Intel Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400 (14nm Coffee Lake)

[HEXUS]

Core blimey.

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[Tunnah]

So for all intents and purposes it's Kaby Lake with more cores, but they also require a new socket ?

Damn Intel, even for you, that is low.

For some reason I expected a 4c/8t part to sit at a nice price point, but stupid me.

[Bagnaj97]

For some reason I expected a 4c/8t part to sit at a nice price point, but stupid me.

There wouldn't be enough to differentiate it from 6c/6t. Look how close the i5-8400 6c/6t is to the i7-7700k 4c/8t in Cinebench.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Core i5 8400 looks a good foil to the Ryzen 5 1600/1600X,although the latter is now £190. The rest of the range does not really inspire me that much.

Quite tempted by the Core i5 8400 though(been on SB/IB like for six years now),but need to see if I can fix my dropped lens first!

[bridges009]

So for all intents and purposes it's Kaby Lake with more cores, but they also require a new socket ?

Which also means that it's Skylake with more cores.

[Ozaron]

Which also means that it's Skylake with more cores.

Hey, now. Don't forget the encode/decode for HEVC and VP9 at 4K.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hey, now. Don't forget the encode/decode for HEVC and VP9 at 4K.

I think for most of us,its not really a big selling point for a £100+ CPU!

[ohmaheid]

The 8400 looks like the value proposition - even against price comparable AMD Ryzen. It would appeal to users who are doing an upgrade from 5 year-old machines, because of the new motherboard requirements. Anyone who is 'upgrading' from 6 or 7 series - There isn't enough of an advance in perfomance to warrant an upgrade...again, because of the new motherboard required.
I fully expect them to fly off the shelves - as consumer stupidity can never be underestimated.

[Tunnah]

There wouldn't be enough to differentiate it from 6c/6t. Look how close the i5-8400 6c/6t is to the i7-7700k 4c/8t in Cinebench.

Aye I know, plus the 4t/8c part would cannibalise the other 2. Gamers benefit the most from a 4c/8t part, especially going forward, as the consoles are moving to 8c CPUs, and practically all games are developed console first.

Honestly, and I know it doesn't make a difference to Intel, but this release has seriously made me consider dumping them in protest. But I'll never do it, I'll always get the best IPC-performing part, and that's gonna be Intel from now until..a bloody long time!

[Wozza63]

Impressive, no surprise considering they've been holding back this upgrade for at least 3 years.

At least we now have a very competitive market, Ryzen+ should be out early next year, hopefully with some max clock improvements and optimisations to Ryzen. +10% IPC and 10% higher clock speeds would be a great improvement while reducing power consumption at 12nm.

[scaryjim]

In terms of price, the comparisons to look out for, with respect to AMD, is the Ryzen 7 1700 (8C/16T, $329) against the Core i7-8700K (6C/12T, $353) and Ryzen 5 1500X (4C/8T, $182) against the Core i5-8400 (6C/6T, $182).

That might have been true when you wrote the article...

Thanks to AMD's unsurprising price cuts, the i7 8700k (£359) now sits much nearer the 1800X (£389) and well above the 1700X (£289), while the i5 8400 (£172) is slap between the 1500X (£164) and 1600 (£179) - all prices from Scan. At least the i5 8400 is in stock mind you, most of the Coffee Lake processors are currently pre-order only...

As to the performance, it's hardly a shock, is it. 2 more cores and a tiny clock speed boost = similar single threaded performance and just over 50% more multithreaded performance. It's so lack-lustre, and gives AMD a real chance if they can ring a little more IPC out of Ryzen 2 and bump the clock speeds on the new process...

[=assassin=]

Thanks for the review Hexus! Like others have said, it's really great that there is so much competition right now. Whether you go for AMD or Intel, there is a proper genuine choice, and obviously alot of this was down to AMD earlier in the year. While performance is roughly as expected, I'm hopeful that now we have both AMD and Intel with 6 or more cores in their mainstream products, that games might finally start making better use of extra threads. It feels like I have been on 8 threads forever with a first gen Core i7, and even now my CPU still doesn't get pushed that much overall with the applications I use, however, the improved per core performance has built up over the years, so I would still benefit from it, based on a gaming perspective.

[lumireleon]

How much more resources does intel use incorporate hyper threading in the i5 to make it an i7? And the same question goes to unlocked processors

[kalniel]

How much more resources does intel use incorporate hyper threading in the i5 to make it an i7? And the same question goes to unlocked processors

No additional resources - the 6c/12t 8700 is a 65W TDP* part.

*usual TDP warning applies

[kalniel]

It's so lack-lustre, and gives AMD a real chance if they can ring a little more IPC out of Ryzen 2 and bump the clock speeds on the new process...

Thing is Ryzen 2 won't be for a while - I think they'll squeeze clocks out of the new processes though. Just hope they don't do that via being able to up the power - the perf/power charts are very favourable to AMD IMHO.

[Corky34]

Thing is Ryzen 2 won't be for a while - I think they'll squeeze clocks out of the new processes though. Just hope they don't do that via being able to up the power - the perf/power charts are very favourable to AMD IMHO.

Isn't Zen+ due before Zen2, or have i got that backwards?