Intel’s Eleventh-gen Rocket Lake chip received’t hit cabinets till the top of March, however an unexpectedly early “overview” of a retail Core i7-11700K labels the chip as power-hungry and unable to surpass AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X in lots of exams.
The overview, written by revered CPU professional Dr. Ian Cutress of Anandtech.com, was primarily based on a Core i7-11700K that’s presumably one of many tons of of CPUs that have been by chance offered a month earlier than launch by a German retailer.
Benchmarks of the chip have been making the rounds ever since, however Cutress is the primary skilled journalist to publish a overview.
Cutress stepped fastidiously in his story, avoiding point out of any data he had already been given by Intel underneath embargo throughout common briefings for the chip. He stated he knowledgeable Intel that he had the chip and was planning to overview it, and Intel declined to remark additional.
Apparently, Cutress wouldn’t disclose the motherboard he used, citing “NDA [nondisclosure agreement] causes,” nor would he reveal the BIOS model used with the chip. As we famous earlier this week once we coated the unintentional gross sales, chip distributors typically fiddle with the BIOS as much as the final minute earlier than a launch, with anticipated modifications to efficiency consequently. Cutress is likely one of the extra educated reviewers on the market, so it’s unlikely he was reckless in his testing or conclusions.
Core i7-11700K: Operating scorching, at excessive wattage
As a CPU utilizing a cell core mapped onto an older 14nm course of, it’s been supposed that Rocket Lake would possibly run scorching—and no shock, it does. Cutress measured his chip spiking to 292 Watts and 104 levels Celsius, underneath a worst-case state of affairs. Underneath the identical load, the Core i9-9900KS pushed 231 watts, and the Ryzen 7 5800X, a mere 141 watts.
In encoding, rendering, scientific, and compression exams printed by Cutress, the Core i7-11700K Rocket Lake traded blows with the Ryzen 7 5800X. The Rocket Lake chip scored some particular wins, got here shut in just a few others, and solidly misplaced just a few as effectively.
In opposition to its sibling, the Core i9-9900KS, the Core i7-11700K typically received, however Cutress discovered Intel’s declare of a 19-percent enhance in IPC (directions per clock) to rely largely on the workload. Floating-point operations achieved that 19 p.c, however integer workloads typically sank to 13 p.c, and even 7 p.c for multi-threaded workloads.
Maybe the Core i7-11700K’s most disappointing exhibiting was in gaming. The Ryzen 7 5800X largely outpaced it in recreation settings the place the GPU didn’t bottleneck the chips.
Why even purchase Rocket Lake?
If a chip runs hotter, and doesn’t all the time go sooner, it will appear this contest is already over earlier than Intel’s Eleventh-gen Rocket Lake even launches. However these are irritating instances for PC fans, when a few of the most fascinating elements are in brief provide, together with Ryzen 5000.
Cutress acknowledges the problem of recommending Ryzen 5000 when you’ll be able to’t really purchase it. “Our outcomes clearly present that Intel’s efficiency, whereas substantial, nonetheless trails its principal competitor, AMD. In a core-for-core comparability, Intel is barely slower and much more inefficient. The sensible cash can be to get the AMD processor,” Cutress wrote. “Nonetheless, resulting from excessive demand and [AMD’s] prioritizing industrial and enterprise contracts, the one elements available on retail cabinets proper now are from Intel.”
Cutress closes by saying that, all testing apart, getting chip for worth is best than getting a greater chip for a horrible worth—if you will discover it in any respect. “The clear reply throughout this chip crunch,” Cutress advises, “is to purchase the processor you will discover at an inexpensive worth.”
