Specifications and Summary
We take a look at the new 6-core 8700K and 8400 processors, taking Intel’s mainstream processor segment up a notch!
As seems to be the trend for processor reviews as of late, today marks the second in a two-part reveal of Intel’s Coffee Lake consumer platform. We essentially know all there is to know about the new mainstream and DIY PC processors from Intel, including specifications, platform requirements, and even pricing; all that is missing is performance. That is the story we get to tell you today in our review of the Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400.
Coffee Lake is the second spoke of Intel's “8th generation” wheel that began with the Kaby Lake-R release featuring quad-core 15-watt notebook processors for the thin and light market. Though today’s release of the Coffee Lake-S series (the S is the designation for consumer desktop) doesn’t share the same code name, it does share the same microarchitecture, same ring bus design (no mesh here), and same underlying technology. They are both built on the Intel 14nm process technology.
And much like Kaby Lake-R in the notebook front, Coffee Lake is here to raise the core count and performance profile of the mainstream Intel CPU playbook. When AMD first launched the Ryzen 7 series of processors that brought 8-cores and 16-threads of compute, it fundamentally shook the mainstream consumer markets. Intel was still on top in terms of IPC and core clock speeds, giving it the edge in single and lightly threaded workloads, but AMD had released a part with double the core and thread count and was able to dominate in most multi-threaded workloads compared to similar Intel offerings.
Much like Skylake-X before it, Coffee Lake had been on Intel’s roadmap from the beginning, but new pressure from a revived AMD meant bringing that technology to the forefront sooner rather than later in an effort stem any potential shifts in market share and maybe more importantly, mind share among investors, gamers, and builders. Coffee Lake, and the Core i7, Core i5, and Core i3 processors that will be a part of this 8000-series release, increase the core count across the board, and generally raise clock speeds too. Intel is hoping that by bumping its top mainstream CPU to 6-cores, and coupling that with better IPC and higher clocks, it can alleviate the advantages that AMD has with Ryzen.
But does it?
That’s what we are here to find out today. If you need a refresher on the build up to this release, we have the specifications and slight changes in the platform and design summarized for you below. Otherwise, feel free to jump on over to the benchmarks!
Specifications and Small Changes
Though specs and pricing were all revealed last month, let’s take a quick look at what Intel is releasing today and how it stacks up to previous and competing parts.
| Core i7-8700K | Core i7-8700 | Core i5-8600K | Core i5-8400 | Core i3-8350K | Core i3-8100 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Coffee Lake | Coffee Lake | Coffee Lake | Coffee Lake | Coffee Lake | Coffee Lake |
| Process Tech | 14nm++ | 14nm++ | 14nm++ | 14nm++ | 14nm++ | 14nm++ |
| Cores/Threads | 6/12 | 6/12 | 6/6 | 6/6 | 4/4 | 4/4 |
| Base Clock | 3.7 GHz | 3.2 GHz | 3.6 GHz | 2.8 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 3.6 GHz |
| Turbo Boost 2.0 | 4.7 GHz | 4.6 GHz | 4.3 GHz | 4.0 GHz | N/A | N/A |
| Turbo Boost Max 3.0 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Cache | 12MB | 12MB | 9MB | 9MB | 6MB | 6MB |
| Memory Support | DDR4-2666 | DDR4-2666 | DDR4-2666 | DDR4-2666 | DDR4-2400 | DDRt-2400 |
| PCIe Lanes | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| TDP | 95 watts | 65 watts | 95 watts | 65 watts | 91 watts | 65 watts |
| Socket | LGA115x | LGA115x | LGA115x | LGA115x | LGA115x | LGA115x |
| Price | $359 | $303 | $257 | $182 | $168 | $117 |
Though we only have the Core i7-8700K and the Core i5-8400 to evaluate today, this entire lineup is quite interesting. The Core i7 family jumps from 4-cores to 6-cores while maintaining support for HyperThreading, enabling 12 total threads. The Core i7-8700K has some impressively high clocks – hitting 4.7 GHz at stock settings with a single thread and 4.4 GHz with all threads running. The Core i7-7700K does have a higher base clock (4.2 GHz versus 3.7 GHz) though I never saw the new 8700K dip down that low. The Core i5 family of processors now exist without HyperThreading but still have 6-cores enabled, starting at just $182. And the Core i3 line is now true quad-core enabled without HyperThreading.
