Intel Core i7 2700k Flagship Showdown Review

So we’ve all seen how the i7 2700k performs now, and you are probably left wondering as to what it’s all about. Well the i7 2700k was never launched to be the next market leader by offering something new and unique but instead was released to be a bit of a refresh to the i7 line-up whilst also rivalling the AMD FX-8150 at the same time.

The FX-8150 failed in the majority of consumers eyes and did so in the way that it was no real threat to the flagship i7 2600k. Instead of sitting on by and watching this, Intel decided to not just beat the AMD counterpart by a small margin but wanted to do so by an even larger amount without having much of an effect on the price that the end user would have to pay.

Sure the 2700k is 100MHz faster, but in reality, any 2600k will get to the same speed without any tinkering to anything other than the multiplier. That’s the whole point of the unlocked k series chips at the end of the day, right? Though this is true, some believe that the 2700k will be a slightly improved line of processors as it’s newer and fresher off the production line, and this could hopefully reflect in the way that the processor overclocks. From what we saw by clocking the chip to 5.3GHz at 1.5 volts, it’s nothing to be laughed at and actually performs slightly better than the 2600k we’ve been using in terms of clock for clock speed.

Taking AMD out of the equation on the price front, because they simply win in that department, but of course you get a worse performing product, so we are forced to rely on the pricing of the 2600k as a comparison and with only a £10 difference bringing the i7 2700k in at £261.80 it goes to show that Intel want to give you the very best for your money, and aren’t just trying to flog an old hat for new money.

The i7 2700k has now taken over to be our flagship Z68 processor for future testing, so expect to see this in all of our Z68 motherboards, graphics cards and dual channel memory reviews as we put the older 2600k to rest in our hardware archive.