Intel Coffee Lake Core i7-8700K, Core i5-8600K, Core i5-8400 CPU Review on ASRock FATAL1TY Z370 Professional Gaming i7 Motherboard

Test Setup

For testing, we used the latest Intel Core i7-8700K, Core i5-8600K and Core i5-8400 CPUs which were sent to us by Intel. The Intel Coffee Lake family comes with higher core count on the main stream platform but prices are close to the predecessors in the same segment. We also slightly updated our test platform as Intel had sent us with their 32 GB Optane Memory which they say boosts performance of SATA based storage devices significantly and Coffee Lake can prove to be worthy demonstration for this type of memory product.

Intel Z370 Platform Test Setup:

Processor	Intel Core i7-8700K Intel Core i5-8600K Intel Core i5-8400 Intel Core i9-7900X Intel Core i7-7820X Intel Core i7-7800X Intel Core i7-7740X Intel Core i5-7640X Intel Core i7-6950X Intel Core i7-6900K Intel Core i7-6800K Intel Core i7-7700K Intel Core i5-7600K AMD Ryzen 7 1800X AMD Ryzen 7 1700X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
Motherboard	ASRock Z370 Professional Gaming i7 ASRock X299 Taichi Gigabyte GA-X99-UD7 Gigabyte AORUS Z270X-Gaming 8 ASRock X370 Killer SLI/AC
Power Supply	Corsair RM 750X Gold Plus
Solid State Drive	Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 (512 GB)
Hard Disk	Seagate Barracuda 2 TB 7200.12
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series 32 GB (4 x 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz
Case	Corsair Graphite Series 780T Full Tower
Video Cards	MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Lightning X
Cooling Solutions	Corsair H115i GTX Cryorig R1 Ultimate
OS	Windows 10 64-bit

Our test rig includes the Samsung 960 EVO 500 GB SSD that boots up our main OS while a 2 TB Seagate HDD is used for demonstration purposes for the Intel Optane memory. In addition to these, we are running a MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Lightning X graphics card, a Corsair RM 750X Gold Plus power supply and 32 GB of G.Skill provided Trident Z RGB series memory which runs with a clock speed of DDR4-3600 MHz. For cooling, we used the Cryorig R1 Ultimate and Corsair H115i GTX AIO coolers to see how the new Coffee Lake CPUs perform on both air and liquid cooling solutions.

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We won't be focusing on Intel's Core i7-7700K architecture in this review since it is entirely the same chip as Skylake along with minor improvements. The Skylake / Kaby Lake architecture analysis can be seen in detail here. For overclocking, I made the following tweaks to the CPUs:

• Intel Core i7-8700K @ 5.0 GHz With 1.305V (100 x 50)
• Intel Core i5-8600K @ 5.1 GHz With 1.21V (100 x 51)

You can find additional information about our hardware review process and ethics policy here.

9.8

WCCFTECH RATING

ASRock proves with the Z370 Professional Gaming i7 motherboard that their FATAL1TY lineup is designed not only for gamers but also for heavy professional uses who want a board with no comprises on features and connectivity options.

Pros

• Support For Intel 8th Generation Coffee Lake Family
• Up To 6 Core Processor Support
• Excellent Overclocking Support on Unlocked Intel CPUs
• Excellent Design Scheme With Solid Heatsink + Heatpipe Solution
• Tons of Connectivity Options
• 10 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
• Dual Gigabit Ethernet LAN
• Wireless + Bluetooth Module
• 4333 MHz+ DDR4 Memory Support
• 12 Phase Power Delivery System
• Triple M.2 Slots (Optane Support)
• RGB LED Support

Cons

• High End Design Comes at High Price ($289.99 US)
• Limited RGB capabilities (personal preference)

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