Power Usage and Temperatures

For my last two tests, I wanted to focus on power and temperatures. These are two areas that seem to get tossed to the side when pushing the limits as I saw with the high core count Core-X CPUs that pulled up to 287 watts. Well, the 8700K is up in power draw from the 7700K. Under load I saw it pull 173 watts compared to 123 for the 7700K, the extra cores had to be powered somehow I guess. The i5-8400, on the other hand, is a model for efficiency, even with its extra cores. Dropping the clock speeds down for this one dropped the load power down to 101 watts and the idle power to the second lowest I have tested. Both Coffee Lake CPUs were actually really power efficient when at idle so I have to give Intel props for that. The overall draw though does put the 8700K up ahead of all of the Ryzen 7 CPUs by about 15 watts.

Now as always I have to point out that software-based temperature testing is flawed and that is what these results are based on. I just include the results because it is still interesting to see how things are landing. At 80c I would normally consider the i7-8700K to be extremely hot, and it still is, but look at the drop from the 7700K. While adding two more cores Intel has managed to cool things down slightly, even without replacing the TIM that has had a lot of enthusiasts upset for a while now. The i5-8400 comes in at a much more respectable 63c and is more in line with where I think the CPUs should be running, especially with the Ryzen CPUs running lower, even with the built-in offsets.