Intel Core i7-10700K: lower digit, lower price, higher performance?

Tuned Core i9-9900K

In the latest Core i9-10900K test, we found it to be great for high fps games, but the power draw, price and performance are not as good as the competition, AMD, offers. Intel still maintained its lead in games, but the 10900K is definitely not an ideal processor. If games are your priority, the alternative may be the Core i7-10700K which is actually just a redesignated and slightly modified Core i9-9900K.

New on the outside, old inside?

The Core i7-10700K is practically a replacement for the Core i9-9900K with which it shares much similar. It also has 8 cores and 16 threads, 16 MB cache, 14 nm lithography process, can be overclocked and has an integrated GPU. However, following the example of the new i9-10900K, it officially supports faster 2933 MHz memory and also has a higher 125 W TDP. As you probably know, the 9900K with 95 W TDP was a target of criticism, so this time Intel has already increased the value of TDP, but nothing has changed about the fact that it doesn’t say much about the real power draw and it’s just a pseudo value.

Belonging to the 10th generation Comet Lake-S also means changing the socket to LGA1200, so 9900K and 10700K are compatible with each other. You will not install the 9900K in a new Z490 motherboard or the 10700K in an older Z390 one. As with the 10900K, the clock speed was increased and new Turbo technologies were also used. However, we will not find Thermal Velocity Boost here which is only reserved for the new i9. The 10700K thus has “only” four clock speed values. Base 3.8 GHz, Turbo Boost 2.0 single core 5.0 and all cores 4.7 GHz. Turbo Boost Max 3.0 for the favored core is set to 5.1 GHz. In practice, this means an increase in base clock speed of 200 MHz and 100 MHz for one core, assuming optimal thermal conditions.

The difference in the i9 and i7 packages is big in terms of design. However, the contents of the package are identical, again only the documentation and the processor as usual.

Basic specs and comparison

We will mainly be comparing the 10700K with the 9900K, but in the graphs you will also see 10900K and 3900X for a better overview.

As with the 10th generation, the older i9 has a more premium package. In both cases, however, it is only cosmetics, do not look for any other added value.

If you look at the processors being compared, you can see that they are almost identical at first glance, but they differ in a few details. The main one is the cutouts for mounting in the socket. The 10700K has them at the bottom, the 9900K at the top. Therefore, it is physically impossible to place any of these processors in a wrong socket.

The difference between the 9th and 10th generations is also the thickness of the silicon inside the processor. As a result, the IHS for heat dissipation can be larger and should be at least a partial solution to the high power draw you saw in 10900K. We looked at this topic in a separate article, where you can find more information about it.

Testing methodology

We tested the processors at home, not in a laboratory environment. Nevertheless, the effort was made for the most accurate results. These are therefore the average of the measured values from repeated tests. We tried to eliminate factors that would affect performance in addition to the processor itself and the motherboard. We used the same components in both cases. The idea of all tests was to use base settings and turning on XMP, no other adjustments were made. This is how most users will actually function.

In the latest Core i9-10900K test, we found it to be great for high fps games, but the power draw, price and performance are not as good as the competition, AMD, offers. Intel still maintained its lead in games, but the 10900K is definitely not an ideal processor. If games are your priority, the alternative may be the Core i7-10700K which is actually just a redesignated and slightly modified Core i9-9900K.

Rendering

You already know from the 10900K test that Intel still has a certain advantage in single-core. The 3900X beat the 9900K last year, but both the 10700K and 10900K are taking the title back. In the case of 10700K it is only a 2% victory over Ryzen, and 3% over the predecessor 9900K. In multi-core you can see that the 10700K gained a 6% lead over the 9900K.

The newer Cinebench R20 already rates the 3900X better, in which AMD has a 1% lead over the 10700K. Compared to 9900K, it is 2%. In multi-core, the difference between these 8-core Intels has narrowed again, to 3%. In any case, these are all minimal differences, which will vary with the use of different memory speeds.

In a practical test of the POV-Ray render, the 10700K is 4% faster than the 9900K.

In Blender, the older 9900K wins surprisingly for a change, by 4%.

Geekbench

Geekbench 3 in single core is identical for both 8-core processors, while in MC the older CPU wins by 2 %.

Geekbench 4 favors Intel, the 10700K has a 2% lead over 9900K in both single core and multi core.

The latest Geekbench 5 shows only minimal differences between 9900K and 10700K. In SC only 1% in favor of the new piece and in MC the results are identical.

10700K does not bring any noticeable increase in power compared to 9900K which could be expected due to almost the same composition and only slightly higher clock speed.

In the latest Core i9-10900K test, we found it to be great for high fps games, but the power draw, price and performance are not as good as the competition, AMD, offers. Intel still maintained its lead in games, but the 10900K is definitely not an ideal processor. If games are your priority, the alternative may be the Core i7-10700K which is actually just a redesignated and slightly modified Core i9-9900K.

