
For the rest of us consumers, this is great news for continued strong competition at reduced prices from both companies. :) -
massacre.h4te Nearly 90 degrees Celsius when overclocked gaming on an AiO. Prettttttty toasty!Reply -
saunupe1911 20241606 said:To AMD fanbois who claimed that Intel was toast and couldn't respond to Ryzen's release, here's Intel's Mic drop. *thud*
For the rest of us consumers, this is great news for continued strong competition at reduced prices from both companies. :)
Z370 motherboards are expensive though...sheesh. And you gotta reach out to liquid cooling companies for attachments for mounting to this socket. Canon Lake may be out before you can get everything situated for a nice 8700k upgrade lmao. -
FormatC
The reason is simple:20241615 said:Nearly 90 degrees Celsius when overclocked gaming on an AiO. Prettttttty toasty!
The built-in frying fat between IHS and die :) -
LilDog1291 20241606 said:To AMD fanbois who claimed that Intel was toast and couldn't respond to Ryzen's release, here's Intel's Mic drop. *thud*
For the rest of us consumers, this is great news for continued strong competition at reduced prices from both companies. :)
I don't know if I would call 90C+ on a chiller cooler (granted its a high overclock but the 7700k had the same problem) a mic drop but it is definitely a step in the right direction. If they can get their temperatures under control in the next generation they will win my vote back.