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
Benchmarking Performance: CPU Rendering Tests
Rendering tests are a long-time favorite of reviewers and benchmarkers, as the code used by rendering packages is usually highly optimized to squeeze every little bit of performance out. Sometimes rendering programs end up being heavily memory dependent as well - when you have that many threads flying about with a ton of data, having low latency memory can be key to everything. Here we take a few of the usual rendering packages under Windows 10, as well as a few new interesting benchmarks.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Corona 1.3: link
Corona is a standalone package designed to assist software like 3ds Max and Maya with photorealism via ray tracing. It's simple - shoot rays, get pixels. OK, it's more complicated than that, but the benchmark renders a fixed scene six times and offers results in terms of time and rays per second. The official benchmark tables list user submitted results in terms of time, however I feel rays per second is a better metric (in general, scores where higher is better seem to be easier to explain anyway). Corona likes to pile on the threads, so the results end up being very staggered based on thread count.
With more threads on display, the Core i7-8700K gets ahead of the previous mainstream Core i7 parts. The frequency difference over the Skylake-X processor gives an extra +10% performance, but the 16-thread parts from AMD win out overall.
Blender 2.78: link
For a render that has been around for what seems like ages, Blender is still a highly popular tool. We managed to wrap up a standard workload into the February 5 nightly build of Blender and measure the time it takes to render the first frame of the scene. Being one of the bigger open source tools out there, it means both AMD and Intel work actively to help improve the codebase, for better or for worse on their own/each other's microarchitecture.
Blender seems to separate very nicely into core counts, with six cores from Intel matching eight cores from AMD.
LuxMark v3.1: Link
As a synthetic, LuxMark might come across as somewhat arbitrary as a renderer, given that it's mainly used to test GPUs, but it does offer both an OpenCL and a standard C++ mode. In this instance, aside from seeing the comparison in each coding mode for cores and IPC, we also get to see the difference in performance moving from a C++ based code-stack to an OpenCL one with a CPU as the main host.
POV-Ray 3.7.1b4: link
Another regular benchmark in most suites, POV-Ray is another ray-tracer but has been around for many years. It just so happens that during the run up to AMD's Ryzen launch, the code base started to get active again with developers making changes to the code and pushing out updates. Our version and benchmarking started just before that was happening, but given time we will see where the POV-Ray code ends up and adjust in due course.
Cinebench R15: link
The latest version of CineBench has also become one of those 'used everywhere' benchmarks, particularly as an indicator of single thread performance. High IPC and high frequency gives performance in ST, whereas having good scaling and many cores is where the MT test wins out.
CineBench R15 in single thread mode can take the Core i7-8700K by the horns and drag it to be the best performing chip ever tested.
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xchaotic - Monday, October 9, 2017 - link
Well yeah, but even with non-HT i5 and i3, you still have plenty of cores to work with.Even if the OS (or a background task - say Windows Defender?) takes up a thread, you still have other cores for your game engine.nierd - Monday, October 9, 2017 - link
Do we? I've yet to see a good benchmark that measures task switching and multiple workloads - they measure 'program a' that is bad at using cores - and 'program b' that is good at using cores.In today's reality - few people are going to need maximum single program performance. Outside of very specific types of workloads (render farming or complex simulations for science) please show me the person that is just focused on a single program. I want to see side by side how these chips square off when you have multiple completing workloads that force the scheduler to balance tasks and do multiple context shifting etc. We used to see benchmarks back in the day (single core days) where they'd do things like run a program designed to completely trash the predictive cache so we'd see 'worst case' performance, and things that would stress a cpu. Now we run a benchmark suite that shows you how fast handbrake runs *if it's the only thing you run*.
mapesdhs - Tuesday, October 10, 2017 - link
I wonder if there's pressure never to test systems in that kind of real-world manner, perhaps the results would not be pretty. Not so much a damnation of the CPU, rather a reflection of the OS. :D Windows has never been that good at this sort of thing.boeush - Monday, October 9, 2017 - link
An *intelligent* OS thread scheduler would group low-demand/low-priority threads together, to multitask on one or two cores, while placing high-priority and high-CPU-utilization threads on respective dedicated cores. This would maximize performance and avoid trashing the cache, where and when it actually matters.If Windows 10 makes consistent single-thread performance hard to obtain, then the testing is revealing a fundamental problem (really, a BUG) with the OS' scheduler - not a flaw in benchmarking methodology...
samer1970 - Monday, October 9, 2017 - link
I fail to understand how you guys review a CPU meant for overclocking and only put non OC results in your tables ?If I wanted the i7 8700K without overclocking I would pick up the i7 8700 ans save $200 for both cooling and cheaper motherboard. and the i7 8700 can turbo all 6 cores to 4.3Ghz just like the i7 8700K
someonesomewherelse - Saturday, October 14, 2017 - link
Classic Intel, can't they make a chipset/socket with extra power pins so it would last for at least a few cpu generations?Gastec - Saturday, October 14, 2017 - link
I'm getting lost in all these CPU releases this year, it feels like there is a new CPU coming out every 2 months. Don't get me wrong, I like to have many choices but this is pathetic really. Someone is really desperate for more money.zodiacfml - Sunday, October 15, 2017 - link
The i3!lordken - Saturday, October 28, 2017 - link
cant you make bars for amd cpus red in graphs? Its crap to search for them if all lines are black (at least 7700k was highlighted in some)a bit disappointed, not a single world of ryzen/amd on summary page, you compare only to intel cpus? how come?
why only 1400 in civ AI test and not any R7/5 CPUs?
Also I would expect you hammer down intel a bit more on that not-so-same socket crap.
Ritska - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
Why is 6800k faster then 7700k and 8700k in gaming? Is it worth buying if I can get one for 300$?