Intel Coffee Lake Core i5-8600K vs 7600K at 5GHz Review @ [H]

In full agreement with Kyle on not seeing IPC improvement. The headroom is holding serve, so to speak and I guess seeing baseline i5 hexacores is also great progress in that sense...
But yeah, hardly scratches the itch. Curiously enough MC is price-gouging these at $349/$499 for the i5/i7 respectively. Compare this to $260 and $379 on Newegg.
Exactly the inverse of what MC should be doing to get feet through their doors lmao.
 
Well, guess I didn't do much wrong, by not waiting for 8700k and swapping my 4790k for Ryzen 1700 - I could now bring series of arguments why I did that. But to be absolutely honest, I had an upgrade itch building for years and wanted to try and build something new :) after I seen the 1440p results on guru3d, looks like there is no difference in gaming.

But. After hearing of very limited aviability and the 370 / 390 stunt. It looks like, AMD forced Intel to speed up launch by few months - seems like they didn't want to wait till after holiday season to start selling this cpu.

But, there are some good things coming. First, the CPU race is starting, with possible Zen+ in February and Zen 2 in 2019. And Ice Lake on Intel side, so it might finally bring the more speed upgrades between generations, and its us, customers, who will win - no matter on what we will choose.

And second thing is that now, as Intel has 6 cores mainstream CPU, software developers might finally start using those moar cores in games and such.
 
Brackle said:
If single threaded performance is what you need. Stick with the 6700k or 7700k since IPC wasn't changed you should be good to go then!
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If I bought only what I needed, I would get i3 and call it a day.

What I want is the fastest IPC, coupled with enough cores to make me happy!

So the i7 will be:
  1. Fast for gaming
  2. Fast all the standard productivity work (office, browser, and dev stuff)
  3. Fast for ProTools, and Lightroom
  4. Able to handle 1 or 2 VMs
  5. Able to handle a few Remote Desktop Clients
  6. Able to tickle my e-peen
 
For the price range, system wise, Intel offers 6 threads at fast speeds and AMD offers 16 threads at slower clock speeds. For some the 6 thread solution may be more useful, for me it is a joke or should I say falls short. I have 8 threads from my 6700K while overall I am sure it is slower than the 8600K it is just not that significant.

The other thing is the 1700 at 4ghz will perform the same as a 1800x at 4ghz, for the mainstream, the 1700 really does pack a good punch for overall performance. Plus the AMD platform you know the next AMD cpu will be (most likely I should say) plug and play depending if motherboard manufacturer releases a bios if needed. ICEcake??? New Socket??? maybe it will just melt away into oblivion.

Going to the 8700K may make things more interesting, I hope so.

Gaming, I see very few situations that a 8600K would make a meaningful gaming experience improvement if at all. One would need the fastest cards and use lower resolutions to see any kind of significant number differences and if that equals actually a better gaming experience for someone is another thing.

Still I would hope each will evaluate and buy what is best for them.
 
noko said:
For the price range, system wise, Intel offers 6 threads at fast speeds and AMD offers 16 threads at slower clock speeds. For some the 6 thread solution may be more useful, for me it is a joke or should I say falls short. I have 8 threads from my 6700K while overall I am sure it is slower than the 8600K it is just not that significant.

The other thing is the 1700 at 4ghz will perform the same as a 1800x at 4ghz, for the mainstream, the 1700 really does pack a good punch for overall performance. Plus the AMD platform you know the next AMD cpu will be (most likely I should say) plug and play depending if motherboard manufacturer releases a bios if needed. ICEcake??? New Socket??? maybe it will just melt away into oblivion.

Going to the 8700K may make things more interesting, I hope so.

Gaming, I see very few situations that a 8600K would make a meaningful gaming experience improvement if at all. One would need the fastest cards and use lower resolutions to see any kind of significant number differences and if that equals actually a better gaming experience for someone is another thing.

Still I would hope each will evaluate and buy what is best for them.
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The one situation where I can see these new CPU's like the 8600K making a meaningful difference is emulation (PS3/Wii U - CEMU) as these emulators aren't really multithreaded and much of the performance is CPU bound and not bottlenecked by the GPU. Everything else will see some gains through clockspeed increases but it will be interesting to see how far people can overclock these CPU's without AIO's or ridiculous air coolers, I think it would have been interesting to see how far they could be pushed one something like a Hyper 212 Evo. A lot of the reviewers seem to be pretty confident that these chips can hit 5ghz pretty easily but will the average user be able to get a stable system at those clocks? We'll see.
 
