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 |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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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.
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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?
Technobile - Friday, March 12, 2021 - link
The 10700K costs a pittance at the minute, and after the final bios and microcode 11700K will be around 15 to 20% faster than it. Both a bargain when the only other option is dealing with the 'quirks' (to be kind) of an AMD systemQasar - Friday, March 12, 2021 - link
" The 10700K costs a pittance at the minute, and after the final bios and microcode 11700K will be around 15 to 20% faster than it " i will believe that, when i see it, honestly, that is hopeful thinking." Both a bargain when the only other option is dealing with the 'quirks' (to be kind) of an AMD system " and intel has had its own quirks over the years.
dsplover - Saturday, March 13, 2021 - link
They’re just doing this to give the impression they’re relevant. It’s safe to assume they’ll retake some market share but AMD took servers, laptop and desktop sectors by storm while Intel keeps moving old designs out the door.AMD 5750G, if it exists will render Intel designs useless this summer, while Intel struggles to get Alder Lake up and running.
Motherboard manufacturers will get tired of chasing new sockets after AM5 comes out.
What happened to these guys? It’s embarrassing and I’m an i7 fan boy..
GeoffreyA - Saturday, March 13, 2021 - link
"What happened to these guys?"My guess would be: complacency, underestimating the enemy, putting eggs in too many dead-end baskets, and management that made a mess of excellent engineering talent.
CiccioB - Sunday, March 14, 2021 - link
When reading this I think some of you just ended their school yesterday (with poor results) and just came here to say the first thing they think it is pro AMD. Just to give a (poor) contribution to what they think is an easy (for everyone) task as beating a dead horse (Intel).
I may shock you if I say that that "chasing designs" effort is the secret trick for motherboard producer too... surprise surprise.. MAKE MONEY!
So they do not get tired to do anything if this means selling more motherboards, and this just happens if you have to change your motherboards every couple of generations.
And I may shock you even more if I say you that those that make an upgrade using the same motherboard is just a so small number that no motherboard producer is really interested in supporting.
Usually when you change your CPU you just do not want only it to go a little faster but you want also the new technological improvements that meantime have been created, from faster bus, new and more connectors (M2 vs SATA), faster USBs, Thunderbolts, better memory support and such.
And this doesn't come if you do not also change the motherboard.
And to have and propose a better motherboard to sell, guess what? Yes, motherboard producer have to play the "chasing designs" game.
rfxcasey - Thursday, March 18, 2021 - link
Yeah "useless", please, all of this is splitting hairs, none of these processors are even close to being "useless".rfxcasey - Wednesday, March 17, 2021 - link
To me, looks like the i7 10700k holds it's own against the 5800x in gaming performance and is much cheaper.rfxcasey - Thursday, March 18, 2021 - link
i7 10700K actually beating the 5800x in many game benchmarks. I don't have a preference between AMD and Intel generally, but the i7 10700K is a great gaming processor, Intel did seem to make an embarrassing move with the 11th Gen, but for the cost, the 10700k a top, possibly THE top gaming CPU.quadibloc - Thursday, March 18, 2021 - link
When an official review comes in, with all the details, things may look a little better. But even now, I see one thing that's being overlooked. Since these chips have AVX-512, where that can be used, that will double their performance compared to processors that only have AVX-256. Except, of course, for the necessary slowdown for thermal reasons. So on workloads that involve a lot of AVX-512, they should really shine instead of being as terribly lackluster as they appear when that isn't taken into account.