The AnandTech Coffee Lake Review: Initial Numbers on the Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400
by Ian Cutress on October 5, 2017 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Core i5
- Core i7
- Core i3
- 14nm
- Coffee Lake
- 14++
- Hex-Core
- Hyperthreading
Intel vs AMD: The Start of Core Wars
This year has seen a number of CPU releases from both Intel and AMD. AMD’s resurgence with a high-performing x86 core, combined with their performance-per-dollar strategy, has started to make inroads into the markets that AMD lost during its Bulldozer architecture era. When Intel was offering 10 cores for $1700, AMD started offering 8 cores of almost similar performance for $329, marking a significant shift in what the ‘right price’ for a processor should be.
We collated all the tray prices for the recent processor launches for easy comparison, using the launch price of each product. Exact pricing today may differ due to retailers or sales – we have confirmed that these are still the official MSRPs for these processors.
Kaby Lake i7-K vs Coffee Lake i7-K (MSRP) | ||||
AMD | Coffee Lake | Kaby Lake | Skylake-X | |
$1199+ | i9-7980XE i9-7960X i9-7940X i9-7920X |
|||
TR 1950X | $999 | i9-7900X | ||
TR 1920X | $799 | |||
$599 | i9-7820X | |||
TR 1900X | $549 | |||
R7 1800X | $499 | |||
R7 1700X | $390-$400 | i7-7800X | ||
$359 | i7-8700K | |||
$340-$350 | i7-7740X i7-7700K |
|||
R7 1700 | $329 | |||
$303 | i7-8700 | i7-7700 | ||
$257 | i5-8600K | |||
R5 1600X | $240-$250 | i5-7640X i5-7600K |
||
R5 1600 | $219 | i5-7600 | ||
R5 1500X | $180-$190 | i5-8400 | i5-7400 | |
R5 1400 | $169 | i3-8350K | i3-7350K | |
$149 | i3-7320 | |||
$138 | i3-7300 | |||
R3 1300X | $129 | |||
$117 | i3-8100 | i3-7100 | ||
R3 1200 | $109 | |||
$86 | G4620 | |||
$64 | G4560 |
Almost every Coffee Lake processor is identical in price to its Kaby Lake predecessor. The main deviations are the K processors, with the Core i7-8700K being +$20 over the i7-7700K, and the i5-8600K being +$15 over the i5-7600K. There is still competition in every segment.
The Competition: Red Mist (AMD)
AMD’s Ryzen and Threadripper parts occupy anywhere from almost $100 for a base quad core design up to $999 for sixteen cores with simultaneous multithreading. It is widely expected that Intel will have a standard instructions-per-clock advantage with its processors, but also Intel is running its processors north of 4.0 GHz for the most part, while AMD is limited by its manufacturing process to 4.0 GHz at best.
If we do a straightforward price breakdown, the Core i7-8700K ($359) sits almost equally between the Ryzen 7 1700X ($399) and Ryzen 7 1700 ($329). Here this would be a battle of sixteen Zen threads compared to 12 Coffee Lake threads, with the IPC and frequency advantage heavily on Intel’s side. It will be interesting to see where the Core i7-8700 ($303) sits in performance per dollar compared to the Ryzen 7 1700.
The Core i5-8600K ($257) has a nearer neighbor for company: the Ryzen 5 1600X ($248). Before today, this battle was between a quad-core, quad-thread Core i5 against a 12-thread AMD Ryzen chip. With Intel moving the Core i5 parts to having six full cores, albeit without hyperthreading but with a high frequency, it is going to be an interesting battle between the two at this price.
The Core i5-8400 ($182) and Core i3-8350K ($169) sit near the Ryzen 5 1500X ($189) and the Ryzen 5 1400 ($169) respectively. The difference between the Ryzen 5 1500X and the Core i3-8350K would be interesting, given the extreme thread deficit (12 threads vs 4) between the two.
The Competition: Friendly Fire (Intel)
Intel cannot escape competing with itself. Having played with six-core chips in the high-end desktop space, there was ultimately going to be a time when the mainstream platform would start to overlap with the high-end desktop and potentially consume some sales.
As mentioned above, for most of the 8th Generation Coffee Lake processors, the new parts are simple swap-ins for the old ones. The only ones that have a difference of opinion are going to be the overclockable K models.
Straight off the bat it looks like that the new Coffee Lake processors are going to consume both of the quad-core Kaby Lake-X parts. There is a +$10 price difference for the Six-Core Coffee Lake CPUs, but that $10 gets an extra two cores, cheaper motherboards, an easier to understand ecosystem, and if you need it, integrated graphics. On paper it is a no-brainer – quad-core HEDT processors should be dead now.
Comparing the six-core Skylake-X i7 parts to the Coffee Lake-K parts is going to be interesting. Here’s a straight specification comparison.