SimianRob said:
The one situation where I can see these new CPU's like the 8600K making a meaningful difference is emulation (PS3/Wii U - CEMU) as these emulators aren't really multithreaded and much of the performance is CPU bound and not bottlenecked by the GPU. Everything else will see some gains through clockspeed increases but it will be interesting to see how far people can overclock these CPU's without AIO's or ridiculous air coolers, I think it would have been interesting to see how far they could be pushed one something like a Hyper 212 Evo. A lot of the reviewers seem to be pretty confident that these chips can hit 5ghz pretty easily but will the average user be able to get a stable system at those clocks? We'll see.
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Good point!

Slapping a £100 HSF to get .1 or .2 GHz extra, brings the cost equation up for sure.
 
SpeedyVV said:
If I bought only what I needed, I would get i3 and call it a day.

What I want is the fastest IPC, coupled with enough cores to make me happy!

So the i7 will be:
  1. Fast for gaming
  2. Fast all the standard productivity work (office, browser, and dev stuff)
  3. Fast for ProTools, and Lightroom
  4. Able to handle 1 or 2 VMs
  5. Able to handle a few Remote Desktop Clients
  6. Able to tickle my e-peen
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Well then you do not want a K series processor. If my memory serves me right (I could be wrong) But I do think the K series does not support VT. So you will need to get a 6700/7700/8700 non k CPU. did Intel even release a 8700 non k?

Then I would hate to say it a Ryzen 1600x/1700 might be what you are looking for.

Edit: I admit I was wrong I guess it does support VT now. https://ark.intel.com/products/126684/Intel-Core-i7-8700K-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4_70-GHz
 
Brackle said:
Well then you do not want a K series processor. If my memory serves me right (I could be wrong) But I do think the K series does not support VT. So you will need to get a 6700/7700/8700 non k CPU. did Intel even release a 8700 non k?

Then I would hate to say it a Ryzen 1600x/1700 might be what you are looking for.

Edit: I admit I was wrong I guess it does support VT now. https://ark.intel.com/products/126684/Intel-Core-i7-8700K-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4_70-GHz
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Either way, I dont need the i7 to support VT. I got 36 Xeons cores that do.
 
EuphoricRage470 said:
8700K has much higher IPC than Sandy Bridge (20-25% better) and two more cores.
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After 6 years a 20% increase in IPC and 2 extra cores doesn't seem that mind blowing. I think it's great that Intel has finally shaken up its product line up by moving the i3 to 4 cores and i5/i7 to 6, but it really feels like this should have happened a few product releases back already.
 
Nice review Kyle. I was holding out to see if the IPC improvements were real or not, so thanks for clearing that up.

It seems like AMD really caught Intel with their pants down this generation.
 
SimianRob said:
After 6 years a 20% increase in IPC and 2 extra cores doesn't seem that mind blowing. I think it's great that Intel has finally shaken up its product line up by moving the i3 to 4 cores and i5/i7 to 6, but it really feels like this should have happened a few product releases back already.
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Agree 100% this is what Skylake should have been
 
I'm just amazed of the product cycle now. 6700k-7700k-8700k now all within what 2 years?

oh and each one has a different generation of chipset as well....

On the plus side, the market has competition again so everyone is getting more for their money.
 
ebduncan said:
I'm just amazed of the product cycle now. 6700k-7700k-8700k now all within what 2 years?

oh and each one has a different generation of chipset as well....

On the plus side, the market has competition again so everyone is getting more for their money.
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Yeah, it was a pretty crazy-fast ramp up coming from Skylake when you think about it. One wonders why Kaby Lake was released so close to Skylake, though. The Ryzen was a full 3 months out and was nothing but unsubstantiated rumor mill speculation until it released. Intel essentially screwed over Skylake customers with the rapid Kaby release. At least Kaby worked on Z170 boards...
 
Brackle said:
Remember AMD did say Ryzen was their worst case scenario. Of course that is PR talk, but imagine if AMD can get Ryzen another good 500-600mhz. Time will tell.
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If AMD can squeeze out 4ghz or better all core and 4.5ghz max turbo with maybe a 4.5-4.6ghz overclock that would change the outcome dramatically. Lookes like Ryzen is stuck in the 3.6 all core and 4 ghz max turbo range, very low for new age needs, that said the performance in that limitation is rather good.
 
What the hell! I was thinking about getting 4 of these for my vm throwaway machines which are z270's, but you have to buy a whole new motherboard AGAIN? 270's barely just came out 9 months ago. Are they taking the piss? I think they clearly are.
 
