The Intel Core i7-7700K (91W) Review: The New Out-of-the-box Performance Champion
by Ian Cutress on January 3, 2017 12:02 PM ESTShadow of Mordor
The final title in our testing is another battle of system performance with the open world action-adventure title, Shadow of Mordor. Produced by Monolith using the LithTech Jupiter EX engine and numerous detail add-ons, SoM goes for detail and complexity to a large extent, despite having to be cut down from the original plans. The main story itself was written by the same writer as Red Dead Redemption, and it received Zero Punctuation’s Game of The Year in 2014.
For testing purposes, SoM gives a dynamic screen resolution setting, allowing us to render at high resolutions that are then scaled down to the monitor. As a result, we get several tests using the in-game benchmark. For low-end graphics we examine at 720p with low settings, whereas mid and high-end graphics get 1080p Ultra. The top graphics test is also redone at 3840x2160, also with Ultra settings, and we also test two cards at 4K where possible.
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silverblue - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
To be fair, even if Intel can't go any further with IPC on this architecture, extra clock speed for no extra power isn't such a bad thing. This was the optimisation step of the cadence anyway, so I don't get the hate.Lolimaster - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
Normally the chips should be called 6780K or 6790K, intel forgot that you can increase the SKU number when models with higher clocks appears.Now it's the "new 7th gen".
silverblue - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
I agree about the naming, though perhaps they just wanted to set their newer models apart. A 6710K (or, indeed, a 6780K) wouldn't confuse most of us.Manch - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Its basically the same as NVidia and AMD rebadging GPU's. Now Intel is doing the same thing.silverblue - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
A true rebrand would do little if nothing at all for a higher number; Intel have at least made tweaks.fanofanand - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link
Not true, with nearly every re-badge they have either increased VRAM capacity or speed, and/or increased clocks on the shaders. Re-badges suck but they have almost always offered at least tiny improvements, much like Kaby Lake.Thatguy97 - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link
The hate is that this is a complacent IntelLolimaster - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
There's 0.00% IPC improvement.tvdang7 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
Why didn't you compare the performance gap between generations like you guys do for the other reviews.lopri - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
AVX Offset? Why isn't that a cheat?