- Intel Core i7-8700K - $359 - Amazon.com
- Intel Core i5-8400 - $184 - Amazon.com
- AMD Ryzen 7 1800X - $399 - Amazon.com
- AMD Ryzen 7 1700X - $299 - Amazon.com
| Core i7-8700K | Core i7-7700K | Core i9-7900X | Ryzen 7 1800X | Ryzen 7 1700X | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Coffee Lake | Kaby Lake | Skylake-X | Zen | Zen |
| Process Tech | 14nm++ | 14nm+ | 14nm++ | 14nm | 14nm |
| Cores/Threads | 6/12 | 4/8 | 10/20 | 8/16 | 8/16 |
| Base Clock | 3.7 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 3.3 GHz | 3.6 GHz | 3.4 GHz |
| Turbo Boost 2.0 | 4.7 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 4.3 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 3.8 GHz |
| Turbo Boost Max 3.0 | N/A | N/A | 4.5 GHz | N/A | N/A |
| Cache | 12MB | 8MB | 13.75MB | 20MB | 20MB |
| Memory Support | DDR4-2666 | DDR4-2400 | DDR4-2666 | DDR4-2400 | DDR4-2400 |
| PCIe Lanes | 16 | 16 | 44 | 16 | 16 |
| TDP | 95 watts | 91 watts | 140 watts | 95 watts | 95 watts |
| Socket | LGA115x | LGA115x | LGA2066 | AM4 | AM4 |
| Price | $359 | $309 | $999 | $399/449 | $299/349 |
What this should mean for performance is that all of the new Intel CPUs will be faster than their Kaby Lake counterparts. Having six true cores on the Core i5 family should be compelling options against the quad-core + HyperThreaded Core i7 processors from previous generations. And now I expect the Core i3 parts to compete very well with where the Core i5 landed previously. This is a pretty significant shake up for Intel’s mainstream product line and represents a strong response to AMD as it leans into its Ryzen 7/5/3 product family this fall.
Along with the new processor family comes a new chipset, the Intel Z370, and a host of new motherboards including the ASUS STRIX Z370-E Gaming we used in our testing. There has been much lamenting about Intel requiring a change in motherboard to upgrade from Kaby Lake to Coffee Lake, when the Z270 chipset is not even a year old. And while I can definitely sympathize with consumers in this regard, Intel tells us (and others have confirmed) that the power delivery on the socket has changed in order to support higher power and overclocking with the 6-core designs. This also means that Z370 motherboards are not backwards compatible with Kaby Lake processors either. We are on a 1:1 switch here, which sucks all-around, to be blunt.
For those that are recently upgraders, this is bad news. If you are looking to build a whole new system around a mainstream platform, this could be your opportunity. (Though there are rumors swirling that this chipset will be a one-off solution, so keep that in mind.)
Thanks for the review, and I
Thanks for the review, and I look forward to the high end watercooling article later. So you guys got a 7700k to 5.1 @ 1.375v @ up to 70C, while this 8700k also went to 5.1 but @ 1.2v and went to upper 80s.
No clock for clock testing? I would’ve thought it would be more applicable here than in Kaby Lake.
I love the smell of coffee In
I love the smell of coffee In The Morning
I love the smell of Ryzing
I love the smell of Ryzing Shrout in the morning. :^)
I love the smell of
I love the smell of competition 🙂
How can you possibly not
How can you possibly not include the 1600x? Direct 6/12 core/thread comparison! And it would get better performance per $$ than R7.
Honestly, it was a graphing /
Honestly, it was a graphing / data issue. We are working on an IPC follow up of 6c vs 6c!
I think you also need to
I think you also need to include platform costs.
