LABS TEST / PROCESSORS
T
he Core i7-9700K has been through
some serious mood swings during
its lifetime, largely thanks to price.
It’s a solid CPU for gaming, but its initial price of
nearly £500 was a tad steep. In order to
combat the threat from AMD, though, this price
has steadily fallen, and it’s now settled at just
£369. This price doesn’t sit near any otherINTEL CORE i7-9700K /£369 inc VAT
SUPPLIER ebuyer.comAMD CPU, with the Ryzen 9 3900X costing
£70 more and the Ryzen 7 3800X costing £70
less. With this new price in mind, we were
interested to see how it now stacks up
compared with the last time we looked at it.
As Intel has enabled Hyper-Threading on
its other 8-core K-series CPUs, it was left
with no option but to remove the feature on
the Core i7-9700K in order to create a solid
difference between the Core i7 and Core i9
ranges. However, this move also severely
hampers the Core i7- 9700K’s multi-threaded
performance, which makes it tough to
compete with AMD’s rivals.
It does offer some impressive boost
frequencies, though, and for much less
money than the Core i9-9900K. It can reach
4.9GHz on one core and 4.6GHz if all cores are
chugging along. However, it also has 4MB less
L3 cache than the Core i9 CPU. If you don’t need
on-board graphics, there’s also a KF version,
which shaves another £30 or so off the price.
In terms of overclocking, the Core i7-9700K
is another Intel CPU that views 5GHz as an
easy target, hitting 5.1GHz with a vcore of 1.3V
across all eight cores, which was even higher
than we managed with the Core i9-9900K.
The Core i7-9700K was no slouch in our
RealBench tests, but even the Ryzen 7
3700X had the measure of it in most
tests, with a system score of 234,491
compared to 205, 979. Even
overclocking the Intel chip couldn’t
help it here. It was a long way
behind in Cinebench too, where
it was only marginally ahead
of the Ryzen 5 3600X, which
was also quicker in Premiere
Pro. Overclocking did boost
its credentials here, but
only enough to better the
AMD 6-core CPU, with
the Ryzen 7 3700X
clearly being a much
better buy for exporting
4K video projects.Gaming was an entirely different story,
with the Core i7-9700K almost dominating
the graphs, offering the highest frame rates in
Metro Exodus and the second best results in
Far Cry New Dawn – miles ahead of the AMD
competition. As always, though, we should
stress that this won’t be the case in all games,
and raising the settings in these games would
result in far less of a difference.
Power consumption was high for an
8-core CPU too, but then it is built on a 14nm
manufacturing process.Conclusion
The Core i7-9700K is a stunning gaming chip,
but it isn’t really worth the extra money over the
Core i5-9600K in our tests, at least once the
latter is overclocked. Outside games, however,
there’s a severe lack of multi-threaded
performance, which sees far cheaper AMD
CPUs better the 9700K. It’s hard to recommend
the Core i7-9700K as an all-rounder, given
how much extra performance you can get
elsewhere for less money. If you’re building a
rig purely for games, the much cheaper Core
i5-9600K is often just as fast.SPEC
Base frequency 3.6GHz
Turbo frequency 4.9GHz
Core Coffee Lake refresh
Manufacturing process 14nm++
Number of cores 8 x physical (8 threads)
IGP Intel UHD Graphics 630
Hyper-Threading No
Cache 12MB L3 cache, 8 x 256KB L2 cache
Memory controller Dual-channel
DDR4, up to 2666MHz
Packaging LGA1151-v2
Thermal design power (TDP) 95W
Features Turbo Boost 2, FMA3, F16C, SHA,
BMI / BMI1 + BMI2, AVX-512, AVX2, AVX,
AES, SSE4a, SSE4, SSE3, SSE2, SSE, MMXVERDICT
Another Intel CPU that’s crying out for more
threads, although it’s a monster in games.CORE
+^ Good overclocking^
headroom
+^ Excellent in games
+^ Reasonably easy
to keep coolNETBURST-^ Poor multi-threaded
performance
-^ Not very power-
efficient
-^ Much better value
available elsewhere
PERFORMANCE
36 / 50FEATURES
13 / 15OVERALL SCORE
75 %%
VALUE
26 / 35LABS TEST / PROCESSORS
T
heCorei7-9700Khasbeenthrough
someseriousmoodswingsduring
itslifetime,largelythankstoprice.
