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: Deus Ex Mankind Divided
Deus Ex is a franchise with a wide level of popularity. Despite the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (DEMD) version being released in 2016, it has often been heralded as a game that taxes the CPU. It uses the Dawn Engine to create a very complex first-person action game with science-fiction based weapons and interfaces. The game combines first-person, stealth, and role-playing elements, with the game set in Prague, dealing with themes of transhumanism, conspiracy theories, and a cyberpunk future. The game allows the player to select their own path (stealth, gun-toting maniac) and offers multiple solutions to its puzzles.
DEMD has an in-game benchmark, an on-rails look around an environment showcasing some of the game’s most stunning effects, such as lighting, texturing, and others. Even in 2020, it’s still an impressive graphical showcase when everything is jumped up to the max. For this title, we are testing the following resolutions:
- 600p Low, 1440p Low, 4K Low, 1080p Max
The benchmark runs for about 90 seconds. We do as many runs within 10 minutes per resolution/setting combination, and then take 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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DEMD is often considered a CPU-limited title, so when the 11700K is better than the older Intel CPUs is at the low resolution, low quality setting, that confirms that. But as we ramp up the resolution, and the quality, the 11700K falls behind ever so slightly in both averages and percentiles.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
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terroradagio - Friday, March 5, 2021 - link
I'd be saying this if they did with an AMD part too. This is something I would expect from someone unknown guy doing reviews, not Anandtech. Extremely disappointing they are going for the click bait.Otritus - Saturday, March 6, 2021 - link
We used to have performance previews all the time back in the day to let people have an idea of what is coming and if it is worth it to wait for the next generation. Consider this to be a performance preview, meaning final performance will be higher. In general workloads rocket lake is 10-15 % faster while being reasonable with power. In gaming it's trash, but that could be a consequence of the non-finalized nature of the product.By the time someone can reasonably buy this product it will be April/May. If I need a pc now, the performance uplift isn't that high to make me have buyers remorse. If I can wait, I can get a comet lake chip at probably a great discount, or if rocket lake's gaming is fixed, get that instead.
Performance previews like this are excellent journalism because the public is informed of things that are otherwise concealed. My only gripe with the article is calling it a "review" instead of "early review" or "preview" because someone may stumble on this article and mistakenly believe this is how the product will be shipped.
sonny73n - Saturday, March 6, 2021 - link
This is a REVIEW! Not early review or preview or any excuse you're making. You've lost touch with reality if you hope for a higher performance on official release date. If Intel haven't released these CPUs (before their announced release date), no way in hell Anandtech or anyone would be able to purchase them.Spunjji - Saturday, March 6, 2021 - link
I'm amused by how many people have stumbled upon this and are mistakenly assuming that performance will be significantly better when it's shipped. This was a CPU bought at retail running on a retail motherboard. If they do noticeably improve performance (and it's a big if) consumers will have to install updates themselves to get it.Makste - Saturday, March 6, 2021 - link
This is not an engineering sample. If hundreds were being sold by a retailer then that is what Intel was intending to sell to its clients. If you are not satisfied with the performance don't blame it on Anandtechshady28 - Saturday, March 6, 2021 - link
This is labelled review, not performance preview.Cutress is officially a hack now. I'll wait for real reviews on systems that officially and properly support the chip.
schujj07 - Saturday, March 6, 2021 - link
It was a review. This was a retail CPU running on a motherboard with a BIOS that supports RKL. Just because RKL doesn't look good isn't surprising.shady28 - Sunday, March 7, 2021 - link
On a ++BETA++ BIOS.schujj07 - Monday, March 8, 2021 - link
Unless you have something like the X570 and Zen2 being released at the same time, quite often it is a Beta BIOS that gives initial support for new chips. Eventually with further validation that Beta BIOS becomes official. Perfect example of this is in October 2019 I was installing vSphere 6.7 onto some servers. With the initial BIOS release I was getting the Purple Screen of Death. The only BIOS that was available was a Beta BIOS and on that vSphere installed just fine. Push forward a month later and the official supported BIOS by VMware for that server was the Beta BIOS for vSphere 6.7. It took another 6 months before a non-beta BIOS was available for that server as well. Hence just because it is Beta doesn't mean it is bad. Things in Beta testing generally have full features and performance just hasn't been validated long enough to become the official release.Qasar - Sunday, March 7, 2021 - link
like that will change much, if anything shady28.