8700k, or any intel coffee lake cpu for that matter is useless without a board, and the only options right now are z370 based.
On the ryzen side, you can stick a 1600 or 1700 on a cheaper b350 board and still get overclocking ability if desired, or actually get a top end 8 core AMD part on that platform.
“$180” for the CPU cost on the 8400 is misleading – there’s no cheap boards for it and won’t be for some time.
Also, these parts are not shipping at anywhere near the RRP at the moment either.
Did you notice the mistake in
Did you notice the mistake in the pricing that completely skewed your results?? $18 for the i5 – please fix this!!
Ha, that’s a white font on a
Ha, that's a white font on a white background issue. It's set at $184. 🙂
That was sneaky man…real
That was sneaky man…real sneaky.
It’s nice to see the usual,
It’s nice to see the usual, but I’d like to see storage solutions of how the processors run also. Get an overall view on how things compare.
How could you not include the
How could you not include the Ryzen 5? I really like PcPer, but when you don’t include the obvious price/performance competitor you guys look biased at worst and incompetent at best.
That being said, the new Coffee Lake i5 looks like a great CPU for gamers and the price is right. I’ll be recommending this to my buddy who is still on a 2700k and is very Ryzen-shy!
I am a little confused here.
I am a little confused here.
In the beginning of this page you talk about “current prices”
“Pricing is based on current pricing as of the writing of this review.”
then I read this paragraph
“(Note that since the creation of this data, AMD Ryzen 7 1800X has been selling for $399 and the Ryzen 7 1700X has been selling for $299. This definitely changes the performance per dollar story towards AMD, and giving the 1700X in particular, a significant jump.) ”
that makes me think that the above charts are based on MSRP prices(old AMD prices).
Writing and publishing are
Writing and publishing are different. Also, there is a graph above that clearly shows what prices the numbers are based on.
Also… go price up a coffee
Also… go price up a coffee lake CPU from somewhere that actually has them, then re-compare 😀
Not that much gaming
Not that much gaming improvement and at higher resolutions things become more equal acroos all of Intel’s eariler SKUs and even with AMD’s Ryzen offerings. I looked at the TechPowerup/other sites figures also and Intel is ahead of AMD in gaming but Intel’s is not far enough ahead of Intel’s eariler SKUs for most other tasks and that Intel 6 core 12 thread K series SKU has to be overclocked to 5.0 to make up for its 2 cores less than the Ryzen 7 1700X/1800X on some multitheraded workloads that really like the extra cores. So how long will that 5.0 overclock be maintained for long periods of time relative to Ryzen 7 1700X/1800X 8 core/16 thread variants that appear to be doing fine clocked at 3.7GHz on some multithreaded workloads relative to the 8700k that is overclocked to 5.0GHz.
Intel will have to compete with its own eariler SKUs in addidion to AMD’s Ryzen 8 core/16 thread SKUs that are really coming down in retail price lately and Ryzen’s overclocks are getting better as the current die production matures and the overall binning improves in addition to the better memory overclocking that Ryzen really loves that is now enabled more with each AMD AGESA update.
So AMD is Can agressively respond with better Ryzen pricing and Intel has to compete with Itself(eariler K series SKUs) and AMD’s Ryzen 7 serise SKUs that are improving over time with tweaks up until the Zen+ at 12nm products arrive in Q1/later 2018. AMD Ryzen has decimated Intel’s low end product lines in the price/performance metrics and any overall downward pricing of the on the Ryzen 7 series SKUs fruther below the price of some Intel quad core variants will be that much worse on the lower end price/performance metric competition between AMD and Intel.
Intel’s still has an Integreted graphics line that AMD is about to enter competition against in the mobile APU market at first from AMD’s Raven Ridge Mobile SKUs. But AMD really will need to look at its 12nm Zen+ desktop APU options and maybe think about offering some Interposer based High end Desktop APU variants with Zen CPU cores, a larger Vega die, and HBM2 and I know that AMD has a workstation grade APU in the development phase for the workstation markets! And we all know that consumer Threadripper was derived directly from Epyc so maybe there will be the same sorts of consumer variant of any high power interposer based desktop APU made from that workstation grade APU that AMD has in devlopment.