It’sa solidCPUforgaming,butitsinitialpriceof
nearly£500wasa tadsteep.Inorderto
combatthethreatfromAMD,though,thisprice
hassteadilyfallen,andit’snowsettledatjust
£369.Thispricedoesn’tsitnearanyother
INTELCOREi7-9700K/£369inc VAT
SUPPLIER ebuyer.com
AMD CPU, with the Ryzen 9 3900X costing
£70 more and the Ryzen 7 3800X costing £70
less. With this new price in mind, we were
interested to see how it now stacks up
compared with the last time we looked at it.
As Intel has enabled Hyper-Threading on
its other 8-core K-series CPUs, it was left
with no option but to remove the feature on
the Core i7-9700K in order to create a solid
difference between the Core i7 and Core i9
ranges. However, this move also severely
hampers the Core i7- 9700K’s multi-threaded
performance, which makes it tough to
compete with AMD’s rivals.
It does offer some impressive boost
frequencies, though, and for much less
money than the Core i9-9900K. It can reach
4.9GHz on one core and 4.6GHz if all cores are
chugging along. However, it also has 4MB less
L3 cache than the Core i9 CPU. If you don’t need
on-board graphics, there’s also a KF version,
which shaves another £30 or so off the price.
In terms of overclocking, the Core i7-9700K
is another Intel CPU that views 5GHz as an
easy target, hitting 5.1GHz with a vcore of 1.3V
across all eight cores, which was even higher
than we managed with the Core i9-9900K.
The Core i7-9700K was no slouch in our
RealBench tests, but even the Ryzen 7
3700X had the measure of it in most
tests, with a system score of 234,491
compared to 205, 979. Even
overclocking the Intel chip couldn’t
help it here. It was a long way
behind in Cinebench too, where
it was only marginally ahead
of the Ryzen 5 3600X, which
was also quicker in Premiere
Pro. Overclocking did boost
its credentials here, but
only enough to better the
AMD 6-core CPU, with
the Ryzen 7 3700X
clearly being a much
better buy for exporting
4K video projects.Gaming was an entirely different story,
with the Core i7-9700K almost dominating
the graphs, offering the highest frame rates in
Metro Exodus and the second best results in
Far Cry New Dawn – miles ahead of the AMD
competition. As always, though, we should
stress that this won’t be the case in all games,
and raising the settings in these games would
result in far less of a difference.
Power consumption was high for an
8-core CPU too, but then it is built on a 14nm
manufacturing process.Conclusion
The Core i7-9700K is a stunning gaming chip,
but it isn’t really worth the extra money over the
Core i5-9600K in our tests, at least once the
latter is overclocked. Outside games, however,
there’s a severe lack of multi-threaded
performance, which sees far cheaper AMD
CPUs better the 9700K. It’s hard to recommend
the Core i7-9700K as an all-rounder, given
how much extra performance you can get
elsewhere for less money. If you’re building a
rig purely for games, the much cheaper Core
i5-9600K is often just as fast.SPEC
Base frequency 3.6GHz
Turbo frequency 4.9GHz
Core Coffee Lake refresh
Manufacturing process 14nm++
Number of cores 8 x physical (8 threads)
IGP Intel UHD Graphics 630
Hyper-Threading No
Cache 12MB L3 cache, 8 x 256KB L2 cache
Memory controller Dual-channel
DDR4, up to 2666MHz
Packaging LGA1151-v2
Thermal design power (TDP) 95W
Features Turbo Boost 2, FMA3, F16C, SHA,
BMI / BMI1 + BMI2, AVX-512, AVX2, AVX,
AES, SSE4a, SSE4, SSE3, SSE2, SSE, MMXVERDICT
Another Intel CPU that’s crying out for more
threads,althoughit’sa monster in games.CORE
+Goodoverclocking
headroom
+Excellentingames
+Reasonably easy
to keep coolNETBURST- Poor multi-threaded
performance - Not very power-
efficient - Much better value
available elsewhere
PERFORMANCE
36 / 50FEATURES
13 / 15OVERALLSCORE
75 %%
VALUE
26 / 35