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Testing and Overclocking
We tested the Core i7-8700K and i5-8400K using the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 motherboard with 16GB dual channel G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200MHz. It is desperately upsetting that a package of TridentZ RGB DDR4-3866MHz after we had finished testing and while we shooting our video. Not, you understand, that we expect DDR4-3866 will make much difference it’s just, you know, faster and more desirable.
Other components are an EVGA Founder’s Edition GTX 1080Ti graphics card, Fractal Design Celsius S24 cooler, M.2 Samsung SSD and a Sea Sonic Prime Titanium 1000W power supply.
These are combinations of CPU, motherboard and memory we used throughout our testing:
Intel Core i7-8700K and i5-8400 on Z370 Aorus Gaming 7
G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200MHz
Intel Core i7-7700K on Asus Strix Z270F Gaming
G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200MHz
Intel Core i7-7800X on Asus ROG Rampage VI Extreme
G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200MHz
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X on Asus Crosshair VI Hero
G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200MHz
We started our review with the intention of overclocking the Core i7-8700K to something approaching 4.9GHz or 5.0GHz with 1.4V however this plan went out of the window as the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 offers a preset that overclocks the system to 5.0GHz in one click.
It worked and was rock solid (albeit with high CPU temperatures) so that was the extent of our overclocking.
A marginal increase over a 7700k for a whole load more cash upgrading………keep on milking us Intel.
That’s completely disingenuous. If AMD released a Ryzen chip with these exact specs and prices, people would be signing from the rafters. If you already have a 7700K then -any- new release was always going to be “a marginal increase” … “for a whole load more cash”.
When looking at it from the perspective of a 2500K owner, I’m going to have to buy a new Motherboard, CPU and RAM when I upgrade, no matter what I do. And finally, the 8700K or 8600K look like they could well be worth it (Even a 7700K or 1600X wouldn’t be a massive improvement on a 4.6GHz 2500K, especially considering the financial outlay).
What has arrived is a Significant improved in performance, power consumption and bang-for-buck. That doesn’t translate to Significantly higher equally higher FPS in games, but they are indeed higher and as games make better use of more than 4 cores, DX12, etc, the margin between 7700K and 8700K will only increase. If that’s not good enough for you (because you already have the previous best ever gaming CPU), don’t upgrade. There is nothing forcing you to upgrade less than 12 months after your last purchase.
It strikes me that Intel have been holding back over recent years, minimising development costs and maximising returns? Adding 50% more cores doesn’t -appear- to have been hard to have achieved, they probably could have done it several generations ago if push came to shove, but there was no competition to shove them. Now with Ryzen as competition, Intel are responding. I wonder if the TIM they use is something they -know- they can change for significant improvements, but they’re again holding it back for a “quick win” on a future generation chip?
Thanks for the review, was interesting reading! 🙂
There is no significant upgrade in performance.
Nearly 50% increase in Cinebench, Handbrake, 7Zip, Blender, etc?
Nearly 40% in 3DMark?
Nearly 25% in Metro’s FPS?
Did you read the same article(s) as I did?
+ 2 more cores, 45w less.
very impressed with that 8700k – 5ghz with that gigabyte board never looked so easy – ordering that GIGABYTE mobo and the CPU ASAP.
You’ll have to excuse people like Chronicbint. They one don’t understand how next generation releases work. They are ignorant to being able to read road maps to know this has been a planned release of 6 core mainstream CPU’s for years, it’s just it’s release has been pushed up to now, when it was originally slated to be released later this year/early next year.
As for the marginal increase in performance. I 100% bet he did not read the article at all. Probably clicked on one link to go to a specific page, looked at one chart, and stopped.
People like Chronicbint find it easier to go online and complain without actually reading the articles of reviews. He’s the type of person who owns a 6700k, then get’s upset that upgrading to a 7700k isn’t a 350% increase in performance because tick tock is a very confusing concept.
If you have a 4000 series or older CPU, the 8600k/8700k is a great upgrade. Well behind “minimal” upgrade in performance. Just ignore the ignorance of some people. $5 says he was never going to upgrade to Ryzen or Intel’s 8th gen regardless.
And at opportune time too – no need to get heater for the winter, i7 does the job just fine.
Deff loving my 1700 @ 3.80GHz more lol
Heh, for a looong time now I’ve kept my windows open with my two monitors and pc heating the space for me. 8700K isn’t the coolest running for sure, but neither is it the hottest. Just a shame the TIM means the heat struggles to even reach the cooler, never mind the air 🙁
He obviously has a 7700k and is saying its not worth the upgrade.
You don’t have to blindly believe that the tick tock strategy is the only strategy that should exist. You don’t have to blindly believe that the TIM they use is good.
I’m just disappointing with the temperatures. I understand I might get flack for this but they need high end water coolers to overclock. My Ryzen just has air cooling and its not going beyond 66 C. Yes I’m limited to 4Ghz but its nice to just have an air cooled system.
And on a different site I see the 8600K needs water-cooling to be at 51 C for stock speeds. I want to see advances in this department.
This is a great demonstration of what happen when we have a competitive AMD.
Let’s hope we will never stay with only one player in the market.
According to my calculation, it will be worth upgrading from 5820K (Stable @ 4.5Ghz).
Also according to my calculation, people that upgrade often pay much less, i get a brand new xx80ti card every generation and pay less than 50% of its retail price, because my previous is still in high value, same goes for CPUs and Motherboards.
People with 7700k and new z270 will pay 30-40% of CPU/Mobo combo after they sell their old one on ebay (if old one has undamaged box, parts in like new condition, prices apply to CPU/Mobo combos from same manufacturer and modern line)
NO, he read everything, EVERYTHING to the T, he is 100% AMD fanboy and BELIEVE me he was read and looking, for one chart that shows AHA AMD is better, he would of screenshots it and re-post on WCCTF and otehr forums.
