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 |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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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!)