Its been an exciting few years in the PC market, especially with big gains in the CPU market. But it gets a lot crazier when you look back farther. Intel recently did this when they were celebrating the 40th birthday of their 8086 microprocessor. While most of you may not know the 8086 specifically, you would recognize some of the processors that it paved the way for. Most notably the ones that came after it the 286 and the 386. I personally grew up playing with those and played my first real PC games like the original Warcraft on a 486 after we spent a LOT of money to upgrade to I think it was 12MB of ram. The 8086 brought the X86 platform so 40 years was a big milestone. To celebrate Intel brought out the 8086K, named after the original. It is also their first CPU to deliver 5.0 GHz single core turbo clock speeds. Well, today I’m going to take a look at the 8086K and see where it fits in the market.
Product Name: Intel i7-8086K
Review Sample Provided by: Intel
Written by: Wes Compton
Pictures by: Wes Compton
Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE
Just a quick look at the specifications, I have it listed with the i7-8700K because it is based on that same CPU. This isn’t a new architecture or a giant leap in tech. In fact, it is spec for spec the same as the 8700K with the exception of its frequencies. The base clock is up to 4 GHz from 3.7 and the boost is at 5.0 GHz. With that, the price is also up from $359 to $425. Something that later when I recap everything will most likely be a big sticking point. That is a big jump. Intel did also give away 8086 of this CPU and they are starting to go out. That is a big giveaway, with the total retail price at $3,436,550. But 40 years, why wouldn’t they be excited!