Intel Core i7-8700 Pictured, October 5th Launch confirmed by Gigabyte

The leaks and rumor mill around Intel Coffee Lake processors has started to heat up as we near the product launch. Following the alleged Core i7-8700K benchmarks which surfaced yesterday, photos of its younger sibling, the Core i7-8700, have now hit the web.

The Core i7-8700 pictures doesn’t show any physical changes to the package. The CPU appears to share an identical pin layout to the current Kaby Lake chips compatible with the socket LGA 1151.

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This does raise questions as to why Intel’s 8th Gen desktop chips require a new 300 series motherboard to run. Maybe, the LGA 1151 isn’t designed for more than four cores, but that is not confirmed yet. Things will become clear when the chips launch in early October.

Built using the updated 14nm++ process, Intel Core i7-8700 (non-K) will feature 6 cores and 12 threads. The chip will be clocked at 3.2GHz base, 4.6GHz maximum Turbo, and 4.3GHz all-core boost. There will be 12 MB of L3 cache on board while TDP is rated at 65W.

At this moment, we don’t have direct performance numbers for the chip, but its unlocked 8700K variant appears to be a beast of a CPU. The chip was spotted on Geekbench recently, where it outperformed the predecessor Core i7-7700K in single-core while matching the performance of AMD Ryzen 7 1800X in multi-core tests.

In terms of pricing, the German tech retailer LambdaTek has listed the entire Intel 8th Gen processors on their online store. If the prices are accurate, Intel’s flagship Core i7-8700K will launch at €388, with its non-K variant costing €327.

The prices are a bit higher in the EU than expected due to taxes and exchange rates. You can check out the Canadian prices here.

Earlier rumors hinted at an October 5th launch date for Coffee Lake desktop chips. Gigabyte recently teased its Coffee Lake-ready Z370 Aorus motherboards and confirmed the same date.