Far Cry 5

In the gaming test, the older 9900K was surprisingly better and has higher minimum and average fps which are important. I assume that the difference was caused by better BIOS optimization on older motherboards where it has already “matured”. The novelty has only the second BIOS version released and it can be expected that the performance may improve slightly.

Unigine Heaven and Superposition

In other graphics tests the 10700K already has a 3 and 5% lead over the older model. At the same time it loses only 1% to 10900K.

PCMark and 3DMark

Similarly, both PCMark and 3DMark Firestrike show that the newer 10700K is still on top of 9900K by 5 and 2%. Here, too, we see that the 10700K does not lose by much to the 10900K, specifically 6 and 1%.

In the latest Core i9-10900K test, we found it to be great for high fps games, but the power draw, price and performance are not as good as the competition, AMD, offers. Intel still maintained its lead in games, but the 10900K is definitely not an ideal processor. If games are your priority, the alternative may be the Core i7-10700K which is actually just a redesignated and slightly modified Core i9-9900K.

Encryption

In encryption, 10700K and 9900K are practically identical.

Encoding

The 2–3% advantage of 9900K in encoding again is just about optimization. There is probably no other logical explanation.

Memory tests

The differences between the Intels in memory tests are only 1 – 3% which is completely negligible. However, they all have slower copying compared to AMD which is interesting. On the contrary, they offer significantly lower latency than 3900X.

In the latest Core i9-10900K test, we found it to be great for high fps games, but the power draw, price and performance are not as good as the competition, AMD, offers. Intel still maintained its lead in games, but the 10900K is definitely not an ideal processor. If games are your priority, the alternative may be the Core i7-10700K which is actually just a redesignated and slightly modified Core i9-9900K.

Heating

Improved internal structure of the processor was reflected in a significantly lower heating of 10700K compared to 9900K which deserves attention.

Temperatures in real life show that there is a difference between the 10700K and 9900K. It is usually around 3–6 degrees Celsius. The 9900K almost copies the 3900X’s curve and the 10900K is significantly higher with temperatures.

Power draw

On the contrary, the power draw is as bad as that of 9900K and even 2–3% worse. Bad because the 12-core AMD has 30% lower CPU package power draw and 3–5% less system power draw, despite the power-thirsty chipset and PCIe 4.0 SSDs which will also play a role in system power draw.

Tests in Blender clearly confirm a slightly higher power draw of 10700K compared to 9900K. The older processor moves around 160–165 W and the newer around 172–178 W. Ryzen with 145 W is much less power-thirsty, on the contrary, the 10900K with 250 W has nothing to boast about.

Clock speed

Since the new Core i7 did not get all the features of the Core i9, i.e. Thermal Velocity Boost, the all core turbo of the 10700K is identical to the 9900K, i.e. 4.7 GHz. This was confirmed in Blender. The 10900K stays at 4.9 GHz and the 3900X is around 4100–4150 MHz.

In the latest Core i9-10900K test, we found it to be great for high fps games, but the power draw, price and performance are not as good as the competition, AMD, offers. Intel still maintained its lead in games, but the 10900K is definitely not an ideal processor. If games are your priority, the alternative may be the Core i7-10700K which is actually just a redesignated and slightly modified Core i9-9900K.

Rating

Intel Core i7-10700K is an interesting processor for gamers, but then for no one else. It offers comparable or slightly higher performance than 9900K, but at a significantly lower price. You could say that it is a rebrand, but the processor still brings some changes. However, these are generally negligible and for 9900K owners, upgrading to 10700K is completely unnecessary. The 10700K is more interesting in terms of price to performance ratio for gaming, especially at high fps. Given the lower price compared to its predecessor and not large losses to 10900K, this may not be a completely bad deal for gaming. Compared to its predecessor, better temperatures are nice to see thanks to its reworked composition. However, the power draw is almost the same.

For anything but gaming, the 10700K is hard to recommend. It is in the same price range as the 3900X which will wipe the floor with it in any productivity test. The only areas where Intel can have an advantage are applications that can use integrated GPU for HW acceleration. Unfortunately, AMD does not have an iGPU and Intel offers something extra in this area. To sum it up, the transition from older 9900K to 10700K is pointless, and consider the 10700K only if you are currently looking for a processor to play games at above-standard high fps and plan to build a computer from scratch. In reality, however, I do not consider the current time to build a computer appropriate, especially due to the new upcoming graphics cards from Nvidia as well as new Ryzen processors which can significantly shuffle the cards in the market.

You can buy this processor at our partner’s website czc.cz for 11 341 CZK/425 EUR.

English translation and edit by Lukáš Terényi

• Contents
• Tuned Core i9-9900K
• Rendering and Geekbench
• Gaming, graphics tests and PC/3DMark
• Encryption, encoding and memory tests
• Heating and power draw
• Rating