Intel Core i7-11700K Review: Blasting Off with Rocket Lake
by Dr. Ian Cutress on March 5, 2021 4:30 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- 14nm
- Xe-LP
- Rocket Lake
- Cypress Cove
- i7-11700K
Gaming Tests: F1 2019
The F1 racing games from Codemasters have been popular benchmarks in the tech community, mostly for ease-of-use and that they seem to take advantage of any area of a machine that might be better than another. The 2019 edition of the game features all 21 circuits on the calendar for that year, and includes a range of retro models and DLC focusing on the careers of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. Built on the EGO Engine 3.0, the game has been criticized similarly to most annual sports games, by not offering enough season-to-season graphical fidelity updates to make investing in the latest title worth it, however the 2019 edition revamps up the Career mode, with features such as in-season driver swaps coming into the mix. The quality of the graphics this time around is also superb, even at 4K low or 1080p Ultra.
For our test, we put Alex Albon in the Red Bull in position #20, for a dry two-lap race around Austin. We test at the following settings:
- 768p Ultra Low, 1440p Ultra Low, 4K Ultra Low, 1080p Ultra
In terms of automation, F1 2019 has an in-game benchmark that can be called from the command line, and the output file has frame times. We repeat each resolution setting for a minimum of 10 minutes, taking the averages and percentiles.
| AnandTech | Low Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Low Quality |
High Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Max Quality |
| Average FPS |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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The Ego engine is usually a good bet where cores, IPC, and frequency matters. Despite this, the 11700K isn't showing much of a generational improvement.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
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Timoo - Monday, March 8, 2021 - link
"You are reviewing a device that is not ready to be sold yet."Sorry?
It came from a European retailer. Therefore it is ready to be sold.
"Not officially launched yet" would be more accurate.
ballsystemlord - Friday, March 5, 2021 - link
Nice one @Ryan . Keep up the good work.Spunjji - Saturday, March 6, 2021 - link
Well said, Ryan.pentiuman - Sunday, March 7, 2021 - link
I understand AnandTech has honored their applicable NDA. And that you informed Intel of yourintentions or whatever. And that you didn't break any laws. And you also considered the early release OK because the chip was (what would be sold here in the US) retail. But I think I agree w/ User terroradagio and some others in that, Anandtech shouldn't have released their review early because they happened upon a favorable, early deal - (which itself may have been contrary to an Intel company policy w/ the retailer), not available to any other reviewer or consumer. It's taking advantage of a slip in how the system was supposed to work. You don't want to see it as wrong because it's almost like time doesn't really matter. In the end, you're still buying the product, doing the work, publishing and maintaining the website and revisiting the numbers and updating the motherboard and more and more work. You do all this hard work, and you're highly respected, (and for good reason), so for these good reasons, and more, I think this clouds your decision on this matter. I just feel that all tech sites should respect the same release review date! To not do so reminds me of the less ethical journalism methods used by some photographers, who then sell them legally to the newspapers. But integrity goes deep - more than 1 level.
The benefit Anandtech COULD take is the one that they have apparently become so used to, that it is assumed. The ability to buy the chip before consumers, test it, write their review, and click
the mouse to post it 1 second after the NDA says they could. (My point here is, some reviewers are either not able to buy them early, or not given the chips, don't have the connections to buy them, and have to wait to buy them like any other consumer, to test them, review them and then publish.)
In other words, you are already at an advantage over some reviewers by your early access to the
chip - and have weeks more than them to test it. Publishing it 3 weeks earlier than your standard
NDA (that may not apply), before nearly anyone else, is (in my opinion) an unfair advantage. You
are a well established website and reviewer - so I'm not saying you did it for the views. I just
feel it's not right. I get it - you must have a different ethical view. Thank you for the review otherwise.
Qasar - Sunday, March 7, 2021 - link
pentiuman, and would you be saying the same thing if another site did this, or were also able to get one of these cpus to test ? or maybe, like others have suggested, some just dont like to see intel in such a disappointing light ?Timoo - Monday, March 8, 2021 - link
Why has Anandtech here an advantage?If you wish to write an early review, you can too.
The CPU is simply for sale, apparently.
https://www.techradar.com/news/intel-core-i7-11700...
Timoo - Monday, March 8, 2021 - link
*update: not anymore, apparently.Sold out or rebuked by Intel?
Spunjji - Monday, March 8, 2021 - link
Every other reviewer out there had the chance to take advantage of this "slip", so it's not unethical.Unethical would be taking advantage of insider contacts to produce an officially-sanctioned "preview" prior to release of a product and formal reviews that provides a misleading picture of the product's performance, like DF did with Nvidia and the RTX 3080.
lmcd - Friday, March 5, 2021 - link
Any coverage of Rocket Lake is good coverage at this point. "People know it exists so hopefully they'll buy it."movax2 - Friday, March 5, 2021 - link
I really don't understand why You attack anadtech. Intel Rocket Lake sucks... not anadtech!!Get it right already!