Intel Core i5-8600K, 6 Cores & 6 Threads Unlocked Desktop Processor with Intel UHD Graphics 630

The i5-8600K is a great choice for a high-end processor that won't burn too big of a hole in your wallet. Although I haven't benchmarked it, loading times and physics simulation for demanding games I've played (Tomb Raider, Witcher 3, Everspace, X-Com 2) are fast/reasonable. Installation was straight-forward for someone who has assembled only one PC prior. (**Just make sure your motherboard is compatible with your processor before buying it!**)Coupled with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, I've been running all my games on their highest graphics settings with no noticeable choppy FPS. Once in a while, a game-related or optimization-based stutter might occur, but these are negligible to my personal gaming experience. Overall, the processor has been a reliable component to the gaming PC I recently built (Jan 2019).

I bought this baby for $230. For that amount of money I got a processor that not only rips though any game I play, but also just destroys at being an incredible desktop and productivity machine. Sure its not as good at that as say, a Ryzen system, but I use my PC for gaming 90% of the time, so for people like me, this thing is beyond perfect. I have it on a permanent 4.8 GHz turbo/overclock (All 6 cores) and I only run 1.235v though this thing (Stable on Cinebench for multiple passes and aida64 for 30+ minutes). In the end it runs temps about 63c on a full load (Aida64 etc) and pulls about 83 watts max. Stock was around 90-95 watts @ 4.3 GHz. It runs so cool, I don't even need to delid. Mind you this is all silicone lottery stuff, but damn am I happy for $230.

Built new system and cpu was part of the upgrade. Replaced a I7 3770k with this I5 8600k. A couple of generations newer with newer tech. Could have got an I7 for almost a hundred bucks more but decided this time an I5 should be fine for me. Turns out it was. For me and what I do, an I7 is kind of overkill. Nice to have the top dog but not really practical if you actually don't need it, and this dog still hunts plenty good. Paired this with a GTX 1070 my gaming experience puts a smile on my face. I am not overclocking anything as I've not had a need to do so. The performance is so good I doubt if I'm going to be noticing any difference overclocking other than getting higher numbers running benchmarks but that's not my thing. Overclocking is going to get me more heat and more power consumption but probably nothing I can 'feel' so I'm going to leave it as it is unless later I have a need to do so.

Excellent i5 Coffee Lake CPU & overclocks well out of the box on a Aorus Z370 Gaming 5 mobo. Under water cooling, it runs cooler than my 7700K and at 4.7Ghz, it only saw 50C only on an EK monoblock running Intel stress test & benchmarks. Be advised that availability has been thin and has pushed the price above MSRP at times (won't use that issue in the rating of the actual product) so if you do purchase one, it may take time for it to ship. Outside of that, its runs perfectly fine for everything that doesn't really need Hyperthreading which i7 CPUs have. Unless your strapping this to a serious highend GPU, you won't miss the Hyperthreading of the i7. And since this is priced for more saving with performance, its the better choice. If you're into gaming/overclocking for general apps & programs mainly, this will fit the bill instead of an i7 8700K, so save the extra money for a good mobo and DDR4 memory instead.