Core i7 8700k vs ryzen 7 benchmark and game performance comparison

We return with a new comparison with the Core i7 8700K as the protagonist, this time we faced it with the Ryzen 7 family from AMD to evaluate the behavior of both in games and applications. Recall that the Ryzen 7 came offering a sensational balance between price and performance. Will they still be the kings after the arrival of the newest from Intel?

Core i7 8700K vs Ryzen 7 technical characteristics

Recall that the Core i7 8700K is the new top of the range processor within the Intel Coffee Lake family, it is a silicon manufactured in the refined process at 14 nm ++ Tri-Gate that offers unprecedented energy efficiency. This enables a 6-core and 12-wire design to be achieved at a base speed of 3.7 GHz that goes up to 4.7 GHz in maximum tube mode with a TDP of only 95W making it a processor that consumes very little and generates little heat. The rest of its features go through 12 MB of L3 cache along with an integrated Intel UHD 630 GPU made up of 24 Execution Units and that offers excellent multimedia capabilities although its potential for video games is quite small.

On the other side of the ring we have the AMD Ryzen 7 processors, there are a total of three models although their characteristics are almost identical since they only differ in the operating frequency and the TDP. All of them consist of 8 Zen cores and 16 processing threads thanks to the use of SMT technology. Its common features continue with a total of 16MB of L3 cache and a manufacturing process at 14nm Fin-FET from GlobalFoundries, well below Intel's 14nm Tri-Gate. AMD's Zen microarchitecture has technologies such as XFR, SenseMI and Presicion Boost to improve the performance that these processors are capable of offering.

If we focus on the models we have the following:

• AMD Ryzen 7 1700: 3 GHz / 3.7 GHz 65W AMD Ryzen 7 1700X: 3.4 GHz / 3.8 GHz 95W AMD Ryzen 7 1800X: 3.6 GHz / 4 GHz 95W

As we can see the Ryzen 7 have an advantage by having two cores and four extra threads compared to the Core i7 8700K. Will it be enough to compensate for the higher speed and power per core of the Core i7 8700K?

Test bench and application performance

The test bench used in the tests is as follows:

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Core i7 8700K vs AMD Ryzen 7
Base plate:	Asus Maximus X Hero / MSI X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium
RAM:	Corsair LPX 64 GB DDR4 @ 2600 MHz / Corsair Vengeance 32 GB DDR4
Heatsink	Corsair H115 / Noctua NH-D15 SE-AM4
HDD	Samsumg 850 EVO.
Graphic card	Gigabyte GTX1080 Ti 11GB
Power supply	Corsair AX860i.

We start by looking at the performance of both processors in applications that make very intensive use of it.

Game testing

Gaming has always been much more favorable terrain for Intel and with the Core i7 8700K it should be even more so due to the high clock frequencies it is capable of achieving. No current game can use more than eight processing threads, so both processors have plenty of cores and the one with the most powerful ones will be the winner.

The tests have been done with a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and 1080p, 2K and 4K resolution.

Data analysis and conclusion

At the beginning of the year AMD turned the processor market upside down with the arrival of the Ryzen 7, its first models based on the new Zen microarchitecture and which came to give Intel more of a headache. These processors quickly became the best value for money and the choice of choice for many users.

This did not like at all an Intel that came from 2011 with an evolution almost null every year so the processor sector was very stagnant, for the first time in many years the Intel Core had a rival at its height that even the I was doing a lot of things despite games still being Intel's domain.

Intel was not going to sit idly by and was already working on what would be Coffee Lake, its eighth generation of Core processors that has finally arrived on the market with the intention of putting the AMD Ryzen in check. Has it succeeded?

Cinebench R15 is the flagship application when it comes to taking out all the performance that a processor hides, here we see how the Core i7 8700K manages to put itself above all Ryzen 7 proving that Intel's 6 cores and 12 threads are superior to 8 Ryzen 7 cores and 16 threads. This is because the new Intel processor reaches very high operating frequencies with a maximum turbo of 4.7 GHz, this makes its power per core very high and has no problem beating processors with more cores.

The rest of the tests are no exception, the Core i7 8700K is superior to the Ryzen 7 in everything and more in games, the quintessential Intel territory where core power is of vital importance, here simply AMD Ryzen 7 has nothing to do do.

We recommend reading our guide to Best Processors on the Market (2017)

If at the beginning of the year it was AMD that was revolutionizing the processor market, now Intel is doing it with the biggest leap the company has made since the arrival of Sandy Bridge in 2011, it took six years for the giant to The semiconductors have awakened from their lethargy but they have done so in an exceptional way and without hesitation.

Today the Core i7 8700K is the best mainstream processor on the market for everything, only its high price of 400 euros and the current low availability give an oxygen balloon to some AMD Ryzen 7 that are already asking for a replacement, it will not be until February when we have a new generation of 12nm Ryzen processors that will try to make life difficult for Intel again.

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It is expected that between now and February the price of the Core i7 8700K will gradually decrease until it reaches approximately 320-340 euros, which will only complicate life for AMD even more. Currently the Ryzen 7 1700, 1700X and 1800X have prices of approximately 290 euros, 340 euros and 416 euros respectively.