But alas, 6 core ryzen was b***h-slapped, even 1800x was owned in 100% of gaming tasks and most productivity and in otehr its wining by small margin and thats 8 core CPU.
Intel 6 core 8700K performs like AMD Ryzen 1800x in 80% of tasks
There is no Temperature problem, if you want AIR cooler, you dont need 8700K, get 8700, save 20-30$ and put on an air cooler, with XMP profile enable Enhanced Turbo (meaning 4.7Ghz Turbo on all cores all the time) and your set.
4.7Ghz 6 core is just as good as 5Ghz 6 core, the difference is minimal.
DO NOT order them separately, both Amazon and Newegg has them in bundle, you save whole 50$.
Intel had 6 and 8 core CPUs on the HEDT platform for years, its same technology, so they knew how to make them.
When i got my 5820K in 2015, it cost couple of dollars LESS than 6700K (the top dog of mainstream).
The only thing that was more expensive is the motherboard, but its only relatively more expensive, because based on the features and everything it had it was like buying Top ASUS Mainstream mobo, so it was more expensive than what most people pay for a mobbo which is 150$ to 250$ but it has the features and the quality (Sabertooth x99)
I was looking at z370 motherboards, even the TOP ones like from this review (Gigabyte has nothing above it) or ASUS Hero or others, all look much cheaper and simpler, the x99 Sabertooth has full body shield on top and full metal plate/brace on the bottom, its build like tank undependable, has M.2 X4 drive that dosnt disable any SATA ports, had 10 SATA ports (all Intel no asmedia crap), it has tons of on board temperature sensors, you can check any temperature you want like USB3 temp, RAM, PCIe and so on, tons of sensors plus 3 external and it has Not Single Led, ZERO LEDS
Basically coming down from such platform is a bummer, I decided to upgraded to 8700K because im 100% gamer, i never compressed a video in my life, i do compress audiobooks and watch 4K videos thats it
Instead of me buying a lower-class CPU to enjoy air-cooling. Intel is a very smart company. They could design the CPU to not hit 86 C and just run more cool.
I think they can do it.
My friend has a 7700k on air cooling not overclocked and it hits 100C (it was a prebuild but still….. that’s a problem)
Its a waste of time unless you run potato res 1080p.
Paper launch too.
That isn’t milking because many of us still have Sandy/Ivy Bridge, just because you want to upgrade every year doesn’t mean that adding 2 cores is milking.
no increase in single core use in some tests the 7700k wins for most gaming
i never used cinebench hankbrake blender most people dont its only better in multe core use intel needs to move up to 5 6 gz here they have been at 3g for 15 years and dont say they cant do it yes they can people can delid the chips
and put real paste 100% silver and bring the temps down 5c they intel can raise the gz to at lease 5gz overclock can do it any your saying intel cant thats not true
look up delid a intel cpu you can delid a chip put 100% silver paste that will bring the temps down by 5 to 10c why ant intel using silver paste because they are cheap and care about making money instead of cooling there chips
look here
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=4GOpNZZy9vc
By George, I think Intel has finally done it. And just a the right timing for me. I’m really liking the i7-8700k very much. Starting a new build next month – and after having a significant time of hands on with my friend’s Ryzen 1700 rig, I have made up my mind to build a Z370, i7 8700k rig over a Ryzen build. It’s about time Intel, well played.
Ok, let the AMD’ers thrashing of me begin.
Hello 😀
Please help me <3 I'd like to buy a intel core i5 8400 and an Asus Prime Z370P (motherboard)
I'd like to know if the BIOS's version of MB is compatible with i5 8400 or i need to do some upgrade.
thank you 😀
Be warned some motherboards will have all core turbo 4.7GHz causing ~145W power consumption enabled as default! A 95W TDP cooler will not work! Gamers Nexus “Multi-core “enhancement” options are either enabled, disabled, or “auto” in motherboard BIOS, where “auto” has somewhat nebulous behavior, depending on board maker. Enabling multi-core enhancement means that the CPU ignores the Intel spec, instead locking all-core Turbo to the single-core Turbo speeds, which means a few things: (1) Higher voltage is now necessary, and therefore higher power draw and heat; (2) instability can be introduced to the system, as we observed in Blender on the ASUS Maximus X Hero with multi-core enhancement on the 8700K; (3) performance is bolstered in-step with higher all-core Turbo.”
Kitguru it takes ~1 hour for heat in a 240mm liquid cooler to saturate, so how does running AIDIA64 for 5 min. validly test thermals? Also, how does this help the average user pick out a cooling solution if they hand brake or blender for 1 hour or more? Are you recommending a 95W TDP cooler?
Can’t make money out of my videos lol
Yes, this is somtething that seems to dissapear in most reviews – the auto OC at stock settings … that’s why 8700k have such insane results on some websites.
I own 7700k and I can’t imagine temperatures of 8700k after 2-3 hours of using it. It’s basically 7700k with glued 2 cores more. More cores = more heat, you can’t fool physics.
The author of this review can just say “just as planned” 😉
If you look across the board at all the reviewers look at the cooling solutions they are using. Tom’s used a 1500W cooler! Most other use a 240mm or greater liquid cooler, and went easy on testing the thermals. I would love to see someone test that bad boy with a 95W TDP air cooler, and use blender and handbrake for an hour!
It’s not 2005 anymore. Almost all current gen games use multi core.
50% more potential is not marginal. Give it 12 months and games will be using many cores…. many
Single core will soon be irrelevant…. some games already use 5 or more threads.