WTF ?! German retailer Mindfactory has been listing the indefinite and unannounced Intel Core i7-11700K for more than a day, until they sold out. Now enthusiasts on German forums post photos and screenshots of the next generation of processors.
Intel’s eleventh-generation desktop processors, codenamed Rocket Lake, were announced in general terms at CES 2021, but only the flagship i9-11900K was formally named.
However, the Core i7-11700K is no stranger to us: it was the victim of an illegal measure, and its naughty photos were plastered all over the internet. And now it’s listed for sale. Or it was listed, rather because Mindfactory ended sales with more than 120 units sold.
The listing was previously for € 469 ($ 565), including a 19% VAT. It’s unclear if they’re running out, which their website seems to suggest, or if Intel is stopping it. Either way, it’s too late now.
Enthusiasts who turned into hardware beta testers documented their experiences with the new processors on popular German forums Hardwareluxx, ComputerBase and Extreme PC Games & Hardware (via VideoCardz). It looks like several dozen have received a 11700K. Some of them struggled to get the processors running on their Z490 boards, which are some updates of full support, and there were even issues with Z590 boards. (Congratulations to Intel’s support team on that!) But after a bit of perseverance, the processors started.
What was found was what was expected. The 11700K is an octa-core component with a 3.6 GHz base clock and a 5 GHz boost clock. A few beta testers clocked it over to 5 GHz without much effort, and one pushed it to 5.2 GHz.
At these speeds, it has performed very well in some rudimentary metrics – but at the margins we are talking about now, it is pointless to discuss numbers until judges can do an apple-to-apple comparison.
It is rumored that Intel may announce it on Rocket Lake on March 16th. We will test it and let the speculation rest as soon as we can get the chips in our labs.