Intel Core i7-8700 Review: Stock Cooler Falls Flat

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By Paul Alcorn
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Core i7-8700 with its stock heat sink lost some ground to Corsair's closed-loop liquid cooler in the Illustrator test. Otherwise, there was little to differentiate both configurations.

The stock Core i7-8700K barely beat Core i7-8700 in our aggregate score. However, overclocking the K-series chip to 4.9 GHz propelled it into a second-place finish (after Core i5-8600K, interestingly enough).

Web Browser

The Meltdown and Spectre patches imposed performance penalties on Intel CPUs through our Web browser tests. However, Core processors still lead through these lightly-threaded benchmarks.

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The Krakken suite tests JavaScript performance using several workloads, including audio, imaging, and cryptography. AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X slid in ahead of Core i7-8700, reminding us that second-gen Ryzen CPUs are much more competitive than their predecessors in workloads that aren't well-optimized for parallelization.

MotionMark emphasizes graphics performance, rather than JavaScript, but is also sensitive to CPU clock rates. There, Core i7-8700 turned things around and beat the Ryzen 7 2700X. We weren't expecting a stock Core i7-8700K to carve out such a large advantage over the vanilla -8700, though.

Productivity

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The application start-up metric measures load time snappiness in word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers under warm- and cold-start conditions. Core i7-8700 impressed in this benchmark by barely beating a stock -8700K. But the benefit of an unlocked K-series chip became evident in the Core i5-8600K and Core i7-8700K results at 4.9 GHz.

Our video conferencing suite measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection to model real-world usage. This workload is parallelized, so it responds well to Ryzen's core count advantage. Nevertheless, a six-core design with Hyper-Threading allowed Core i7-8700K to muscle out the competition when we overclocked it to 4.9 GHz.

The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries using the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized, so the Ryzen processors took an uncontested lead.


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Paul Alcorn
Paul Alcorn
Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech

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.

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40 Comments Comment from the forums
  • AgentLozen
    This CPU doesn't seem to know who it wants to target. Users who are budget constrained would get better value out of the i5 8400. Demanding gamers and power users should be looking at the i7 8700K or Ryzen 2700X.

    In what context does it make sense to buy this CPU?
    Reply
  • Lutfij
    The stock cooler looks like it was given as an April Fool's joke...campaign.
    Reply
  • pensive69
    oh get real!
    stock cooling is always less than prime.
    Reply
  • RyanTodd1
    I brought the processor and so far i havent even begun to hit its limits. I've primarily used it for high end gaming such as the Witcher 3. Very good chip and not too costly either - considering its the new gen. Very happy, only thing is, i wish i have 50 quid more to get the 8700k! Oh well!
    Reply
  • AgentLozen
    RyanTodd1 said:
    Very happy, only thing is, i wish i have 50 quid more to get the 8700k!

    I wouldn't sweat it, RyanTodd1. Your graphics card will be the gaming bottleneck before the CPU is.

    When I got my first computer in 1997, it came with a Pentium II @ 233MHz. There were 266Mhz and 300Mhz models available at the time that I wished I had instead. Looking back 21 years later, I realized that it never made a difference which one I had. I think you'll feel the same way about your i7 8700.
    Reply
  • Fluffy_Hedgehog
    21087259 said:
    oh get real!
    stock cooling is always less than prime.

    *cough*
    https://www.amd.com/system/files/AM4-Wraith-Cooler-Lineup-1920x631.jpg
    http://www.relaxedtech.com/reviews/amd/wraith-max-and-wraith-spire-cooler/2
    *cough*

    you were saying? … yes those are copper plates on those coolers for the 65 and up lineup, yes they do have led and yes thost are actual copper heatpipes on the cooler that comes with the 2700x.

    I know a lot of aftermarket coolers that look and perform a hell of a lot worse than what amd puts in the box.

    it is only intel that puts half an ounce of third grade aluminium on top of their cpus (because they are too cheap to provide anything worthwhile I suppose …) and expects people to purchase actual cooling after the fact raising the total price of a system significantly.
    Reply
  • Ilya__
    21087183 said:
    This CPU doesn't seem to know who it wants to target. Users who are budget constrained would get better value out of the i5 8400. Demanding gamers and power users should be looking at the i7 8700K or Ryzen 2700X.

    In what context does it make sense to buy this CPU?

    I don't really agree. The difference between 8700 and 8700k is almost $100 CAD and yet the performance difference at default clocks is very small. So if I am building a machine for someone that will never overclock, save them some money and/or get the 8700 and get a good cooler instead.
    Reply
  • justin.m.beauvais
    It looks to me that the circumstances where the 8700 overwhelms its cooler are few and far between. For someone looking for great gaming performance, but might not have all the cash needed for an 8700K and cooler, they could get the 8700, not give up much performance, and just get a better cooler later when workloads catch up.

    The benchmarks paint a pretty nice picture of the 8700. I believe you, Tom's, when you say that the cooler can be overwhelmed, but your benchmarks don't really seem to indicate much of a loss when/if it is happening, especially in gaming.

    Honestly though, why don't they differentiate the designation. Intel should have the 8700 at stock 8700K speeds, but just have the K unlocked. It isn't exactly deserving of the 8700 designation if it is clocked 500MHz lower. Just another thing Intel does that irks me.
    Reply
  • RyanTodd1
    21087440 said:
    RyanTodd1 said:
    Very happy, only thing is, i wish i have 50 quid more to get the 8700k!

    I wouldn't sweat it, RyanTodd1. Your graphics card will be the gaming bottleneck before the CPU is.

    When I got my first computer in 1997, it came with a Pentium II @ 233MHz. There were 266Mhz and 300Mhz models available at the time that I wished I had instead. Looking back 21 years later, I realized that it never made a difference which one I had. I think you'll feel the same way about your i7 8700.

    Hopefully this is the case, although tech has come a lot further since 1997! I wasnt even born then! :)

    Reply
  • george_osborne
    For only ~$50 more I will always go with the unlocked processor. Better base frequency, better turbo and the ability to overclock (if so desired).
    Reply