Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Civilization VI, Battlefield 1 & Dawn of War III
Civilization VI AI Test
Our Civilization VI AI test measures performance in a turn-based strategy game, and it tends to favor high frequencies and physical cores.
The -8700K's Turbo Boost frequencies yield surprisingly good results. At stock settings, the processor essentially ties Core i7-7700K, but leads a little more definitively after tuning.
Core i5-7600K fares respectably in Civilization VI at its stock settings. But after a 5 GHz overclock, it yields a 15.1-second result (not pictured) that even beats Intel's fastest CPUs.
Civilization VI Graphics Test
The Ryzen processors are much more competitive during Civilization VI's graphics test, but Intel's overclocking headroom proves insurmountable. Compared to Core i7-7700K, the -8700K offers 3.9% more performance in stock form, and a 3% advantage after tuning. Those slim leads mean there is still good value in a Kaby Lake-based platform, particularly in light of the higher price on Coffee Lake K-series SKUs.
Battlefield 1 (DX11)
A graphics bottleneck limits the frame rates of our Battlefield 1 benchmark, so with the exception of Ryzen 5 1600X and Core i5-7600K, the differences between models are slight.
Intel's Core i7 processors lead. More specifically, though, the -8700K does beat its predecessor.
It’s easy to see the workload's more threaded nature during its opening phase, where a quad-core Core i5-7600K trails the test pool.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III
Dawn of War III scales well on CPUs with more execution resources. Naturally, then, the Core i7-8700K dominates in stock and overclocked trim.
The Core i7-7800X posts another surprisingly low score. Considering the costs associated with Intel's premium X299 platform, Skylake-X generally doesn't make much sense for gaming.
MORE: Best CPUs
MORE: Intel & AMD Processor Hierarchy
MORE: All CPUs Content
