Benchmarks: CPU
The minor performance lead over the Core i7-8700K suggests the limited edition chip is hitting 5.0GHz for very short durations when run at stock speed. Ensuring all cores run at 5.0GHz when under load, the overclocked results are about a second quicker. Point is, the Core i7-8086K hits its peak speed rarely in its out-of-the-box state.
The £380 Core i7-8086K is about six per cent faster than the £320 Core i7-8700K because it maintains a 4.3GHz all-core speed at default. Such performance is around the same level as a £255 AMD Ryzen 7 2700.
Really pushing the cores to the hilt, the Core i7-8086K comes in at around the same speed as the Ryzen 7 2700 again, and the Intel chip needs to be overclocked to an all-core 5.0GHz for it to rival the still-cheaper Ryzen 7 2700X.
If it's massive multithreaded performance you are after, AMD is still the best bet. Light-load tests run faster on Intel hardware, however.
