I've also focused a lot more on gaming performance in this review than I have on, say, application performance or media creation bits and bobs because, well, I'm not really interested in that. As you've already seen above, I've included some cursory Cinebench scores as a basic indicator of what each CPU will be like for general PC tasks, but really, my main goal here is to work out what CPU is the best for gaming and gaming alone. On the flipside, the 8700K is more than happy to soak up extra current and push itself beyond its rated maximum 4.7GHz frequency.

Intel® Core™ i7 Processors 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Processors

System and Maximum TDP is based on worst case scenarios. Actual TDP may be lower if not all I/Os for chipsets are used. Intel classifications are for general, educational and planning purposes only and consist of Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCN) and Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) numbers. Any use made of Intel classifications are without recourse to Intel and shall not be construed as a representation or warranty regarding the proper ECCN or HTS. Your company as an importer and/or exporter is responsible for determining the correct classification of your transaction. The Core i7-8700K brings Intel’s multi-core performance up to and well above the high benchmark Ryzen has set this year. What’s even more impressive is Intel’s latest part beat the pants off its predecessor in all our single-core tests, too.However, the Z370 isn’t actually much of an improvement over last-gen’s Z270 chipset. It still only supports dual-channel memory and, out of the 40 available PCIe lanes, only 16 are directly connected to the processor. The other 24 PCIe lanes share a single DMI 3.0 connection to the processor – which means you can only squeeze out the full potential of two GPUs – or one graphics card and two M.2 NVMe SSDs. This chip soundly overtook AMD’s competing Ryzen 7 1700X in Geekbench 4, with a score several thousands of points higher – by extension, this makes the previous-generation Intel Core i7-7700K’s multi-core numbers look like a joke. While that’s impressive, it’s also slightly annoying that this new generation of CPUs still demands us to buy into a whole new motherboard.

i7 8700 Coffee Lake Desktop Processor/CPU - Scan Intel Core i7 8700 Coffee Lake Desktop Processor/CPU - Scan

Or at least it does for general desktop tasks. When it comes to gaming, the Core i7-8700 is still very much in the race - if only just. Now, admittedly, testing any CPU's gaming performance is still rather difficult. As our friends at Digital Foundry have explained in the past, a lot of benchmarks either don't test your CPU properly, or simply aren't very accurate in the first place. Fortunately, a handful of gaming benchmarks have got a lot better at this recently, with the likes of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Forza Horizon 4, Assassin's Creed Odyssey and more all providing an in-depth look at your CPU's performance as well as what your graphics card's doing. All of this processing power also ends up helping the 8700K convert video as fast as some of the industry’s most overpowered CPUs, like the Intel Core i9-7980XE and AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X– though these aforementioned chips will still win any hyper-threading race through sheer brute force.See http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/hyper-threading/hyper-threading-technology.html?wapkw=hyper+threading for more information including details on which processors support Intel® HT Technology. One of the main advantages the Core i7-8700 has over the Core i5-9600K is the fact it supports Intel's Hyper Threading technology, giving it 12 threads to deal with your PC's various tasks and instructions instead of six. This effectively gives it much better multi-tasking potential for when you're running CPU intensive applications such as photo and video editing software, as more threads a CPU has, the more hands it's got to stuff all that juicy data into the CPU's mouth, if you catch my drift.