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: GTA 5
The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA to help optimize the title. At this point GTA V is super old, but still super useful as a benchmark – it is a complicated test with many features that modern titles today still struggle with. With rumors of a GTA 6 on the horizon, I hope Rockstar make that benchmark as easy to use as this one is.
GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine under DirectX 11. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.
We are using the following settings:
- 720p Low, 1440p Low, 4K Low, 1080p Max
The in-game benchmark consists of five scenarios: four short panning shots with varying lighting and weather effects, and a fifth action sequence that lasts around 90 seconds. We use only the final part of the benchmark, which combines a flight scene in a jet followed by an inner city drive-by through several intersections followed by ramming a tanker that explodes, causing other cars to explode as well. This is a mix of distance rendering followed by a detailed near-rendering action sequence, and the title thankfully spits out frame time data. The benchmark can also be called from the command line, making it very easy to use.
There is one funny caveat with GTA. If the CPU is too slow, or has too few cores, the benchmark loads, but it doesn’t have enough time to put items in the correct position. As a result, for example when running our single core Sandy Bridge system, the jet ends up stuck at the middle of an intersection causing a traffic jam. Unfortunately this means the benchmark never ends, but still amusing.
AnandTech | Low Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Low Quality |
High Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Max Quality |
Average FPS | ||||
95th Percentile |
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
541 Comments
View All Comments
jacropolis - Sunday, March 7, 2021 - link
The 10700K is regularly $279 at Micro Center and isn't a bad buy for that price at all.Jadi - Sunday, March 7, 2021 - link
350 Dollar you want a 10700k and comparing it with a 5800X?Why?
The 5800X don t have a gpu, and the 10700ks was under 320 euros allways!
Now the 10700K not KS cost 316 euros!
Hot a 14nm Chip this is the advantage its only 60 c and a 5800X comes easy over 85 c and more.
More expansiv a 5800X cost 440 euros! A 5600X cost 350 euros, more then the 10700k!
Slower its a K CPU and can boost it up. When you OC the 5800X you have less fps.
Why you think it needs more power? Becouse the 40 sec boost? That is all and under AVX512 is it the only cpu that have it.
Games and other stuff its the same power, And 5800X dosen t stop at 105 Watt it goes like 118 watts. Thats are very close too 125 watts and more is only a limit time!
Spunjji - Monday, March 8, 2021 - link
@Jadi - that last bit of your post makes no sense. The 10700K and 11700K objectively require more power than the 5800X to do the same amount of work; the 5800X only hits 118 Watts under the same conditions that the other two approach 200 Watts. If you're comparing power draw during gaming, the 5800X uses less power than those two - roughly 25W less than the 10700K.Comparing temperatures is daft too. 85 degrees is way under the CPU's junction temperature, so it's not a problem to runa cPU at that temp - and it's objectively easier to keep an AMD CPU at that temperature than to keep an Intel chip at 60 degrees, because your cooler isn't dissipating as much heat.
TrueJessNarmo - Tuesday, March 9, 2021 - link
10700k is $320 on amazon and 9900k is $250 at microcenter.At this point 5900x is best for serious users and 9900k/10700k is for gamers. 5600x and 5800x are overpriced for what it is, but 5900x is a sweet deal at $550
rfxcasey - Wednesday, March 17, 2021 - link
I got my 10700K for 330 dollars new, I've seen them go for as low as 300.Makste - Saturday, March 6, 2021 - link
With gaming it's not the power consumption that's the problem here, it is the gaming performance in these benchmarks against comet lake obviously due to a higher latency.Zen 3's efforts have been put into perspective here, those engineers did quite a commendable job.
Bfree4me - Sunday, March 7, 2021 - link
Agreed! The Zen architecture is top shelf. But it took far too long. My last AMD Cpu was an Athlon 1800 because at that time AMD was the value leader and Intel was the performance king for a price. At the time came where I needed performance over value.So I have been Intel since then. Time to start looking towards Zen 🤔
Timoo - Monday, March 8, 2021 - link
If I may be so free: "Took way too long": I agree.I just keep in mind that it took them way too long, because Intel managed to create some very shady deals with retailers, effectively pushing AMD out of the market and to the brink of bankruptcy. So, for years AMD has been struggling to stay alive.
Agreed, buying ATi didn't help either. But without those shady deals they might have pulled it off. From 2006 to -say- 2015 AMD was only struggling to stay alive. I believe they had some huge cash injection at the time, together with getting one of the best CPU designers in the world (what's his name?) back in the house.
So, in my opinion, AMD is forgiven for their 10-year "heart-attack".
GeoffreyA - Monday, March 8, 2021 - link
I also believe it was because the K10, or Phenom, while being faster than the Athlon 64, was not aggressive enough. It had already been designed before Core 2 Duo came out, and by then, Intel was ahead of them. Who knows, they might have narrowed the gap if they had persisted with the K10 design, widening everything till it matched/surpassed Nehalem, but they shot too far, going for Bulldozer, which was supposed to turn the tables round but sank them further in the ditch.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, March 8, 2021 - link
And yet AMD was having trouble supplying enough chips to the limited market they did have. Much like today. OEMs are not going to sign up with a company that cant consistently supply CPUs.Dont forget the billiosn they poured into making GF and pissing off TSMC in the process.