Skylake i7-7800X vs Coffee Lake i7-8700K | ||
Skylake-X i7-7800X |
Coffee Lake-S i7-8700K |
|
6C / 12T | Cores | 6C / 12T |
3.5 GHz | Base Frequency | 3.7 GHz |
4.0 GHz | Turbo Boost 2.0 | 4.7 GHz |
1 MB/core | L2 Cache | 256 KB/core |
8.25 MB | L3 Cache | 12 MB |
Quad Channel | DRAM Channels | Dual Channel |
DDR4-2400 | DRAM Support | DDR4-2666 |
- | Integrated Graphics | GT2: 24 EUs |
- | IGP Base Freq | 350 MHz |
- | IGP Turbo | 1.20 GHz |
28 | PCIe Lanes (CPU) | 16 |
< 24 | PCIe Lanes (Chipset) | < 24 |
140W | TDP | 95 W |
$383 | Price (tray) | $359 |
$380 | Price (Newegg) | $380 |
$363 | Price (Amazon) | $N/A |
$200-$600 | Motherboard Price | $100-$400 |
The main two in contention are the Core i7-8700K ($359) and the Core i7-7800X ($389). For a difference of $30, the Skylake-X chip is two generations behind and slower on frequency, but offers quad-channel memory and 28 PCIe lanes for more PCIe coprocessors. While the Coffee Lake will almost certainly win in terms of raw processor performance, features such as DRAM support and PCIe lanes are not to be thrown away lightly. If you absolutely need > 64 GB of memory, or more than two add-in cards, you have no choice but to look at the Skylake-X platform.
Key Comparisons to Look Out For
In the next series of pages, we will go through our benchmark suite. While we have only had time to run through a limited number of tests with the Core i7-8700K and the Core i5-8400, there are two battles worth keeping an eye on:
- Core i7-8700K vs Core i7-7800X
- Core i5-8400 vs Ryzen 5 1500X
Hopefully we will get the other components in for review, in particular the Core i7-8700 and Core i3-8100, both of which will be interesting to plot in performance-per-dollar graphs.
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Chaser - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link
Thank you AMD.vanilla_gorilla - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link
Exactly! No matter what side you're on, you gotta love the fact that competition is back in the x86 desktop space! And it looks like AMD 1700X is now under $300 on Amazon. Works both ways!TEAMSWITCHER - Friday, October 6, 2017 - link
I just don't see it this way. Since the release of Haswell-E in 2014 we've had sub $400 six core processors. While some like to compartmentalize the industry into mainstream and HEDT, the fact is, I built a machine with similar performance three years ago, for a similar price. Today's full featured Z370 motherboards (like the ROG Maximus X) cost nearly as much as X99 motherboards from 2014. To say that Intel was pushed by AMD is simply not true.watzupken - Friday, October 6, 2017 - link
I feel the fact that Intel had to rush a 6 core mainstream processor out in the same year they introduced Kaby Lake is a sign that AMD is putting pressure on them. You may find a Haswell E chip for sub 400 bucks in 2014, but you need to be mindful that Intel historically have only increase prices due to the lack of competition. Now you are seeing a 6 core mainstream chip from both AMD and Intel below 200 bucks. Motherboard prices are difficult to compare since there are lots of motherboards out there that are over engineered and cost significantly more. Assuming you pick the cheapest Z370 motherboard out there, I don't believe it's more expensive than a X99 board.mapesdhs - Friday, October 6, 2017 - link
KL-X is dead, that's for sure. Some sites claim CFL was not rushed, in which case Intel knew KL-X would be pointless when it was launched. People claiming Intel was not affected by AMD have to choose: either CFL was rushed because of pressure from AMD, or Intel released a CPU for a mismatched platform they knew would be irrelevant within months.There's plenty of evidence Intel was in a hurry here, especially the way X299 was handled, and the horrible heat issues, etc. with SL-X.
mapesdhs - Friday, October 6, 2017 - link
PS. Is it just me or are we almost back to the days of the P4, where Intel tried to maintain a lead really by doing little more than raising clocks? It wasn't that long ago there was much fanfare when Intel released its first minimum-4GHz part (4790K IIRC), even though we all knew they could run their CPUs way quicker than that if need be (stock voltage oc'ing has been very productive for a long time). Now all of a sudden Intel is nearing 5GHz speeds, but it's kinda weird there's no accompanying fanfare given the reaction to their finally reaching 4GHz with the 4790K. At least in th mainstream, has Intel really just reverted to a MHz race to keep its performance up? Seems like it, but OS issues, etc. are preventing those higher bins from kicking in.KAlmquist - Friday, October 6, 2017 - link
Intel has been pushing up clock speeds, but (unlike the P4), not at the expense of IPC. The biggest thing that Intel has done to improve performance in this iteration is to increase the number of cores.mapesdhs - Tuesday, October 10, 2017 - link
Except in reality it's often not that much of a boost at all, and in some cases slower because of how the OS is affecting turbo levels.Remember, Intel could have released a CPU like this a very long time ago. As I keep having to remind people, the 3930K was an 8-core chip with two cores disabled. Back then, AMD couldn't even compete with SB, never mind SB-E, so Intel held back, and indeed X79 never saw a consumer 8-core part, even though the initial 3930K was a XEON-sourced crippled 8-core.
Same applies to the mainstream, we could have had 6 core models ages ago. All they've really done to counter the lack of IPC improvements is boost the clocks way up. We're approaching standard bin levels now that years ago were considered top-notch oc's unless one was definitely using giant air coolers, decent AIOs or better.
wr3zzz - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link
I hope Anandtech solves the Civ6 AI benchmark soon. It's almost as important as compression and encoding benchmarks for me to decide CPU price-performance options as I am almost always GPU constrained in games.Ian Cutress - Saturday, October 7, 2017 - link
We finally got in contact with the Civ6 dev team to integrate the AI benchmark into our suite better. You should see it moving forward.