Alleged benchmarks for Intel's as-yet unannounced Core i7-8700K have leaked online courtesy of a tech YouTuber and an unguarded HP Omen PC at DreamHack 2017. The i7-8700K—the rumoured flagship six-core, 12-thread processor of Intel's upcoming eighth generation Coffee Lake desktop CPUs—was put through popular benchmarking program Cinebench R15, scoring a cool 1230 points in a multithreaded test. That's a significant leap over the previous-generation Intel Core i7-7700K (4C/8T), which typically posts a score around 950 points.

That score also puts the i7-8700K neck and neck with AMD's 6C/12T Ryzen 1600X, which we scored at 1234 points, but behind AMD's 8C/12T Ryzen 7 1700 with its score of 1422. Meanwhile, AMD's flagship Ryzen 7 1800X is significantly faster with a score of 1616 points.

YouTuber Karl Morin was also able to run a single-threaded benchmark, which shows the i7-8700K posting a score of 196. That would make it the fastest single-threaded chip around, beating the pervious-generation i7-7700K's score of around 185 points, although it's still far from a compelling improvement in instructions per clock.

While the results from the i7-8700K should be taken with a very large pinch of salt—particularly as it's not clear whether the chip was able to reach required boost clocks, while the inevitable raft of motherboard BIOS updates that appear before a CPU launch can affect performance—they do line up with earlier SiSoft Sandra benchmarks that suggest around a 30- to 40-percent improvement versus the 7700K. Forty percent is the same performance improvement Intel is pushing for the recently released Kaby Lake Refresh laptop chips, which also fall under the "8th Generation" banner.







Alongside Karl Morin's benchmark results, supposed pictures of a Core i7-8700 have also appeared online. A shot of the rear of the CPU shows an identical pin layout to existing Kaby Lake chips, which use the LGA 1151 socket. However, leaked retail packaging and confirmation from motherboard vendor ASRock indicate that Coffee Lake chips require a new 300-series motherboard. The technical reason behind this, if there is one, isn't yet clear. Intel is expected to reveal further details on Coffee Lake in the coming weeks.

The Core i7-8700K is expected to be the first mainstream Intel processor to sport 6C/12T. Previously, higher thread counts have been reserved for the company's X-series platforms like X99 and X299, which cost significantly more. Many consider this a response to AMD's Ryzen CPUs, which offer up to 8C/12T for the same price as Intel's current mainstream flagship CPU, the i7-7700K. In reality, Intel has had six-core mainstream CPUs on its roadmap for some time, although the accelerated launch could be attributed to increased competition. Pricing may yet also reveal the effect of AMD's Ryzen platform.

AMD has put significant pressure on Intel in recent weeks, particularly in the HEDT segment. Intel's X299 platform and accompanying CPUs—which include the £1,000/$1,000 10C/20T i9-7900X—are poor value in comparison to AMD's Threadripper. The Threadripper 1950X offers 16C/32T for the same price as the 7900X, while offering more PCIe lanes and free NVMe RAID throughout, regardless of whether users buy the flagship chip or a cheaper version with fewer cores.