IntelBX80677I77700K 7th Gen Pentium Desktop Processor

I upgraded from an FX-8320 to this CPU and it SCREAMS. For the cost, I wasn't sure if this was going to perform better than the i7-6700k but I really think it was worth it based on the increase in gaming quality I've seen. But even with the huge increase in performance, there have been some drawbacks, though somewhat minor in my opinion.I'm going to go ahead and mirror what about half the reviews I've seen here and on Newegg have said; it gets hot. Hotter than it really feels like it should. Some people haven't had issues and I think they've won the Silicon Lottery and I am very jealous of them. I, however, am a huge loser in the lottery I feel. With a Corsair H105 I'm seeing around 36-40C idle temps and at 100% load... Well I can't really tell how high up it can really go because when I fire up Prime95 with small FFT's the temps go straight up to 100C and I have to cancel the test within seconds. When running in-place FFT's I see around 77-80C. Now granted I HAVE had my H105 for around 3 years now so it's possible it's not having fun working with my motherboard or the pump is going bad and I do plan on replacing it soon, but in the mean time I really don't think these temps are normal at all. Part of the problem could be the mobo (GIGABYTE AORUS GA-Z270X-Gaming K7 Gaming Motherboard LGA1151 Intel Z270 2-Way SLI ATX DDR4 Motherboard for reference) delivering too much power to the CPU, and some people have said that driver updates fix this problem and I really should have done that before this review so I will update later if that DOES fix it. Because of this issue I've been unable, out of fear, to overclock at all though I'm sure outside of stress tests I wouldn't have to worry about it overheating much while gaming or day to day use.The other issue I've had is also related to temperature. While idling I periodically would see vastly different temperatures on each core. And when I say vastly, I mean the difference between Core 0 being 35C and Core 1 being 65C. This would happen randomly when running programs OR idling and would lead to a huge annoyance; my case fans turning up to compensate for just a few seconds then winding down. Not the biggest annoyance but I've heard others talking about this and I believe I've found a solution. After disabling the onboard graphics, the mobo option to deliver power to it was still set on. Using the Gigabyte App Center utility Easy Tune I turned it down and am no longer seeing this issue, so yay for that.Overall I'm very pleased with this product, despite it's temp issues. These issues may seem huge but in all honesty I never see temps higher than 65C while doing anything other than stress tests and my problems could stem from mobo issues but none of these have caused me to regret my purchase. I struggle whether or not to rate this at 4 or 5 stars due to my issues, but mine aren't as extreme as I may have portrayed them and most others don't seem to be experiencing this level of temperature and that leads me to a solid 5 star review.

5/5 starsThis was the king of Its time for me

There is a lot of drama surrounding the temperature range of this CPU, so I thought I would chime in here. I did NOT delid the CPU, and refuse to. I am using it with a Cooler Master Elite 130, ASUS Z270-I, and Corsair H60.Fixing it to a standard clock (4.2GHz with turbo mode turned off, etc.), 2 hours of Prime95 with an AVX load pushes it to an absolute max of 85 degrees. 85 degrees is outrageous for all the CPUs we're used to, but it's actually perfectly fine for this one. Bear in mind that my idle temperatures are in the 30's.With a stable DDR4-3000 overclock, the same test hits an absolute maximum of 95 degrees. That's 5 degrees away from TJMax. Scary but bear in mind that this is an unrealistic load.With turbo mode and other optimizations turned on, and RAM at standard clock, absolute maximum was again 95 degrees. With a small, conservative setup like mine this is actually impressive. 4.5GHz without DDR4-3000? I'll take it.With DDR4-3000 and all the built-in optimizations turned on, I finally hit the TJMax of 100 degrees and experienced light throttling, but no lock-ups or freezing. Many of the old systems I built would simply freeze or shut down in this situation, but this CPU gracefully steps back from the dangerous temperatures. That said, as well as the fact that this stress test is a hilariously unrealistic load, some users might consider this configuration to be perfectly fine.So my recommendation? If you are like me and just need a fast CPU in a small case, adjust your motherboard to fix this thing to a standard clock. Aggressive overclocking inside a small case like mine is simply not feasible with this CPU if you need rock solidity. I did keep the RAM overclock though since that passed 10-hour stress tests without a hitch. Alternately, if you have a big case, definitely get a liquid cooler with a big radiator. An extra fan and bigger radiator would easily knock off 10-20 degrees from all the aforementioned tests. You'll read all over google that people delidded the CPU to get the performance they're looking for. Unless you have a small case like mine, I can't see why it's better to spend money on the delid kit than for a bigger, better cooler.