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: World of Tanks
Albeit different to most of the other commonly played MMO or massively multiplayer online games, World of Tanks is set in the mid-20th century and allows players to take control of a range of military based armored vehicles. World of Tanks (WoT) is developed and published by Wargaming who are based in Belarus, with the game’s soundtrack being primarily composed by Belarusian composer Sergey Khmelevsky. The game offers multiple entry points including a free-to-play element as well as allowing players to pay a fee to open up more features. One of the most interesting things about this tank based MMO is that it achieved esports status when it debuted at the World Cyber Games back in 2012.
World of Tanks enCore is a demo application for its new graphics engine penned by the Wargaming development team. Over time the new core engine has been implemented into the full game upgrading the games visuals with key elements such as improved water, flora, shadows, lighting as well as other objects such as buildings. The World of Tanks enCore demo app not only offers up insight into the impending game engine changes, but allows users to check system performance to see if the new engine runs optimally on their system. There is technically a Ray Tracing version of the enCore benchmark now available, however because it can’t be deployed standalone without the installer, we decided against using it. If that gets fixed, then we can look into it.
The benchmark tool comes with a number of presets:
- 768p Minimum, 1080p Standard, 1080p Max, 4K Max (not a preset)
The odd one out is the 4K Max preset, because the benchmark doesn’t automatically have a 4K option – to get this we edit the acceptable resolutions ini file, and then we can select 4K. The benchmark outputs its own results file, with frame times, making it very easy to parse the data needed for average 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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WoT is a fun test to see 700 FPS+ numbers with the best CPUs. However the differences between the CPUs end up being minor, and in absolute terms the 11700K still has issues, often sitting at the lower end of the results.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
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Oxford Guy - Wednesday, March 10, 2021 - link
Worse.Bulldozer came from a money-starved little company, a company that couldn’t capitalize on having the superior design because of Intel’s monopolization.
This chip is from the big rich company that stomped on AMD with dirty tricks.
So, no. As stupid as Bulldozer was, this CPU seems to be quite a bit more unjustified.
ThereSheGoes - Wednesday, March 10, 2021 - link
Well, the results in this article are clearly not just wrong, but very wrong. https://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/artikel/hard...Bagheera - Wednesday, March 10, 2021 - link
did you even read the article you linked? it's taking 5800X in most benchmarks just like the Anandtech review.if you mean the gaming benches in the other review - 3 games is a terrible sample size and it still loses to 5800x in 2 out of 3.
Beaver M. - Wednesday, March 10, 2021 - link
Look at the results with the new BIOS.This review here is obsolete.
Hifihedgehog - Friday, March 12, 2021 - link
LOL. Fanboy delusion.First off, let's take a quick looksie at the Cinebench R20 results:
https://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/artikel/hard...
When switching from BIOS version 0402 to 0603, the 11700K's single-threaded performance actually DROPS from a score of 609 to 600. And its multicore performance is still less than the 10900K and the 5800X.
Switching gears, the games are no less unflattering:
https://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/artikel/hard...
The 11700K there, regardless of which of the two BIOS releases it uses, often loses to the 10900K and Ryzen 5000 series. It loses to the Ryzen 5000 series and 10900K in THREE out of the four games: The Division 2, Metro Exodus, The Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
In short: dude, what are you smoking?
Beaver M. - Wednesday, March 10, 2021 - link
As expected new reviews with newer BIOS versions improve performance significantly and puts the numbers to expected levels as well.This was a quick shot of a review and I fear it has tainted Cutress reputation a lot, especially because he defended it that much, even on video.
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, March 10, 2021 - link
With what power consumption?Raising performance by pushing power even higher may improve things like FPS in gaming tests but it obscures the big picture.
Want to talk about reputation? Remember the giant fridge-sized chiller Intel surreptitiously used to give a benchmark demo? Or, remember the ‘GenuineIntel’ fiasco? Or, remember the cute trick of putting a black box CPU inside the one people pay for, so that only special customers get the option of avoiding that particular spyware?
Somehow I think the writers here are going to be very hard pressed to challenge Intel in the cheatiness department, even without mentioning Intel’s history of abusing its monopoly power via OEM deals and the like.
Qasar - Wednesday, March 10, 2021 - link
Oxford Guy you forgot about how intel kept saying that 10 nm is " on track " the last 3-4 years :-)Qasar - Wednesday, March 10, 2021 - link
Beaver M" new reviews with newer BIOS versions improve performance significantly " from what i can tell from the graphs, for the most part, while performance may have improved over previous gen, it looks like it still looses to zen 3, but definitely not significantly, and still using more power then zen 3 overall, not that much of an improvement. a little upset that intel didnt get any performance crowns back, maybe, and that rocket lake still looks to be a dud ?
Bagheera - Thursday, March 11, 2021 - link
I fail to see the performance improvements in this other review. the games chosen were different (only 3 games? really?), and still lost to 5800X in 2/3.is it just "better" relative to last gen performance? the other review only tested a single resolution (and again, 3 whole games!)