Well, there aren’t many
Well, there aren’t many applications where the R7-1800X beats the i7-8700K when both are stock settings, so it’s hard to justify Ryzen if you want processing power.
I think the highest I saw was the R7-1800X winning by 13%, so sure it probably works out you need to overclock the i7-8700K to about 5GHz to match the R7-1800X at its highest overclock for that application.
But, if you overclock to 4.8GHz then you’d be ahead or tied in all but a handful of the applications with only a very small boost to the R7-1800X (or R7-1700 if you can get a good overclock too).
8C/16T ZEN2 will obviously do better, and the i7-8700K is probably the best CPU this Intel platform will see, so investing in AM4 may make sense for some people…
I could see for example someone getting an R5-1600 for now, then maybe getting an 8-core ZEN2 CPU in the future depending on their budget and need.
(ZEN+ is a frequency boost on die shrink approx 2018, whereas ZEN2 is an architectural tweak as well approx 2019, so ZEN2 vs current Ryzen I would guess at 20% to 40% better performance, maybe even higher in some applications compared to NOW if we also see compiler optimizations)
*Basically I think Ryzen vs Coffee Lake depends completely on your budget and needs, though for a pure gaming machine my first choice would be the i5-8600K (6-core no hyperthreading, overclockable) which should be roughly $260USD.
I still have an i7-3770K @4.5GHz (and GTX1080), running games at 2560×1440 and don’t feel a need to upgrade yet. I can run everything at mostly 60FPS with rare drops due to the CPU, and my money will go towards a good GSYNC monitor when prices drop a bit, not a platform upgrade.
I plan to keep this system five more years unless the motherboard or CPU dies.
By then it will be interesting to see if the few programs I might need a CPU with high core-count are optimized to benefit more due to a graphics card. OPENCL (not OPENGL) is an initiative that is starting to bear fruit, so for VIDEO EDITING in five years a good program may not need more than a few good CPU cores, but benefit mostly from a good graphics card. ADOBE has been pretty slow to adopt GPU optimizations, though other programs are doing much better with the GPU so hopefully Adobe does some major recoding.
“8C/16T ZEN2 will obviously
“8C/16T ZEN2 will obviously do better, and the i7-8700K is probably the best CPU this Intel platform will see, so investing in AM4 may make sense for some people…”
Cannonlake has been rumoured to include an 8c16t processor as the i7 option, and to be on the x300 PCH platform. Whether Z370 boards will receive BIOS udpates to support that is unconfirmed but very likely (though we could end up in a P67 situation).
Intel has stuck to two-CPU-gens-per-socket since Socket H1 (Sandy Bridge), and with this being Socket H5 I’d expect two generations on it too. Not updating the physical keying was pretty silly though.
Whether Zen 2 will be able to bump clocks up is probably dependant on process optimisation. As we saw with Rx 4xx to Rx 5xx, adding extra headroom up top may come at the price of a disproportionate increase in power draw, or with Rx Fury to Rx Vega with an increase in die area spent on transistors to allow clocking up rather than additional functionality.
The Zen+ designs with a new
The Zen+ designs with a new stepping/tweaks will do some good also to increase AMD’s first generation Zen micro-arch performance. If AMD on Zen+ can even get the memory controller working with faster memory then the Infinity Fabric latency will improve some more. And new tape-outs on a smaller process node mean more tweaking can be done than the average new stepping so do not discount the Zen+ improvments too quickly that will arrive before Zen2 comes to market.
No one even knows if the Infinity Fabric(IF) speeds are actually have to be coupled to the memory clocks or what IF to Memory Clock ratios that AMD may be able to provide on it’s Zen+ designs, because the Infinity Fabric on Vega is not tied to any memory clock domains for that SKU. Zen+ will most definitely have clock speed improvments And AMD is able to fix any other problems with Zen’s other functionality also that may be needing some tweaks.
