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: Borderlands 3
As a big Borderlands fan, having to sit and wait six months for the EPIC Store exclusive to expire before we saw it on Steam felt like a long time to wait. The fourth title of the franchise, if you exclude the TellTale style-games, BL3 expands the universe beyond Pandora and its orbit, with the set of heroes (plus those from previous games) now cruising the galaxy looking for vaults and the treasures within. Popular Characters like Tiny Tina, Claptrap, Lilith, Dr. Zed, Zer0, Tannis, and others all make appearances as the game continues its cel-shaded design but with the graphical fidelity turned up. Borderlands 1 gave me my first ever taste of proper in-game second order PhysX, and it’s a high standard that continues to this day.
BL3 works best with online access, so it is filed under our online games section. BL3 is also one of our biggest downloads, requiring 100+ GB. As BL3 supports resolution scaling, we are using the following settings:
- 360p Very Low, 1440p Very Low, 4K Very Low, 1080p Badass
BL3 has its own in-game benchmark, which recreates a set of on-rails scenes with a variety of activity going on in each, such as shootouts, explosions, and wildlife. The benchmark outputs its own results files, including frame times, which can be parsed for our averages/percentile data.
| AnandTech | Low Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Low Quality |
High Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Max Quality |
| Average FPS |  |
 |
 |
 |
| 95th Percentile |  |
 |
 |
 |
With the 9900K sitting at 5.0 GHz, the fact that the 11700K only does single core 5.0 GHz shouldn't matter if the IPC gains on the core help push the needle. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to do much in Borderlands.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
541 Comments
View All Comments
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!)