Intel Core i7-7700K Processor Review
Discrete GPU Gaming Performance
Thief
Thief is a series of stealth video games in which the player takes the role of Garrett, a master thief in a fantasy/steampunk world resembling a cross between the Late Middle Ages and the Victorian era, with more advanced technologies interspersed. Thief is the fourth title in the Thief series, developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix on February 25, 2014. We picked this game title for CPU testing as it is known to scale well with CPUs. We use the games built-in benchmark and test with the default settings with these changes; exclusive fullscreen, vSync off, 1920 x 1080, 60Hz.
Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto V, currently one of the hottest PC games, was finally released for the PC on April 14, 2015. Developed by Rockstar, it is set in 2013 and the city of Los Santos. It utilizes the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) which Rockstar has been using since 2006, with multiple updates for technology improvements. We picked this game title for CPU testing as it is known to scale well with CPUs. We use the games built-in benchmark and test with the default settings with these changes; vSync off, 1920 x 1080, 60Hz.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an action role-playing stealth video game developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix. Set in a cyberpunk-themed dystopian world in 2029, two years after the events of Human Revolution, Mankind Divided features the return of Adam Jensen from the previous game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, with new technology and body augmentations. The game was released on August 23rd, 2016 for PC users and we are using it to show DX12 performance on the CPUs that we tested. DX12 removed most all of the CPU overhead, so we wanted to see what happens to performance on DX12 game titles as well. We use the games built-in benchmark and test with the default settings with these changes; DX12 enabled, exclusive fullscreen, vSync off, 1920 x 1080, 60Hz, medium graphics.
Discrete Gaming Benchmarks Results Summary: We found pretty good CPU scaling on DX11 game titles and found that the Intel Core i7-7700K did have a nice 20-30 average FPS performance advantage over the older Intel Core i7-2700K Sandy Bridge processor that was overclocked up to a matching 4.5GHz clock speed. Testing on a DX12 game title like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided showed that performance topped out at around 127 FPS and that there was only a 1 FPS difference between a Core i7 4790K, 6700K and 7700K at stock speeds and even with the 7700K overclocked. Having a modern CPU still does matter though on DX12 game titles as the Intel Core i7-2700K running at 4.5GHz and the AMD FX-8370 at stock speeds were still significantly behind.