Vega at 12nm may just get some nice clock speed bumps and some new variants with more ROPs(Vega has plenty of TMU capacity even more than the GTX 1080/1080Ti) and less compute than Vega 56. But even Vega 56 at 12nm may just do fine and Vega and DX12/Vulkan appears to be doning fine on Forza 7, other titles that are more optimized for the latest APIs that will replace DX11/OpenGL.
I’m confused with the PCIe
I’m confused with the PCIe lanes. If I get the 8700k, I can run a 16x graphics card, but if I use just one 4x NVMe drive, I already max out all available PCIe lanes?
I feel like storage will be severely limited with the 8700k. Am I wrong?
Depending on what AMD does
Depending on what AMD does with its Threadripper 1920x pricing and getting the best binned Zeppelin dies utilized for that 8 core/16 thread X399 MB based product at maybe a lower price point and AMD making use of the X399’s 64 PCIe lanes and 4 memory channels to pull folks more into the TR/X399 ecosystem. And that will help AMD win more sales before the Zen+ at 12nm competition arrives. If I where AMD I’d agressively lower the 1920X’s pricing and use the X399 platform advantage to pull more customers into the TR/X399 ecosystem where updating without changing the motherboard will be a great option what with the TR/MCM being a SOC(notrhbridge/southbridge on the Zeppelin DIEs) anyways and and chipset improvments will come along with any newer Zeppelin dies.
AMD’s 1920X binning proces can not only take advantage of the top 5% binned Zeppelin dies AMD can also choose the top perfirming CCX units on each Zeppelin die and get those clocks higher and memory overclcoking stable at higher memory clocks that the Infinity Fabric really loves and let the total TR/X399 platform standard features compete against Intel’s more segemented product offerings. With AMD offering better standard features at no extra cost to win more sales against Intel on a overall platform to platfotm feature for feature basis.
Replace: 1920X
with:
Replace: 1920X
with: 1900X
damn brain not working!
But AMD could lower the 1920X pricing also.
The motherboard chipset has
The motherboard chipset has many more PCIe lanes (z370 has 24 lanes) so you have to add MB lanes to CPU lanes, 24 + 16= 40
The chipset lanes are all
The chipset lanes are all running off a 4x from the CPU IIRC, so they have contention on them. If you run multiple devices at the same time on the chipset lanes they are only sharing 4x worth of bandwidth.
The drive connects via the
The drive connects via the PCH, which has 24 PCIe lanes to play with. If you;re purely transferring data between the CPU and SSD then you;re ‘bottlenecked’ via DMI 3.0 (effectively a PCIe 3.0 x4 link), but any DMA from the GPU or between other drives (also on the PCH) will avoid that link, and very few (if any) real world applications will ever come close to saturating the DMI link.
The i7-8700K CPU has 16 lanes
The i7-8700K CPU has 16 lanes dedicated for graphics. (i.e. 1×16, or 2×8).
The CHIPSET is separate and supports up to 24 PCIe lanes.
The M.2 SSD’s use the chipset lanes. So there are PLENTY of lanes available for a good graphics card, M.2 SSD’s, SATA and other PCIe devices.
So to be clear, the CPU talks directly to the graphics card, whereas the M.2 SSD goes through the chipset first.
More info here (click the LEFT picture to see the block diagram for CPU and CHIPSET layout)
https://www.techpowerup.com/235883/intel-coffee-lake-platform-detailed-24-pcie-lanes-from-the-chipset
I thought that the M.2 SSD (PCIe) connected directly to the CPU, not the chipset but I can’t find any evidence of that.
*EVEN IF THAT WAS TRUE it would not take away from the 16 lanes dedicated to graphics.
@Ryan Shrout
What was the
@Ryan Shrout
What was the clock frequency under benchmarks? Did you get constant 4.4 GHz? Did you get 4.4 under cinebench MT too?
Gold award for a CPU that has
Gold award for a CPU that has 0% IPC gain over previous generation and sucks more power than CPU with 2 extra cores and 4 extra threads. Guess Intel is shoving green up the rear side again.
