The Old King of Gaming: Intel Core i7-8700K Revisited

[loki1944]

Could you maybe add 6850K to the bunch? In summer 2017 before 8700K launch I bought it and Asrock x99 Taichi for 510 Euros total. It was at the time less costly than 8700K and equivalent quality motherboard. It also provides 40 PCI lanes. Most importantly, it provided an upgrade path (to 6900K/6950X or Xeons) as the second hand market matures and used CPUs that are compatible get cheaper. This is in contrast to 8700K which is the strongest CPU one could slot at that time in that platform. Still rocking 6850k with 4.3 GHz OC.

Furthermore, you can get a used 6850k and x99 board for 250 Euros to 350 Euros total. Maybe in the US even cheaper if not the same amount in USD. Of course with Ryzen 3600 it has become more irrelevant but even Ryzen does not provide all the lanes (B550 or X470 might mitigate that with PCI E 4.0) and is most likely slower for high refresh rate gaming.

I have i7 6850K and 5930K systems as well as i7 920, 930, 960, 980X, and just upgraded my i7 7800X to an i9 10920X. In terms of tangible gameplay experience we have not seen the chains move too much ssince 2012/13.

 

[Bp968]

I have i7 6850K and 5930K systems as well as i7 920, 930, 960, 980X, and just upgraded my i7 7800X to an i9 10920X. In terms of tangible gameplay experience we have not seen the chains move too much ssince 2012/13.

I upgraded from a i7 960 to an 8700k and I did it for the NVME slots and other motherboard improvements mainly. I suspect the next time I upgrade my MB and CPU again will be for similar reasons: ie to get more nvme slots, pcie 4 and 5, etc etc. I seriously doubt I'll upgrade the MB/CPU because of a lack of CPU performance.

Honestly this is exactly why I tend to argue with people who say that motherboard compatibility over CPU generations is a good reason to pick one vendor over another. The difference between the first generation ryzen and the last gen ryzen on the previous motherboard pinout wasn't large enough to warrant an upgrade for most gamers IMO. They would be far better off with a better video card 99% of the time.

But between zen 1 and the current zen 4 you go from pci3 to pci5 and ddr5.

So even if I *could* upgrade my 8700k to a faster CPU in the same socket I wouldn't because id be more interested in the extra MB features than I would in the CPU performance improvements between my 8700k and the current gen intel CPU.

Now when I was a teenager and upgrading from a 25mhz CPU to a 66mhz or 100mhz CPU than it absolutely was a giant leap up when you swapped that CPU out!

 

[loki1944]

I upgraded from a i7 960 to an 8700k and I did it for the NVME slots and other motherboard improvements mainly. I suspect the next time I upgrade my MB and CPU again will be for similar reasons: ie to get more nvme slots, pcie 4 and 5, etc etc. I seriously doubt I'll upgrade the MB/CPU because of a lack of CPU performance.

Honestly this is exactly why I tend to argue with people who say that motherboard compatibility over CPU generations is a good reason to pick one vendor over another. The difference between the first generation ryzen and the last gen ryzen on the previous motherboard pinout wasn't large enough to warrant an upgrade for most gamers IMO. They would be far better off with a better video card 99% of the time.

But between zen 1 and the current zen 4 you go from pci3 to pci5 and ddr5.

So even if I *could* upgrade my 8700k to a faster CPU in the same socket I wouldn't because id be more interested in the extra MB features than I would in the CPU performance improvements between my 8700k and the current gen intel CPU.

Now when I was a teenager and upgrading from a 25mhz CPU to a 66mhz or 100mhz CPU than it absolutely was a giant leap up when you swapped that CPU out!

Yeah upgrading from a PII to a P4 or XP3200+ was a much more tangible difference back in the day; you have a good point about features on the motherboards though.

 

[Trickydicky1963]

My main Computer that I built in later 2017 has the Intel 8700k clocked at 5.1ghz on all cores and is very stable 1 blue screen in nearly 6 years. My system has a Samsung 970 1TB main drive, secondly drive 2TB FireCuda, ASUS Z370-E Motherboard, AIO Corsair 240 and Asus 32 GB 3200mhz, I swapped out the geforce 1080TI, to a geforce RTX 3700. In my humble opinion I can't see the need to upgrade the computer motherboard, processor and memory, as it players AAA without any problems,

 

[loki1944]

Forgot to say that this was a fantastic article Mr. Walton and far more interesting than simply looking at the newest CPUs. Thanks for going the extra mile and doing this.