Gigantopithecus said:
... The real winners from the Coffee Lake launch are budget gamers who used to have to spend $200 on a real quad core but will be able to get one for $140ish soon. ...
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pcgeekesq said:
The only potentially interesting processor I see in this release might be the unlocked 4-core 4GHz $180 Core i3-8350K , which might be a budget champion.
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The R3 1200 is more like $110, and a B350 mobo is also not expensive.
Core i3 is still a non starter for those with tight budgets.

I do think the $200 i3-8350K is a viable option for pure gaming rigs with a slightly higher budget though.

RPGWiZaRD said:
Sure but was it [early launch of Coffee Lake] really the wise thing to do? There's always a possibility the lackluster availability and/or pricing could drive customers to the competitor for comfort.
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Not to mention the "partners":
- First Intel "kill" the Kaby Lake, while there's still large amounts of Z270 and other motherboards unsold.
- Then the partners make large amounts of Z370 boards in time for the launch, but very few CPUs befitted for those boards are delivered by Intel.
- When CPUs become available in mass (expected next year), the next generation (and Ryzen 2) is just around the corner.

SimianRob said:
... Suppliers in Canada are being told late October or early November for the first substantial shipment of CPU's...
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Lucky bastards! In Sweden we're told next (probably minor) shipment will be early December, and substantial availability is expected in Q1'18.

gordon152 said:
2500K lives on! Long Live Sandy Bridge!
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Yes, my old Core i5 was/is good enough for gaming. My new Ryzen 5 is soo much better for productivity though, which is a blessing when editing high res films.
 
If gaming at anything under 140Hz is what you do given that 140hz is itself a niche market then yeah an overclocked Sandy is still plenty. I am just looking to move up from my 4790K for new features like M.2 as I would like to go completely SATAless and just use a NUC to back up over the network
 
Brainless said:
Should I wait for Ice lake to see any significant IPC gain? I'm still happy with my very old [email protected], but I want 1TB M.2 drive.
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I doubt we will see any large IPC increases any time soon. Few percent here and there. Biggest thing nowadays is the reduction of power per core, so more cores at the same clock speeds.
 
Brainless said:
Should I wait for Ice lake to see any significant IPC gain? I'm still happy with my very old [email protected], but I want 1TB M.2 drive.
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... And you can! There are M.2 to PCIe cards out there. I mean, most people only use a single slot for video anyway, right? (I'd post a link, but am on my cell phone right now)
 
mvmiller12 said:
... And you can! There are M.2 to PCIe cards out there. I mean, most people only use a single slot for video anyway, right? (I'd post a link, but am on my cell phone right now)
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Just check your mobo manual if you want to boot from that, mine does not support PCIE boot (Z87) so I'm stuck with SATA.
 
For a while I was telling myself I would consider upgrading from my 3770K when Coffee Lake comes out but now it's looking like I'll be holding off a bit longer. Once I get a 4K monitor I'll be better off just upgrading my GPU again to whatever the best GPU is out by that time.
 
Design1stcode2nd said:
Just check your mobo manual if you want to boot from that, mine does not support PCIE boot (Z87) so I'm stuck with SATA.
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Even so, you could get a small, cheap SATA SSD for boot purposes (32G would be great if you can still get them that small), while installing everything else (including Windows) to the PCIe. The difference in boot speed would be negligible over the pure PCIe because only the actual boot loader would be on the SATA.
 
OrangeKhrush said:
If AMD can squeeze out 4ghz or better all core and 4.5ghz max turbo with maybe a 4.5-4.6ghz overclock that would change the outcome dramatically. Lookes like Ryzen is stuck in the 3.6 all core and 4 ghz max turbo range, very low for new age needs, that said the performance in that limitation is rather good.
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It's pretty easy to get Ryzen to OC close to 4GHz, though--I've got my 1600X at 3.9 all cores right now, and the only reason I haven't pushed beyond that is my case and cooling aren't great.

Sure, it's still not as fast as the 8700K, but it's still pretty fast.
 
Ryzen overclocking isn't too bad, but I would imagine a lot of that is dependent on the motherboard manufacturers. My Asrock TaiChi X370 can behave a little odd at times but it seems to be solid at 3.8 so I'm happy.
 
iNViSiGOD said:
Ryzen overclocking isn't too bad, but I would imagine a lot of that is dependent on the motherboard manufacturers. My Asrock TaiChi X370 can behave a little odd at times but it seems to be solid at 3.8 so I'm happy.
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I have the Asrock X370 Gaming itx/ac, and it's pretty nice, except that it won't run my 3000 RAM at 2933, only 2800, when the same memory worked fine in another board. I haven't tried pushing past 3.9 yet because the airflow in my case isn't the best and I haven't decided what case to replace it with.
 