You need to take a chill
You need to take a chill pill, bruh. It’s just a CPU, the 8700k didn’t kill your family or something.
Two additional cores at
Two additional cores at nearly the same price doesn't count for anything? Really?
In a world where 1700x didnt
In a world where 1700x didnt exist it would have been revolutionary, but as things are right now more power draw than 8 core CPU, more expensive and just faster(or slower in multi threaded environment) than 1700x. its another crappy release from Intel. Lower end i3 and i5s are looking more attractive right now.
TROLL TROLL TROLL. WAH WAH
TROLL TROLL TROLL. WAH WAH WAH.
Yay another generation of 0%
Yay another generation of 0% IPC gains!
I find it pathetic that my 4.4ghz Sandy Bridge provides similar performance in 4k gaming as the 8700k. GPUs need to get a hell of a lot faster before I consider a CPU replacement.
Techreport tested the 2600k
Techreport tested the 2600k vs the 8700k. In most cases it was HALF the speed. Eurogamer did a test of an OCed 2500K last year, and it was lagging behind even a stock i5-6500. Even with OC, the gulf between the 2500k and 8700k is large.
Tech report tested at 1080P
Tech report tested at 1080P which I haven’t gamed on in over 6 years because it’s shit. Try using a respectable display with at least 1440P and more importantly HDR support (TVs only sadly). At higher resolution the CPU isn’t breaking a sweat because GPUs are so slow.
The biggest revolution in gaming is HDR displays but the computer monitor market failed miserably in that regard.
That would be a GPU test, HDR
That would be a GPU test, HDR isn't a CPU function by any stretch of the imagination.
57% of Steam users game at
57% of Steam users game at 1080P. 94% at 1080P and lower.
And that would be relevant if
And that would be relevant if 57% of steam users used a gtx 1080 or higher amd therefore were in the position of being cpu limited. They don’t, so it isn’t relevant.
High end displays for gaming
High end displays for gaming and content creation could make use of it, but there’s so few games that support HDR right now it’s hardly worth the investment.
Ofc it has no gains at 4k
Ofc it has no gains at 4k performance, the limiting factor is the gpu not the cpu
Where are the temp
Where are the temp comparisons ?
Temperature comparisons are
Temperature comparisons are moot when you have power draw figures. Temperature varies widely based on cooler selection.
im still good with my 1600.
im still good with my 1600.
Other than reviewers how much
Other than reviewers how much stocks of the Coffee lake K branded SKUs will actually be available and in what US and overseas markets and in large or small quantities. And what about the lower tier 300 series motherboards for any Coffee lake locked processor SKUs. Will there be a shortage of CPU/MB parts or will there be plenty of supplies to go around.
I’d like to see the Coffee Lake/300 series Motherboard roll out time line and does it streach across more than one calender quarter. Kaby lake is only around 10 months on the market and Ryzen has a lot to do with that short time span in existance because Intel has now had to pull Coffee lake in with some more cores. So the Z370 MBs are available but what about any B350, Q350, H370, Q370 chipset based MB SKUs coming this year.
For the Handbrake benchmark,
For the Handbrake benchmark, what settings were used?
Coffee Lake is a solid
Coffee Lake is a solid release from Intel, I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on an 8700K at some point.
Their HEDT release was a disaster but these products are much more sensible and appropriately priced.
I don’t understand why don’t
I don’t understand why don’t want to use Handbrake 1.0.7?
Id like to see 4k testing
Id like to see 4k testing with the 1080 vs Vega 64 using these new 6 core vs ryzen 1600/X. See if there is any benefit to an all AMD setup.
Fucked again. intel has gone
Fucked again. intel has gone and done it again. they made a new chip which requires a new board. smh, they where bound to get yall fan boys one way or another. finally they are about to move the industry from 4 core caps to maybe 6 core cap. however they screwed yall one more time. why make a chip with a base core of 2.8 and turbo the dam thing all the way up to 4.7?? the heat coming from those chips are insane!