1_rick said:
I have the Asrock X370 Gaming itx/ac, and it's pretty nice, except that it won't run my 3000 RAM at 2933, only 2800, when the same memory worked fine in another board. I haven't tried pushing past 3.9 yet because the airflow in my case isn't the best and I haven't decided what case to replace it with.
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I’ve found it is particular with memory. I can only get my 3200 to run at 3060. It worked several code updates ago but it just can’t seem to do it now.
 
1_rick said:
It's pretty easy to get Ryzen to OC close to 4GHz, though--I've got my 1600X at 3.9 all cores right now, and the only reason I haven't pushed beyond that is my case and cooling aren't great.

Sure, it's still not as fast as the 8700K, but it's still pretty fast.
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I am referring to boost policies outthe boxAMDs single coreboost is 4ghz while all core is 3.6ghz that needs to be 4ghz all core out the box with 4.4ghz turbo max
 
Plenty of interesting posts. Let me attempt to put things in context.

(i) Intel initially planned 8C 10nm Icelake as successor to 4C 14nm Skylake. But then foundry engineers had serious problems with the 10nm node, which forced a delay of the node and the abandon of the classic tick-tock strategy, replacing it with tick --> tock --> first optimization (14nm+) --> second optimization 14nm++). The original (Skylake --> Icelake) transition was replaced by the new (Skylake --> Kabylake --> CofeeLake --> Icelake) on the desktop.

(ii) This stuff happens. Or did us forgot early AMD roadmaps showing 28nm Kaveri as replacement for 32nm Trinity? Then the 28nm Glofo node was delayed and AMD had to release Richland, which was simply a refresh of Trinity with higher clocks on an improved 32nm node. Same is happening now. 7nm is far from being ready and AMD will release Pinnacle Ridge, which is a refresh of RyZen with higher clocks on an improved 14nm node (recently relabeled to 12LP).

(iii) So we have known for many years that Kabylake and Cofeelake use the same microarchitecture than Skylake. There is no IPC changes at core level. Kabylake did bring us higher clocks thanks to the new 14nm+ node. Whereas CoffeLake brings us higher clocks thanks to the new 14nm++ node. Also that CofeeLake would bring us up to six-cores has been known since 2015 or 2016.

(iv) As explained in the thread about CoffeeLake, the only IPC improvements in CoffeLake would come from the larger L3 cache and the faster memory (2666 vs 2400). As computed in the other thread those improvements would bring ~4% IPC gains in memory-bound workloads that don't use all the cores. That is all. As stated above CoffeLake uses the same core than Skylake and Kabylake.

(v) So CofeeLake gives us slightly higher clocks and 50--100% more cores at similar TDPs and price brackets... Just as expected.

(vi) Don't wait significant IPC improvements in Icelake neither in Zen2. Engineers hit an ILP wall many time ago. We will see some few percent here and there from optimizations until a new revolutionary architecture replaces current SS-OOO designs.
 
Friggin i7 8700K has been put on backorder!

Now, I need to reconsider my options.

  1. Wait, cause it will be worth it!
  2. Don't wait:
    1. By the time it arrives, new chipset will be better, i.e. wait for Z390 chipset
    2. Just get a Threadripper 1900X, 8x4GHz > 6x5GHz, and NVME raid boot makes for a snappy windows experience
    3. Buy a 2nd hand i7 7700K, mobo, and save.

WWJD?
 
Design1stcode2nd said:
Just check your mobo manual if you want to boot from that, mine does not support PCIE boot (Z87) so I'm stuck with SATA.
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I'm pretty sure the Samsung 950 Pro would boot to just about anything. It has a legacy ROM on it to be seen by older non-UEFI bios. I have it booting in my X58 Sabertooth right now.
 
SpeedyVV said:
Friggin i7 8700K has been put on backorder!

Now, I need to reconsider my options.

  1. Wait, cause it will be worth it!
  2. Don't wait:
    1. By the time it arrives, new chipset will be better, i.e. wait for Z390 chipset
    2. Just get a Threadripper 1900X, 8x4GHz > 6x5GHz, and NVME raid boot makes for a snappy windows experience
    3. Buy a 2nd hand i7 7700K, mobo, and save.

WWJD?
Click to expand...

if you wanted to upgrade based on your current system I'd likely grab a Threadripper CPU. Quad channel mem, lots of pci-e, and future proof socket. Unless your primary purpose is gaming, If there were the case I'd probably wait for the 8700k or perhaps Ryzen+
 
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